Spring Song: A field of golden daffodils

By PAUL HAIST

article created on: 2009-05-01T00:00:00

As people were milling about at the conclusion of the Oregon Jewish Community Youth Foundation Benefit Dinner April 19, one man said to me that the OJCYF is “the most inspiring organization in town.”

Absolutes and superlatives such as most, least, always and never are words we should choose carefully, but it is true that the youth foundation is very inspiring.

We are inspired by the energy, idealism and optimism of young people who have yet to experience the disillusionments and disappointments that eventually temper the outlook of almost all of us.

When young people are brought together as they have been at the youth foundation, where their seemingly boundless enthusiasm is guided by adults whose values and commitment are models for us all, it is not surprising that they succeed beyond even their own exuberant expectations or, as one young foundation member put it, “Raising $100,000 in two years is something I never imagined.”

But now he can imagine it because he has done it, and I am heartened to imagine what he and his colleagues on the youth foundation may imagine tomorrow and next year and beyond—now that they have achieved so much together, seen so much together and learned so much together.

If they can do this much today, what might they do tomorrow?

Imagine the confidence they must have in themselves as they move beyond this chapter of their lives.

Reality will assert itself in time; it always does. But these young people seem remarkably well prepared to face the challenges that will come their way.

I could opine at this point that I can see no parallel in my life with all the potential I see in them, poised and ready to step into adulthood, to begin to take the reins and explore all that might be possible. I don’t remember so many of my contemporaries seeming so well prepared at the same time in my life. I might say that I never saw young people anywhere at any time so ready for what life will bring them or that I never saw better or brighter than these.

I might have said that, except that it’s rather like saying most, least, always and never.

What we have here is a bright new generation almost set and ready to go. They are what they have become because of those who came before them. The older generation has transferred its values and its vision to the younger generation in the natural process of constant renewal, the circle of rebirth.

Now, coming out of winter, we are joyful at the arrival of spring and new beginnings all around us. It is not just the crocus and the apple blossom and all the green in the trees and the sun climbing up from the equator and the first warm evening of the new year spent on the deck with a gin and tonic.

It is the bright new generation that catches our eye like a host of golden daffodils, and it is those among us who have cultivated this new flowering.

The young people inspire hope for a better tomorrow. And for that each of us should be grateful for them, for those who have raised them up and for the sweet blessing that is this eternal circle.

It truly is inspiring, a literal inspiration, the very breath of life that fills us now and renews us like the cool, pellucid water of a mountain spring.