lifeasmission

Seeing into the Future

July 15, 2010

Remember all those times you rolled your eyes at your grandparents when they started a sentence, “You know, when I was your age…” ?  I had one of those experiences the other day, but in reverse.  I felt like I was peering into the future.

I rolled up to a stop light with my window down and noticed that the car next to me was shut off.  Just when I was about to ask if they needed a jump, I realized that it was a hybrid, which basically shuts off when it comes to a stop – the engine stops running so it’s completely quiet.  It struck me as quite weird – and then I fast-forwarded 30 years or so and imagined myself in this same scenario, but as a grandparent with a grandchild sitting next to me (I guess they were old enough!)  Here’s how our conversation went…

Grandchild: “Grandpa, what’s that noise?”

Grandpa: “The car next to us is making that noise because the engine is running.”

Grandchild: “Grandpa, that’s crazy, everyone knows that car engines don’t run when cars are stopped!”

Grandpa (with aged predictability): “You know, when I was your age…”

Grandchild (with youthful predicatability): [rolls eyes]

Grandpa: [smiles with exceeding joy that his grandchild lives in a world where the idea of streets filled with planet-destroying automobiles that all run on non-renewable energy seems just as believable as the idea that one person could own another did when I was their age]

Posted in: creation, family, kids, sustainability