'How Old Will You Be In The Year 2000?'

To everything there is a season,
And a time for every purpose under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die,
A time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted.

The wise in every age have counseled with transcendent freedom: "This too shall pass." Sometimes that is a threatening word, a word challenging us to open our tightly clenched hands and let go, a word reminding us that only God is everlasting.

We who were born must die. Not since Eden has there been the possibility of life without death on this earth; death "belongs" to life, we say.

"This too shall pass" can be a threatening word which confronts us with the tentative, transient nature of our lives. It can also be a supremely liberating word calling us to remember that what today seems so dreadful and unending will, with time, be healed, transformed, or forgotten.

Death will come, but death has not the last word. Each of us must die, civilizations decay, and the earth hardens against planting in winter; but children are born, new civilizations arise, and the spring rains and sun soften the earth to receive the seed once again.

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven." The poet's wisdom trusts the created rhythm, a rhythm that moves us inexorably back and forth between the season of embracing and the season of letting go.

There is something deeply consoling about this rhythm when we discover the grace to move with it. For one thing, we realize that we live as people of past, present, and future; as people of remembrance, action, and hope. Cut off from any of these three we are cut off from the flow of times and seasons.

We are not isolated, disconnected beings who can survive outside the larger context of history and creation. The larger context is a life line. We are shaped by it and, in some measure, we help to shape it. So we get up in the morning even after a night of grief; we get up, we work, we create, we dream, we love, we plant, we protest--all these things and an infinite more are done--with the implicit faith that it matters what we do. In perceptible and imperceptible ways each of us contributes something to the stream of life which is larger than any of us.

But what when that rhythm of life is radically called into question? Not since the garden of Eden has there been life on this earth without death, and prior to August 6,1945, there was no possibility of death on this earth without the subsequent season of life and renewal.

But on that day when the atomic "secret" was unveiled in all its terrifying destructiveness, the continuity of times and seasons could no longer be taken for granted. Whereas previously through the centuries, though civilizations rose and fell leaving treasures and misery in their passing, though murderous evil was inflicted and catastrophic events endured, the one thing that could be counted on was that life itself--and human history--goes on. That trust has been shattered in the nuclear age, for now human beings possess the power to radically alter--if not totally annihilate--life on this earth as we know it.

That unprecedented threat brings with it heretofore unforeseen psychological and spiritual consequences. The possibility of nuclear holocaust is so dreadful that we, for the most part, choose to repress the thought. Yet even when we deny the possibility, it is there; it hangs over us and seeps into our consciousness as imperceptibly as radiation itself.

The possibility of this self-inflicted apocalypse has already claimed victims. When we speak of the casualties of nuclear weapons we most often recall the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki or we imagine the millions who could die in a future conflagration. But there are "hidden" victims of the nuclear age--those who suffer today psychically and spiritually from a sense of futurelessness.

I am thinking particularly of the young, for they inhabit the time and season when life should be embraced, dreams spun, and seeds planted. Probably the nuclear age has not claimed the very young who still live in the provinciality of a safe and circumscribed world, but there is another group of young people quite vulnerable to the psychic and spiritual threat of the nuclear age: adolescents.

Adolescence is a testing and searching time when the old sources of security are resisted as new bonds of commitment are sought; a time when the injustices and hypocrisies of the world are scathingly condemned and the belief that things can be different passionately embraced. It is a limbo time between childhood and adulthood when the self struggles to find its rightful place in the world; and though the self may seem narcissistically turned in on itself and its own needs, the adolescent is searching for the authentic relationship of self to community.

All the storms of this rite of passage are predicated on the implicit trust that there will be some world, some human community, to enter. The rebellion, testing, protest, and idealism are all dependent on the capacity to envision a future both personal and corporate, or, in other words, dependent on the capacity to dream.

The dreams that adolescents fashion come in all shapes and sizes: some are idealistic dreams of serving or reforming humanity; some are ambitious dreams of fame and success; some are dreams of finding work, marrying, and bearing children. But large or small, dreaming and imaging a future are essential if adolescents are to find their way through the tumultuous days of conflicting demands and passions.

It is precisely this capacity to dream which is endangered today because the threat of nuclear holocaust is a threat of futurelessness. How can one dream even the most pedestrian of dreams when there may be no future to inhabit? At present in the United States there is an alarming increase in adolescent suicide. Undoubtedly this statistic and the causes of it are being studied and debated. Any analysis that fails to take into account this pervasive threat of futurelessness has, I believe, failed to arrive at the heart of the matter.

In an attempt to better understand how nuclear weapons affect adolescents, I decided the best thing was to listen to them. So in January of this year, I took a tape recorder and sat down, one at a time, with four teenagers ranging in age from 13 to 18.

I tried to get a spectrum of background in terms of class and geography. Two of the young people are from the racially and ethnically integrated West Side of Cleveland, where their parents work in factories. The other two are from a medium-size city, where their parents teach as professors of a state university.

I didn't want to load my questions, so I decided I would not mention "the bomb" unless they brought up the subject. All of them did sooner or later--most sooner than later. My questions were intended to elicit their reflections about the future, and I was frankly surprised how predominantly nuclear weapons and the threat of holocaust figured in their feelings and thoughts about the future.

When I asked 16-year-old Carl how old he would be in the year 2000, he responded without a moment's hesitation: "Thirty-five. I figured that out a long time ago, because I have been interested in thinking about what it will be like in the next century."

"What are your images of what it will be like?" I asked.

"Well," said Carl, "sometimes I have the image that it won't be like anything; that it just won't be. With all the nuclear weapons and all the pressure, it would be easy for someone to make a mistake and accidentally launch a missile."

Seventeen-year-old Karen was more hopeful that there would be a year 2000, but she wasn't certain how safe the world would be for children. She thought the deliberate use of nuclear weapons improbable because, as she put it, "It is so suicidal. But accidents happen, and I am afraid of curiosity, someone trying to find out--you know--what would happen. We always have to have that fear in the back of our minds that one day one of these bombs is going to go off, and are my kids or my relatives going to have to go?"

After discussing his school and church involvement and his college plans, I started to frame a question for 18-year-old Greg: "You will be 36 years old in the year 2000," I said. "Do you.. ."

"Expect to live that long?" interrupted Greg, laughing a little and then growing sober as he continued, "I have mixed feelings. I am very afraid that no, I won't live that long and I won't get to have children and grandchildren and see them grow up. Yet, at the same time, I feel it is necessary to keep hoping that disarmament can come about. It is necessary to work from that hope to try and prevent the very frightening things from happening."

I asked Greg if he thought about these fears often.

"Yes," he answered, "it is something I think about more and more often. I had a dream about six weeks ago that I was on a retreat with the high school church group. Suddenly sirens went off, and I was trying to convince the rest of the group that it was just a practice, a drill. But my friend Tom said, 'No, you are wrong, Greg, it is real; I am sure of it, it is real.' And then I began seeing cars leaving the city, people trying to get into their cars to get out of the city. And at that point I realized that it was not a joke or a practice, that a nuclear war was beginning; and before I woke up, the last thing I was dreaming, I was wondering, 'Will I get back to my family before it is all over?'

"It was very frightening," said Greg, his voice trembling as he recalled the fear of the dream. "This dream was very real, one of those dreams you really believe until you wake up. That dream told me that even if the reality seems distant on a conscious level, where I don't have to deal with it day to day, it is in my subconsciousness."

The young people I interviewed have different ways of coping with the perceived threat of the bomb. Greg has chosen to become very active in the peace movement. Karen has adopted strong life goals despite her stated anxieties. Carl tries not to think about the bomb too much because he doesn't want to give in to a feeling of resignation.

However they express their fears about the future and however they choose to cope with these fears, one thing comes through with unmistakable clarity in all the conversations: the existence of nuclear weapons deeply affects their lives. They live in the shadow of the bomb. They have apocalyptic nightmares and daytime flashes of what might occur if nuclear war begins. They have not much trust that the world will be inhabitable still in the year 2000.

Precisely because adolescents such as these four are less armored with defenses and repression than many of their elders, they can serve (if we will listen to them) as spiritual and psychological barometers, registering the storms of culture in their psyches and thus able to tell us something of who we are.

Perhaps the most remarkable interview occurred with Billy, a 13-year-old from the West Side of Cleveland. At first he talked, somewhat uneasily, about his school, his family, and life on the West Side. I learned that Billy had been mugged four times and that he saw such occurrences as part and parcel of growing up in that neighborhood.

I found Billy's revelations both poignant and disturbing. What was most striking and tragic was his inability to dream. Already, by age 13, Billy had learned to pare down his expectations. As he expressed it, "Maybe there won't be a tomorrow, so I don't get my hopes up too much."

The conversation with Billy evoked both tears and anger in me as I listened to him describe with vivid candidness truths which I try mostly to hide from. To say that Billy is a "casualty" of the nuclear age is perhaps to say too much, for he is a remarkably sensitive and expressive young man. But it is not too much to say that trust in a future, trust in the given rhythm of times and seasons, has been stolen from Billy. And thus so have his dreams and his hopes.

That robbery is nothing short of sin, a sin for which we, his elders, are surely culpable. I feel privileged that Billy opened up and shared all this with me. In turn I share it here:

Melanie: Have you always lived in this neighborhood?

Billy: My family has been here 20 years, and I have been here since 1968--13 years.

Do you ever think about leaving here someday?

Yeh, after I graduate from high school, I think about going and living in the wilderness. I don't know if I'll be happy there; I am so used to living in the city.

Do you think about what kind of work you'd like to do?

I'm interested in making greeting cards. Instead of going out and buying cards for Christmas, I make my own. I'm into writing stuff like that. Sometimes I'd like to have a job where I could eliminate things that aren't needed, like some things that happen in school. But my only goal for a job is writing greeting cards.

How old will you be in the year 2000?

31.

Can you imagine the year 2000?

No.

Why not?

I don't know. I don't think much into the future. I see life as a day-to-day process. With everything that is going on in this world, someone could push a button and it would all be over [Billy makes the motion of pushing a button and then makes the sound of a big explosion].

How could that happen?

Nuclear arms and the government going crazy. They've got so much power.

Who could push the button? Do you think this country could do that?

Yeh, well, it depends on who's in the government. If they are greedy and go after another country or something. I see no reason for stuff like that, I mean going after another country. But I usually don't think into the future.

Does the thought of someone pushing that button scare you?

Sometimes, like when I think I want to do something with the future years and then I think, "Maybe there isn't going to be tomorrow." So, I don't get my hopes up too high.

So it is hard for you to imagine yourself being 31 years old?

Well, I could imagine it, but I also have this thought in my mind that there might not be tomorrow, or the next 10 minutes or something.

Billy, I have a fantasy question. Let's say you get a call tonight from the White House. Likely situation, right?

Yeh, happens all the time.

So, you get this call from President Reagan and he tells you he is sitting in the Oval Office waiting to talk with you, and you have this one chance to tell him what you think.

About what?

About anything at all, anything that you think is important. What would it be?

Probably about nuclear arms and nuclear material. They are getting some weirdo thoughts about putting nuclear waste in Lake Erie. Wouldn't that be wonderful? In our water supply? I'd tell him about stuff like that.

What would you want him to do?

Not use the arms and have him realize all the people whose lives he is jeop...jeop...

Jeopardizing?

Yeh, my language is not so good tonight.

I think it's fine. Okay, let's pretend Ronald Reagan says to you, "Billy, that is a nice thought. I would like to have disarmament just as you would, but what about the Soviets? They have lots of nuclear weapons, so we have to have lots also." What would you say then, Billy?

I'd say, "Work it out with the Russians, Mr. Reagan. We had the SALT Treaty going but we didn't deal with it, so they think you want war so they are going to keep building up their weapons. But maybe, if you show them that we are willing to let down some of our weapons, they will start letting down some of their weapons." That's what I'd say.

How do you know about things like the SALT Treaty?

From CBS News.

Do you think disarmament is possible?

Yes, peace is possible.

So the world doesn't have to explode tomorrow?

No, it doesn't have to explode for a couple more million years until the sun causes it to explode.

If it doesn't have to explode and if disarmament is possible, then why does the arms race keep going?

Because those in government think that the other ones are going to outnumber them and they want to be the most powerful. Until people change their minds about that, it's going to keep on going. There is not much you can do about it. If someone gets in office and they decide that they don't like the Russians and they want to blow them to pieces the next day, there isn't much you can do about it.

Do you have times when the thought of a nuclear war just comes crashing in?

I usually don't think about it when I'm doing something. But when I am sitting down by myself, I start thinking about it.

What do you think you'd do if that moment really happens?

I'd probably start praying, because there isn't much else you can do.

You don't believe fallout shelters can protect you?

No, because when it hits, the radiation will start spreading out all over the place causing diseases that the doctors have never even heard of and you'd have like six months to live.

Why is it then that people in the government are talking about fighting a "limited" nuclear war?

I wonder that too, because we are still using violence. Someone says, "Well, we won't kill as many people with this MX bomb as with this other one." But we are still taking someone's life, and one life is worth as much as 10 million lives.

Do you think killing is ever justified?

No.

When you turn 18 will you register with the Selective Service?

No.

Would you ever participate in war?

No.

Even if this country were invaded?

No.

Do you think this country could be in a war, say, within the next five or 10 years?

If people have the attitudes they do now about this kind of stuff, yeh, it could happen.

Do you find that people your age talk about this sort of thing--about the arms race, for example?

Some people. Most of the kids don't really care.

Does that bother you?

In a way, yeh, because this is going to be their future if there is anything.

Are there some people with whom you can talk about these things?

Yeh, but most of them don't get interested because they think it is going to happen just like that [Billy snaps his fingers] and they don't think there is anything they can do about it. Or they get disappointed because they didn't change things overnight by writing some letter to the government or something.

You said before that peace is possible. Do you feel hopeful?

Yeh, I think there is hope for peace, but until then we have to live with the fear of being blown into oblivious.

Oblivion?

Yeh.

Melanie Morrison was a minister of the United Church of Christ, a contributing editor for Sojourners and studying theology at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands when this article appeared.