Lyanda Lynn Haupt suggests we are in a “graced moment of opportune crisis”. Coming of age in the late 1990′s and early 2000′s, I agree with her assessment. Certainly it is not only for those of us in our early adult years to feel like we are living in a time when the foundations are shaking, but I think my age puts me at a particular crossroads where I am deciding what to make of things. I mean that two ways. I’m deciding what to make of things in that I feel like I’m really starting to put the world together conceptually. I’m also literally deciding what to make of things, deciding what work to do with my hands and my mind.

There is not consensus regarding to what the happenings in our modern world are pointing. The news and our daily conversations host a glut of problems that could be seen as full blown calamaties. Then again, the rise of the industrial age, plagues, the world wars, and increasing urbanism were all seen as indicators that the world was ending in the past, and here we still are. It’s probably not useful to get too frenzied about the troubling occurances around us. I think we could do with some stitching up though.

And that’s where I come back to Haupt’s phrase: “a graced moment of opportune crisis”. At times, I used to think that all of the important challenges had been faced by people before me. I was convinced that there was nothing new under the sun. On one hand there isn’t. Yet as I learn more about life and the world, I feel like it’s almost auspicious to be alive at my age right now. I’m repeatedly asked “what are you going to make of all this?” by people and my surroundings. Boy, do I hope I have a good answer!