For different reasons, I’ve had many conversations with and about youth in recent weeks. As I continue to meet youth and young adults, I am amazed at the creativity, energy and heart they have. Their ability to generate and a deep desire to transcend. Being with them is life giving to me.

On the other hand, the ease with which the generations of those who are not young or so young continue (me included sometimes) judging the generation for different reasons does not cease to surprise me. It seems to be impossible to make them see that youth and young adults simply have different ways of being in the same context, ways that are legitimate.

Recently I had a conversation that struck me. An “older” person addressed a university student saying “your generation is lost, and you spend too much time on your cell phones and you don’t know how to communicate” the “lost young woman” explained why she spends so much time on her cell phone. She shared with us a large part of her story and ended with the phrase that made my eyes fill with tears “so many people do not realize that sometimes we do not know how to relate, and we take refuge in the cell phone, because we grew up alone”

To speak of the Incarnation is to speak of humanity, which urges us to go out from ourselves to find the people where they are and to welcome them with everything they are. Living the Incarnation among young people cannot happen if we are not willing to stop judging and feel invited by their ways that sometimes seem so alien to us. What have you done lately to try to understand a generation different from yours? How much time do you spend with someone older or younger than you, outside of your family, with an interest in learning about them?

By S. Adriana Calzada.