The other morning I sat at McDonald's, semi-awake, slurping a DC, thinking of what I needed to do to finish my book edits. I was tired, but feeling good.
As I sat, a group of teens in trucks whipped into the parking lot. Rednecks. Three boys popped out of the first truck. White. Black. White.
It caught my attention. Maybe I'm still stuck in old mind sets that rednecks and blacks don't hang out. Keep a respectful distance.
The white boys were dressed in 4-H tight, skinny blue jeans. The black kid in low rider hip-hop jeans.
Another series of trucks pulls in. More kids hop out and gather at the first truck where they're messing with the stereo system. The McDonalds windows were rattling.
A boy in cami overalls and Larry-the-Cable guy sleeveless t-shirt joins the crowd. Another boy with a Confederate hat. He looked half-Latin, half-white, maybe half-black.
I watched enthralled. Something about them fascinated me. I thought how out of touch racial and government leadership in America is with today's teens. They're still talking like it's 1960 or 1970. And truth, maybe 20 years ago I wouldn't have witnessed such a scene, but it's 2008 and the next "generation" is becoming more and more color blind.
I felt hope. Not the kind of hope from my soul, but a God whispered hope. There is hope for our country in those teens and millions like them. Just like many of our current leaders who rejected authority and social norms in their teens and twenties, today's youth will do the same to them.
Current leadership still stuck in their spoiled mind set, we-know-it-all from the '60s are now the very leadership and ideologies they hated. They are the ones stuck in the past, out of touch, unwilling to change their ways.
Later, as I told Tony the story, I teared up. The hope is not of me but of the Lord. God has put hope in these young ones. I put my hope in God.