Listen to your elders, who know life matters

As we become an elder, we often get asked what we believe. I get asked this often. Fair enough. I believe that all life matters.

I’m a poet and I am an animal rights activist. I believe we should help the least among us with food, medical, shelter and respect. And dignity.

I want people to stop seeing themselves as superior to nature. We are destroying the very essence of who and what we are with our smug sense of superiority, thinking our god is somewhere remote in the sky. Nope.

Our god is more than likely the trees we just cut down to make a burger joint parking lot. Or the deer that looked us directly in the eyes when we offered it a carrot. Or our grandparents as they lay dying.

God is life. Not just human life. God is life with a conscience and eyes turned right back upon us.

I am surely glad that near the end of my life, I have been given the opportunity to listen to elders all over America talk about what matters.

And at the end, when all is wrapping up, it’s the talking that matters. That’s when god makes its final appearance or its availability to mortal human.

We best pay attention to what the old folks say. That’s god loud and clear. I’m not saying that youth don’t matter. They do. But it’s Old Speak that carries the weighty words of god.

In private conversation with over 100 elders, never once have I heard one of them say that money, sex, physical beauty, social prestige or accolades accumulated matter.

The elder speak of kindness, duty and loyalty and trustworthiness as the ruling principles. The Me Generation got it all wrong. It’s not about me trying to compete with and be better than them. Conquer and divide is destroying the human race. It’s about the soul within ourselves that we develop together by being kind and doing the right thing.

If you are confused about what the right thing to do might be, spend time listening to an elder.

MARIANNE BEASLEY Fayetteville