Reclaiming the Sixties

The Sixties, like all periods of our history, cannot be lumped into one homogenous experience. Yes, some things were shared universally. Our president was assassinated in 1963. Our values were challenged. Our cities burned. Viet Nam and the Deep South racism, so highly visible through the medium of television, scarred our national conscience. The values of the American Dream were called into question.

But as time has elapsed the Sixties became more associated with hippies, drugs, psychedelic music, and dropping out… all having the appearance more of faddishness than significance. The sense of hippiedom being a fad was reinforced by the rapidity with which Seventies youth embraced the Yuppie values of high fashion and glitz.

For the record, I became depressed by the new wave of Yuppie values. Perhaps because I truly bought into many of the key issues that had been brought to the forefront during the Sixties. These are the primary values that resonated with me, and which I still hold as valid.

1. Question authority. In other words, don’t accept everything you hear, wherever you hear it from… including here. Think things through, make your decisions because you have weighed things out for yourself. Even the Apostle Paul in the Bible said that his words should not be taken as authoritative until his hearers checked things out with the Old Testament truths that had been handed down.

This idea flew directly in the face of the prevailing attitude of the day, “My country, right or wrong.” No wonder the “hippie philosophy” created so much ire.

2. There is more to life than the material world. More than anything, the youth of the Sixties were especially misunderstood on this point, and in retrospect misunderstood their parents’ generation. We did not know what it was like to be raised during the Great Depression. When our parents gave us clothes and stocked refrigerators and gifts, they were doing something for us that seemed meaningful. My mother remembers living on navy beans for a while in West Virginia. Grandpa would come home with a hundred pound sack of navy beans. That was all they had, all they could afford.

And so, many young people in the Sixties had large homes in suburbia, surrounded by manifold blessings of the good life, and still felt empty. They learned through experience that there was more to life than things. Without love, even a castle is little more than collection of empty rooms.

And so, there was a reaction against materialism, against “things.” There have been many misunderstandings on this matter, but the message remains true that life is more than gadgets, toys and things. “Love is all you need” is a bit of a simplification, since I can’t pay my heating bill with “love.” But love for my family will sufficiently motivate me to do what it takes to provide for my family, which includes paying those nasty heating bills.

3. The “Beautiful People.” I remember sitting in the donut shop in Athens, Ohio with some other Ohio University hippie-type students and thinking, “These people are so beautiful, but in the ‘success’ world they would probably all be rejects.” The one fellow’s beard concealed a weak chin, another girl did not fit the Barbie mold, yet each was a person, a human being with special value. To the degree that we determine value based on outward appearance, race, economic earning power or social status, to that very degree we have become impoverished as a culture.

4. Increasing awareness of the power of the Military-Industrial Complex. Might makes right was not a value of the hippies. Flower Power, which is looked back on as something of a joke today, had at its heart a seed thought: ideas have power, too. Yes, there is evil in the world, and naivete was certainly part of the reason the seeds of Flower Power found such fertile soil in our hearts. But there were real issues being raised as regards what war and the military-industrial complex was doing to our humanity. On this, there is more to say, but we’ll follow up on that tomorrow.

Here’s a song from Bob Dylan’s second album which became somewhat of an anthem for that era. I remember singing it as part of our youth group at First Presbyterian Church in Pluckemin, NJ. Its questions still beg for answers today.

Blowing In The Wind

How many roads must a man walk down, before they call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail, before she sleeps in the sand?
How many times must the cannonballs fly, before they are forever banned?

The answer my friend is blowing in the wind,
the answer is blowing in the wind.

How many years must a mountain exist, before it is washed to the sea?
How many years can some people exist, before they're allowed to be free?
How many times can a man turn his head, and pretend that he just doesn't see?

The answer my friend is blowing in the wind,
the answer is blowing in the wind.

How many times must a man look up, before he can see the sky?
How many ears must one man have, before he can hear people cry?
How many deaths will it take till he knows, that too many people have died?

The answer my friend is blowing in the wind,
the answer is blowing in the wind.

NOTE: The image at top left, titled Reclaiming the Sixties, was created by Susie, the Down Home Creator. Please click to enlarge.

The Young Messenger

This is another of the more vivid "story dreams" that I recorded when I was younger. This one is from somewhere in the seventies or early eighties. There is nothing here that has been embellished. I recorded it, to the best of my ability, just as I dreamed it.

The Young Messenger

The earliest image in the dream is that of a house, the front door opened slightly as a hand is extended to give me an envelope. It is my understanding that the envelope contains an important message and that I am to deliver this message.

The setting is Washington Valley where I grew up in the foothills of the Watchung Mountains in New Jersey. I am on a bicycle. The envelope with its unknown content is to be carried to Pluckemin. There is a sense of responsibility attached to bringing this letter to Pluckemin and I understand that I am not to be diverted from my task.

The road is approximately three miles to where I am going. The valley sweeps up on the right side of the road into trees, but at one point there is a clearing, a wide expanse of meadow, and a farmhouse. Beside the farmhouse there is a large bonfire with somewhere between two or three dozen people surrounding it. I wanted to go over and see what was happening, but continued on my way.

While returning from delivering the envelope I indeed stopped, ditched the bike and walked up to the bonfire. As I drew near I could see that most of the people around the fire were young like myself or a little older. While standing near the flames I became aware of a presence at my side, a slender girl with pale skin, long dark hair. She slipped her arm into mine and I had the sensation of becoming warmer, though I was already warmed by the pulsating heat of the fire. It was dusk and her eyes glistened, reflecting the light. There was a suggestiveness in the way she leaned against me. It seemed that she was inviting me to join her away from the fire.

We walked toward the open garage door of the farmhouse and entered the darkness.

Suddenly, in the instant we disappeared from view of the others, the girl was transformed from a sensuous seductress into a blood-thirsty, fire snorting bull, possessed by savage madness, intent on one purpose: to gore, trample and destroy me. The massive razor-horned beast shifted its weight, flashes of demonic violence quivering through every muscle as it prepared to charge.

My legs buckled in terror as I backed into a table-like workbench. As the bull came lunging forward I had managed somehow to clambered up onto the workbench. By some quirk, in my frantic effort to defend myself I grasped hold of the bull's horn and, pivoting, used the momentum of the charge to hurl the bull in an arching vault through the air. The bull crashed with a heavy thud onto the concrete floor.

For a brief moment I felt exultant at the ease with which I had eluded to monster's rush. But to my horror the enraged bull scrambled to its feet, more frenzied and furious than ever and I found myself overwhelmed by a sense of doom.In the same instant I caught sight of a large wooden beam in the back of the garage up which I might be able to climb high enough to avoid being gored.

You know how it is in dreams where you're running and it seems like forever. It was like that. I made it to the beam and with all my strength leaped up, working my arms and legs, climbing in spasmodic bursts, shimmying upward until my strength was spent. I hung there trembling, exhausted, agitated and relieved, looking down at the bull's futility. Remarkably, the massive raging thrusts of the bull could not reach the position I had gained.

When I turned my head to hold more tightly to the beam, I saw before my eyes the bleeding, nail-pierced feet of the Christ. I had been saved by the cross.

I awake.