By Peter Bratt

Staff Writer

Clearly, the specter of decline haunts any generation that walks the earth. Perhaps we fear that our careers, lives and visions will fail to measure up to the record of our mothers and fathers. The Puritans, or at least ones like Cotton Mather in 1692, feared that God was punishing their lack of faith and moral discipline through a war with France and with witches in their towns. The era after the fall of Rome and the fall of Constantinople seems to be one long lament for the wisdom of the classic age, as persons such as Gregory the Great and Charlemagne saw themselves as sharply inferior to the victors at Actium and writers of the polis.

Today, the same limitations of the past lurks around us. We think with the mentality of the previous era, fight wars with yesterday's weapons and argue politics with a language of a people bygone. This is clear especially in the manner with which the local governments in the Grand Rapids area deal with a variety of issues affecting the future of the community and the college that resides in its midst. It is certainly necessary for a college that prides itself in having minds in the making to involve itself in creating a community in the molding.

For a school that spends so much time bickering over whether three professors should be allowed to send their children to the community school, there is little thought or comment regarding the public schools of the Kent County region that serve nearly fifty thousand children. The disparity of funds, facilities and teachers that exist in the ten miles that separate the Grand Rapids Public School and the Grand Rapids Township districts is a gulf that remains vast, despite half-hearted efforts by the Engler Administration and local politicians to solve the problems. Yet nothing is heard from the Calvin community, or the college itself in regards to the separate and unequal school systems that exists in Grand Rapids.

The lack of involvement and leadership that Calvin has shown in regards to such an important issue has been quite discouraging, to say the least. However, it is not too late to change how we approach the local community. A clear effort must be made by the college to bring justice and equality to our fellow citizens. For we all have the same blood, the same hopes, the same dreams. It is a disgrace for a college that prides itself on offering its heart promptly and sincerely to the Lord to show indifference to our fellow children of God in our own backyards.

Our restricted vision on local issues comes from our past; hence the sins of our fathers continue to revisit us. The generation that brought us nuclear warfare and hippie anarchy is also quite happy to present expensive college tuitions and a society united in fossil fuel dependence, one which trusts in American might alone. It would be wise for us, the heirs to a generation of mismanagement and neglect, to strike a new course into the wilderness. One must remember that Einstein, Arendt and Emerson were once young, and studied the same lessons that the preceding generation had to offer them. While they nodded their dutiful heads and recited for their pleased elders, they struck their own course in a world molded by unique circumstances. We must also seek to blaze a new trail, restore dignity to an age that seems to scorn it, and walk in the light as we are called to do so.

In this age of global issues, economic interdependence and other vast concerns, the issues close to our hearts are still the ones that exist a house down the street or in the room of our neighbor. Hence, our skills and desires are desperately needed in the community, providing leadership, an open hand and fellowship to our brothers and sisters in Christ.

The issues that concern Calvin, such as the Christian school requirement, do not receive much attention in the greater community where the requirement of a parent's love and community support are rarely met. Calvin has long created members of the community that seek their own economic interest, rather than the issue of justice for the community. It is our generation that must seek to provide redress for the wounds that have been long forgotten, and seek to have our college turn its attention to the questions of far greater importance than the petty ones argued about over dinner at the 1894 Room.

What is to be done, in regards to the issue of disparity in local schools? I hope my fellow Calvin students will use the gifts that they have been granted to lead our sorry world to a better state than the previous generation has led us. After all, it is up to us to use the education that Calvin College has provided us and change our world for the better.