Sunday morning, Mother's Day, I drove to Kenyon College to meet a young Millennial who is graduating from college this month. She and I sat in the Kenyon College Bookstore and chatted over coffee about her generation's inheritance of the world such as it is. Bettina majored in political science with minors in religious and women's studies. She remarked how her generation is misjudged as entitled and unengaged. The conversation moved through subjects and topics as though racing against time to understand each other. Our generations are separated by 60 years, yet we share a common perspective of hope for the future. I realized that Bettina is starting out in her adult life where it took me six decades to evolve, with a helluva lot of help. We both see the need to transcend the divisiveness and self-interest that grips our culture and society. She observed that her life experiences shape her values and by sharing her experiences with others, she is able to dissolve barriers that her views might raise. Wise before her time, I was captivated by her grasp of life, her depth and her passion to participate in crafting a possible future that embodies empathy and service for the benefit of all.

As I continued to reflect on our conversation I caught a glimpse of the interconnected web of life linked through empathy. Children are born into this world gifted with empathy and intuition. Some find these gifts blunted by the structure of society and culture as they are coerced into the dominant belief system. When George Lakoff states that the conservative mind set is born out of the "strict father" family model, he is referring to how this rigid model shuts down the autonomy of the child in the interest of capitulating to a higher authority that prefers "certainty" rather than the ambiguity of self-discovery.

This millennial writer shared her class paper on Afghanistan. I was struck by her skills as a writer in tackling a contentious subject: America's foreign policy following 9/11. The absence of bias in her writing gave substance to her strength as a critical thinker. Her conclusion capped off a paper worthy of being published in The Journal of Foreign Affairs.

It is not necessary for older generations to shape the views of millennials. They can see the world as it is: the world shaped by preceding generations. Issues and values imposed by an older segment of culture and society won't work for Millennials. Millennials are looking for fairness and equity as they come to the conversation with their gifts. I am grateful for my conversation with Bettina.