The string section of the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra needed a place to rehearse tonight, and we arranged to have them come to First Unitarian. I said I’d volunteer to serve as sexton for them, which meant I had to be up at the church from six to eleven tonight.

Carol brought her laptop down to the church to keep me company, and a woman from the South Coast Sustainability Network arranged to drop by so I could show her how to administer the Network’s Web site. Showing her the Web site didn’t take long, and she and Carol and I wound up talking for a couple of hours.

Now as it happens, this woman, a grad student at U Mass., is about twenty years younger than Carol and I. We had a great conversation, the three of us. In one sense, the age difference between us made no difference at all; but at the same time she really is in a different stage of life than we are, and she is part of a different generational cohort.

I like talking with people who are in a different stage of life, or a different generational cohort, than I am — it can be fun and even exciting (and once in a while frustrating) to get that different perspective. Which is my selfish reason why any congregation I belong to has to include people all ages:– it’s because I get bored just hanging out with middle aged folks like me.