'If you want to transcend time, build friendships across generations. Though you can't stand outside your own season, you can hear from those who've lived through your season. In my experience this is one of the great gifts of multigenerational friendships. Friendship in this respect is akin to time travel...if we can relinquish the myth of utter singularity, then listening to those generations ahead of us is a way of learning from our future. Granted it is the nature of youth to spurn such gifts. But when we are humbled, friendship across the generations becomes a lifeline, an almost sacramental means of transcending the purview of our now as God gives us an outside glimpse of our moment. But the gifts traverse time both ways. Older generations attentively listening to those younger avail themselves of different ears to hear what's whispering or shouting now.'
James KA Smith in John Wyatt, Transforming Friendship, p.113.
