My wife and I had dinner with a young woman and her boyfriend this past week. I think I heard her say that she is almost 21. He is 24. We’ve gotten to know them over the past year, and we like them. They are friendly and smart, and both of them are committed Christians.

At some point in the dinner, the subject of aging came up. I cannot remember the immediate context for her comment, but the young woman, speaking of when she is older, said: “I want to be the cool grandma, the one with a nose ring.” (She wears a ring on the left side of her nose.)

The idea struck me funny. Perhaps a grandmother today who had a ring in her nose and, say, purple hair, is cool. Just possibly, her teenage grandchildren say to their friends. “You should meet my grandma. She is really cool!” But by the time our young friend is a grandmother, I suspect that only old ladies who are forty years behind the times will be wearing nose rings. Everyone else will have abandoned the practice decades ago. Nose rings will be painfully uncool. (Saying “cool” will probably also be “uncool.”)

I thought all this in a flash. I spoke it more cautiously. “You know, by the time you’re a grandma, it’s possible that people won’t be wearing nose rings anymore. They might not be cool by then.”

I don’t think she had ever considered the possibility that nose rings might go out of fashion. She seemed surprised by the idea and, for a second at least, nonplussed. Could it be that what is cool now will be totally lame in ten years?

It may be that in ten years no one will be wearing skinny jeans. Pants that don’t cover the tops of a person’s shoes may be thought an embarrassment (as they were when I was young, and people mockingly referred to them as “highwaters”). When scrolling through old photos on their phones, adult children might be saying, “I can’t believe my mother made me wear jeans that had holes in the knees. That has got to be the stupidest fashion trend in history.” It may be that no self-respecting male will be caught dead with a man-tote, and shoppers might have to search shoe stores in all fifty states (or will there be fifty-one by then—or perhaps 49?) to find one that still sells torpedo shoes.

Time seems to roll across the continuum of existence in waves, and we all ride on a particular wave. The ideas, images, terminology, values, fashions, and amusements of the wave my generation rides will be somewhat different from the waves ridden by the generations that precede and follow my own. To know this enables me to be generous with people from other generations and to be humble about my own.

I spent most of a day last week in a conference with other pastors and denominational officials. One of our leaders (from a younger generation than my own) addressed the conference. He was wearing “skinny pants” and a shirt that came right out of a trendy clothing catalog. Later, another leader also spoke. He was wearing pants that were inches shorter than I would ever wear mine.

At the time, I thought these two were trying to be hip to win acceptance by the cool kids. But upon reflection, I think these men are simply riding a different wave than me. They wanted to dress appropriately, and this is what they, and people of their generation, deem appropriate. I was wrong to attribute to them any other motive.

The temporal seascape has seen an unbroken succession of waves. In the past, those waves were well spaced and moved more slowly, but the winds of change have picked up considerably, and the waves are passing quickly. It is silly to expect other people, younger people, to want to ride my wave or to concede that it is somehow better or more permanent than their own.

The waves advance and recede, though from my perspective one remains forever at the center: my own. (Of course, this is a delusion. If any wave occupies the center at all, it is the one Jesus rode during his earthly ministry.) But whatever wave we ride on, all the waves belong to the same sea.

St. Paul tells us to “keep the unity of the Spirit.” This cannot be done atop the crest of the latest wave of ecclesial practice or theological emphasis. Nor could it be done atop the ecclesial practices and favorite theological emphases that carried my generation along. To keep the unity of the Spirit with God’s people from other generations – older or younger – we need to be aware of our own strong preference for our generational distinctives.

We must go beneath the waves into the generation-spanning love of God, expressed preeminently when Christ emptied himself and died for people who cared nothing for him. The deeper we go into God’s love, the less difficulty we will have in keeping unity. If we go so deep that the pressure of Christ’s love reshapes us into conformity to his selfless sacrifice, unity will be natural. But if we stay shallow, stay where the waves of theological and ecclesial fashion toss us hither and thither, we will not find unity, only contempt and distrust.