“The Times They Are A-Changin’,” written and sung by Bob Dylan 45 years ago, was an anthem for the young people of the 1960s.

The song was written as protest, as defiance, as independence and as rebellion. For many teenagers and young adults, the song issued forth a theme that a new day was dawning, a day filled with equality, fairness and hope.

I remember those days. I remember wondering and worrying where the changes would lead.

As we face this last week of February, I think it is fair to say that once again the times they are a-changing. The change we are living witnesses to is not being accompanied by song or protest, but by fear and uncertainty. Uncertainty is an incumbent partner for any change, but change accompanied by hope leaves us anxious for the new day. Change accompanied by fear leaves us dreading the new day.

For those of us of my generation — post-Depression and post-World War II — we have never known the really tough times. Our parents were intimate with the Great Depression, as most of them came of age then. Our fathers went off to fight the great war against fascism — and won. They came home and went to college on the GI Bill. They went to work and moved their families to the suburbs… vowing that their children would never experience the tough times visited upon them. And, they were successful.

Really tough times are now looking each of us squarely in the face. I don’t know if we are in a recession or depression, or that a name matters much. What I do know is that many of our friends and neighbors and colleagues and students and parents are hurting. Many have lost their jobs, their savings and their retirement. Some have lost their homes.

Some are moving in with friends or relatives. Some have simply packed up and left…or just left. I sense an air of desperation unlike any of my generation has ever experienced. I hear it in the voices of two of our daughters who are still employed by major corporations, but who weep when describing the effects of layoff notices on the people with whom they work. And yet they buckle up every day and head off to work to do the best they can, in constant and heavy anticipation of the envelope addressed to them.

I wonder how our children are doing. Are they bringing their family tensions with them when they walk in our doors? I wonder how we are interacting as adults. Are we each healthy enough to care for a colleague for whom caring is needed? Do we have our own priorities clearly identified so we may have brilliantly lighted guideposts to show us the way? Have we revisited the difference between empathy and sympathy…and have chosen empathy?

For me, the questions that have no right to go away are these: How do you wish others to remember your compassion when we come out the other side? As you emerge from the dark wood into the bright meadow, which anthem do you expect to be played for you?