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Faith Today • Page 3
The face of adulthood
By Joe Michael Feist
NC News Service
“When will that big day get
here?’’
“When will everyone know,
without a doubt, that the
threshold of adulthood has finally
been crossed, that legally and
otherwise, I am a man?”
used to ponder those ques
tions, back when I was about 18
or 20. It seemed to me at that
watershed point in life that I
deserved all the rights and
privileges attached to that higher
state of human life known as
adulthood.
It didn’t really matter that I still
- felt like a boy. I wanted the
prerogatives, those vague and in-
dc^.nite “things,” that adults had
and did.
To me, it was all perfectly
i, logical. I deserved to be called an
adult. I had lived the required
number of years, hadn’t I?
Looking back, I think I was a
s little sensitive. After all, it was not
uncommon where I grew up to
h' rather wizened veterans of
lilt s battles call 30- or 40-year-old
men “boys.”
is In fact, I knew a woman who,
referring to her son, said “The
boy took the pickup on down to
the store.” Never mind that “the
boy” was about 45.
Anyway, I kept waiting for the
d magical moment when adulthood
would make its appearance. I
gi jS I thought it would sort of
» pull into town one day, like the
Sunset Line bus.
i rts
tism. Since he could not stay with
at one group very long, he used
letters to continue their develop
ment. These epistles were read to
the community at the liturgy and
y sparked further discussion among
its members.
Christian life was a growth pro
cess and growth is never finished.
Paul constantly urged people to
make even greater progress.
Ml of this involved adults. The
we^rd was preached to adults;
adults accepted it and began to
live the Christian life. It involved
continued effort to plumb the
mystery of Christ, which is inex
haustible in itself and in its im
plications for living.
Christian life was and is a
» serious, adult concern.
father Castelot teaches at St.
John’s Seminary, Plymouth, Mich.)
1 kept waiting and thinking
about it:
•About how wonderful not be
ing accountable to another living
soul was going to be;
•About how, if a person of the
adult persuasion wanted to, he
could just sit down one day and
do nothing;
•About how, in the basic give-
and-take of everyday life, there
would be very little left to learn;
•Or, if there was much left to
learn, nobody could make you
learn it if you didn’t want to —
and why would you want to
anyway?
I was especially looking forward
to knowing all the right things
adults should say in every situa
tion. The development of true
wisdom, I knew, would take a
few years. I would settle at first
for knowing how to recognize the
punch line in my neighbor’s jokes
so as to know when to laugh.
And wouldn’t it be nice to share
adult insights and adult
knowledge with younger folks
coming up in the ranks?
I was pretty sure adulthood
would be like all that. How else
could it be?
So I waited. And while I waited
I watched. Maybe I could learn
about being an adult by watching
adults. I thought, if I got too tired
of waiting, adulthood would kind
of slip in unnoticed through an
open window somewhere
About this point you’re pro
bably expecting to hear that sud
denly it all made sense, that one
day adulthood pulled into clear
view and I knew exactly what it
looked like. But it didn’t happen
quite that way.
What I did realize is that
becoming an adult is not a mo
ment in time. I discovered it’s a
long, often confusing process —
perhaps a process that never ends.
But just achieving that realization
involved a long, confusing
process.
I learned that adulthood doesn’t
mean carefree living, not by a
long shot.
And it soon became painfully
and personally obvious that
adulthood lived to the fullest
means formulating a thousand
penetrating questions and learning
to live with a handful of imperfect
answers.
Now, when I was about 18 or
20, I figured there wasn’t that
much to this adulthood business
and, anyway, I’d have all the
answers I needed when I became
an adult. Why wouldn’t it be that
way?
(Feist is associate editor of
Faith Today.)
FOOD...
“From the word go a small
child is trying to make sense of
the world,” said Dr. Jean
Haldane. She is the retired dean
of the Episcopal Lay Academy of
the Episcopal Diocese in
California.
The child’s sense of curiosity
carries over into adulthood, Ms.
Haldane said. In her 30 years as
a religious educator, she has
discovered that questions about
“our search for meaning” always
attract interest.
To encourage people to reflect
on their personal spiritual
journey, she sometimes asks peo
ple to draw connections between
their own life history and the
salvation history found in the Bi
ble. Sometimes she does so by
using this exercise:
First she asks participants to
think of their lives as a book
with three chapter headings. One
woman suggested these chapters:
•“Pre-revolution”: when she
was younger and pondering
possible commitments and career
choices;
• “Revolution”: her college
years when she was rebellious
and impetuous;
•“Post-revolution”: after she
married and became a mother, a
time she felt mellow, realizing
there was more than one side to
a question.
Second, group members are
asked to approach the Bible and
salvation history as if it were a
book with just three chapter
headings. “Most people need
...for discussion
1. Joe Michael Feist asks what
adulthood looks like. He has a
few suggestions about what
adulthood is and what it isn’t.
What would you say adulthood
is? What isn’t it?
2. What kind of growth and
development do you associate
with adulthood? Do you think of
the adult years as times for
growth?
3. What do you think fosters
growth during the adult years?
What complicates it? Can people
do anything to support each
other’s growth and
development?
4. Do you see a connection
between a point of transition in
your life — the death of a parent
or friend, a major move, a career
decision — and any development
■ in your life as a person of faith?
...for thought
help” doing this, Ms. Haldane
said, so she might start with
God’s creation as the first
chapter heading.
A second chapter, she con
tinued, might be the story of
Israel and the prophets.
The third chapter might em
brace the church, Ms. Haldane
said, “anything to do with us
now.”
She remembers a man at a
large conference who was pleas
ed with his chapter headings:
•“Lights”: the Creator brings
light to the world;
•“Camera”: Jesus shows us
what God is like;
•“Action”: “That’s us,” the
man said. “We’re supposed to go
into the world and take action”
on the Christian message.
Finally, Ms. Haldane invites
people to compare their two
lists. “People see amazing con
nections,” she said. Typically,
they respond by saying they can
see reflections of their own life
in the larger Bible story.
Is your life, with its continuing
search for meaning, its changes
and developments, reflected in
the biblical story of salvation?
•What are some special times
of creation and new beginnings
in your story?
•What were some times of
noteworthy development and
growth, like the time of the
Israelites’ exodus from Egypt?
•Have there been times of
death and resurrection in your
life?
SECOND HELPINGS
Jesuit Father Walter
Burghardt reflects on the path
he has traveled as a Christian,
a priest and a man in ‘‘Seasons
That Laugh or Weep: Musings
on the Human Journey.” For
the journey to move ahead, you
have to ‘‘let go of the level of
life where you are now, so as
to live more fully,” he says. He
sees a willingness to change as
a link to growth. It is essential
to the Christian pilgrimage “to
go through a self-emptying
more or less like Christ’s own
emptying,” he writes. “Time
and again, from womb to tomb,
you have to let go. And to let
go is to die a little.” But, if we
refuse, he adds, if “we clutch
our yesterdays like Linus’
blanket, we refuse to grow.”
He suggests that a way of har
monizing past and present is to
adapt creatively to new
challenges. (Paulist Press, 997
Macarthur Blvd., Mahwah, N.J.
07430. $8.95.)