Navigating Lifes Big Changes A Journey of Transformation

Navigating Life’s Big Changes

A Journey of Transformation Distinguishing Between the Path & the Person Defining the Terms: Change & Transition • Change: The Changing World Outside • Situational—roles, relationships, location, vocation, etc. • Transition: The Transforming World Inside • Personal—spiritual condition, patterns of thought, emotional reactions/responses

Life As a Journey of Transformation 3 Big Changes, 3 Big Struggles • Stage 1: Adolescence • The Struggle to Get Our Lives Together: Forming Identity o o o • Stage 2: Adulthood • The Struggle to Give Our Lives Away: Forming Family • Stage 3: Elderhood • The Struggle to Give Deaths Away: Leaving Legacy ~ Adapted from Sacred Fire, Ronald Rolheiser

The Adolescent Journey The Struggle to Get Our Lives Together • CLASS 1: Early Adolescence: The Aimless Search for an Aim • CLASS 2: Early-Late Adolescence: Battle Wounds Along the Way • CLASS 3: Late Adolescence: The Endless Search for a Name

The Adolescent Journey The Struggle to Get Our Lives Together The Story of Half-Boy

Battle Wounds Along the Way “When our loneliness drives us away from ourselves into the arms of our companions in life, we are, in fact, driving ourselves into excruciating relationships, tiring friendships and suffocating embraces—No friend or lover, no husband or wife, no community or commune, no amount of possessions nor property nor power, will be able to put to rest our deepest cravings for unity and wholeness. ” ~ Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out

The Adolescent Journey The Struggle to Get Our Lives Together

CHAOS & ORDER The [Mis]Guiding Forces of the Adolescent Journey • • CHAOS—Fire: Drive Outward • Discovering Self in the World: Drive outward to discover, selftranscend, risk life in order to find it. • Too Much fire = Fragmentation. • EXTREME CHAOS: disorder, anxiousness, reactivity, recklessness, instability, no stable sense of self, threatens obedience to Christ. ORDER—Glue: Inner Integration • Preserving Self from the World: Drive inward for identity, selfpreservation, protect life in order to keep it. • Too Much glue = Suffocation. • EXTREME ORDER: faithlessness, rigidity, over-seriousness, cynicism, control, timidity, inactivity, egoism, threatens freedom in Christ.

Battle Wounds Along the Way “What are we to make of this costly surge of children having children in some self-created rite of passage into adulthood? …Teenage childbearing presents other ironies that would be funny if lives weren’t at stake: ‘[When I have my baby] I’ll be more independent, more smarter…I’ll have to sometimes make my own decisions. ’ ‘I got my mom and dad to realize that I’m not a baby anymore, and they know I’m all grown up. ’ “They dream of independence, but most teen moms are high school dropouts who have to remain dependent on mom and dad or on government welfare programs for support. Then there is the obvious irony that having a baby does not automatically transform the mother into an adult. Nurses say that in the labor room, younger teens suck their thumbs and clutch their teddy bears between contractions” (Hymowitz, “The Teen Mommy Track”, City Journal). ~ Sharron Dorr, Teen Motherhood and Aborting the Search for Self-Identity

Battle Wounds Along the Way “The opaque glance and the pimples. The fancy new nakedness. They’re all dressed up in with no place to go. The eyes full of secrets they have a strong hunch everybody is on to. The shadowed brow. Being not quite a child and not quite a grown-up either is hard work, and they look it. Living in two worlds at once is no picnic. ” ~ Friedrich Buechner, Whistling in the Dark

The Adolescent Journey The Struggle to Get Our Lives Together • The Story of Half-Boy • The Danger of CHAOS--Fragmentation: The boy who leaves home and never finds his way back home: • The Prodigal Son: Tries to become an adult by becoming the opposite of who his parents want him / her to be • The Danger of ORDER--Suffocation: The boy who never leaves home and so eventually despises home: • The Perfect Son: Tries to become an adult by becoming who his parents want him to be BOTH END UP HOMELESS

Battle Wounds Along the Way “One of the biggest problems that was shown in the research is that midadolescence is a world of multiple selves. ” “Midadolescents are not able to compartmentalize their lives while operating out of a personal sense of self…. To survive, a young person must learn how to be a child, a student, an athlete, and a friend, while also continuing the ever-lengthening process of determining who he or she is. ” ~ Chap Clark, Hurt 2. 0

Battle Wounds Along the Way “Technology allows us to connect without regard to geography. “This creates the problem of selectivity, of being able to select what we like about ourselves to portray—our ‘connect-worthiness’. Furthermore, we can deselect anyone we deem unworthy of connection. ” “We are not required to see the ugly part of others’ lives and we are not required to reveal the ugly part of our own. “The result: a culture of fake! “Rather than acting according to who we truly are—with all our warts and beauty marks on display—we have to act according to who we’ve portrayed ourselves to be…Living this double Result: they become insecure, competing for connect-worthiness life is confusing and hard. ” ~ Sherry Turkle, Alone Together

The Parable of the Two Homeless, Half-Sons CHAOS: Licentiousness ORDER: Legalism Life in the Pig Sty Life in The Field • Squandered property • Stayed at home, in the field • Reckless living • Didn’t go to the party • Severe famine • All these years I’ve served you • Sold himself to citizens • I never disobeyed • Sent to field • You never gave me a ‘license’ • No one gave him anything • This son of yours… • Hungry, longing • Angry, jealous • Slave of the Foreigners • Slave of the Father BOTH END UP SLAVES The Return of the Prodigal Son, Rembrandt 1661 -1669

Je re m y Battle Wounds Along the Way Two Different Paths Toward Wholeness Sam