September 23, 2009

• Maturity / Seperation Anxiety

  Separation Anxiety

  I had a conversation yesterday with a young person that has been dealt a rather difficult catch 22.  Remaining necessarily vague, I'll merely say that this person is facing a "crisis point" where they have to come to a new understanding of the relationship between parent and child.  Ironically enough, it's a stage of maturation that parents need to go through, and a stage that the child has to go through somewhat separately.  Of course the child gets to go through it as a parent later down the line.

  ¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. ¹²Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
  

  1 Corinthians 13:11-12

  Maturity is the third of my trio of topics for early autumn 2009.  Maturation is a funny process - we can talk about biological maturity in the sense of an organism's growth, followed by sexual development to adult stages where an organism can reproduce -- then it approaches senescence and death.  Behavioural/psychological maturity can be approached in a variety of ways, but Freud and Erikson's schema figure heavily in these analyses of maturation.  Spiritual maturity doesn't appear to have any formal stages in academia, so far as I can tell, but I'd break it roughly into stages that parallel biological maturity, in that there's a infancy followed by adolescence, maturity and reproductive phases.  Theoretically, there ought not be a senescent stage.

  Biological maturation really is quite tied to biology and genetics -- one hits menarche when one's hormonal surges occur.  The brain and body develops whether you want them to or not.  Yes, drugs can affect this process, but it's really not that advisable to alter this process (even though we do so inadvertently in the US).

  Behavioural/psychological maturation is somewhat tied to chronology, but here the variation is quite stark.  With different types of experiences and stimuli, adolescent behaviour can be seen throughout decades -- I think we can all think of adults that are more poorly behaved than the most recalcitrant adolescent.  We would expect maturation to bring about better long term planning, the ability to bite one's tongue, perspective, better risk management behaviour.  All of which is quite variable.  One can also make the argument that personality affects maturation -- some people may prefer to continue to "act like a child".

  Defining what makes a child childish and what makes an adult mature is no mean task.  Books have been and will continue to be written about this topic.  What I'd like to do is hit this topic in a couple very focused ways.

  1) From Paul's perspective, what is maturity?
  2) What does Genesis 2:24 (and Paul's quotation of it in Ephesians 5) have to do with maturation?
  
   ²⁴ For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

  1) What is maturity?
  At some point in life, we reach an inflection point where we are expected to take up new responsibilities - our primary role of absorbing and growing as a child comes to an end, and we are expected to start taking on responsibilities on behalf of others.  In most traditional cultures we have "Rites of Passage" that mark that inflection point, where the expectations change.  This point is no longer defined in the US.  Perhaps it's 18, maybe 21 ... I'm fairly certain no such definition exists.  No one seems to sit children down and say -- you are a man now... you are a woman now...  We are left, as a whole, to figure it out on our own.  It fits the general relativism that pervades our culture today, but I do think we have come to a bit of a conundrum...  The very valuation/prioritization of self-sacrifice has been eroded by the lack of emphasis on the expectations of maturity.

  The longevity of a society, biblically based or not, depends on a prioritization on community and self sacrifice.  Without such an emphasis, society becomes a collection of mutually feeding parasites, each individual striving to maximize their utility of shared resources.  I think Paul's statement of maturation is a powerful one, as it alludes to a process we no longer explicitly acknowledge anymore.  We intuitively expect "adults" to function as "adults".  Yet that training is no longer really explicitly or implicitly available, by and large. 

  Paul draws a parallel between maturation and insight into eternity.  It's hard for a child to see as an adult -- if not impossible.  They lack the perspective of time, and perhaps even the neurological development.  It is also a travesty for an adult to act/think as a child (though it's good to have faith like a child).  Similarly, in the face of seeing God spiritually, we can look forward to a maturation that allows us to eventually know God, as he knows us.

  It should be obvious that the difference between or presently limited insight is profoundly different from the experience and relationship between God and man that he sketches out in the second of the above verses.  It is implied that the difference between child and adult is also profound.

  In my opinion, the adult needs to learn a couple key principles:
  1) Self sacrifice/responsibility to community
  2) Perspective - you have to start to see the very big picture; global society scale.  Also, emotional difficulties should be seen in perspective, people come and go, mistakes happen and so forth.

  3) From a Judeo-Christian perspective, it's also critical to see one's dependency on God.
  

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  The second sub-topic is separation from one's parents...  Biblically, we are called to honour our fathers and mothers... but we're also called to separate.  I'm relatively traditional in that I really want to obey/honour my parents.  They do, however, recognize that I have to be able to do things my own way.  Post marriage, the responsibility described by the Bible is for a man to cleave (become wedded inseparably to) his wife.  The priority in relating is now to her. 

  I think one struggle that I've seen in Asian families is when a child sides too much with the parents -- and there will be occasions where that alliance will be against the other person.  It's very damaging to a marriage/relationship. Both partners need to know that their relationship with one another will remain sacrosanct, and work from that basis on other problems. 

  I think Genesis describes that basis well -- the image of one flesh being quite compelling, both allegorically, and in some senses, literally.  Paul expounds on this type of relationship in Ephesians 5 beautifully.

  Maturing as a child also requires separation from one's parents... and in this context, so that one is cloven to one's partner.  It doesn't mean ceasing to honour one's parents -- but rather that one will do so from the context of a sacred bond between a husband and wife.  It doesn't mean ceasing to want to take care of them -- but it does mean subordinating that principle somewhat, such that one's integration with one's spouse is more secure and complete.

  • 10:00 am
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