{"id":731,"date":"2024-08-05T21:29:19","date_gmt":"2024-08-05T20:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/?p=731"},"modified":"2024-08-05T21:29:20","modified_gmt":"2024-08-05T20:29:20","slug":"growing-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/?p=731","title":{"rendered":"Growing Up"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Reflection #88 (4th August 2024 at Essex Church \/ Kensington Unitarians)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This morning\u2019s service is the second of a two-part exploration of \u2018Growing Up\u2019. Fear not \u2013 if you weren\u2019t here last week for the service of congregational reflections<\/a> \u2013 each of the services does stand alone. We\u2019ve been considering what it means to \u2018grow up\u2019 \u2013 what it looks and feels like as a lived experience \u2013 and how our perspective on that might change over the course of our lives. The choice of topic was in part inspired by this book titled \u2018When I Grow Up: Conversations with Adults in Search of Adulthood\u2019 by Moya Sarner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the two quotes I\u2019ve put on the front of our order of service today illustrate the angle we\u2019re going to explore in this week\u2019s instalment: firstly the famous line from St Paul (and we\u2019ll hear the expanded version of this later in the service): \u2018When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.\u2019<\/em> And secondly a response to this line from C.S. Lewis: \u2018When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.\u2019<\/em> So we\u2019ll be considering what it could mean to \u2018put away childish things\u2019 and the paradoxical feelings we might have about this aspiration…<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

I wanted to include that poem from Brian Bilston this morning (‘Spare Me, Please, from Growing Up’<\/a>) because, to me, it speaks of that ambivalence that many of us seem to feel \u2013 whatever our age \u2013 about the prospect of \u2018growing up\u2019. It echoes the tension between those two quotes I shared at the start of the service \u2013 St Paul lifting up this image of spiritual maturity as \u2018putting away childish things\u2019 \u2013 and C.S. Lewis\u2019 splendid response that when he became a man he \u2018put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.\u2019 There\u2019s something paradoxical going on here. There is something important about \u2018putting away childish things\u2019 \u2013 but we need to unpack that a bit, I reckon \u2013 and there might be some childish things we would do well not to put away entirely\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Moya Sarner said, in the piece Hannah read for us earlier, a lot of the traditional markers of \u2018growing up\u2019, those external life events that can be recorded by the Office for National Statistics,  are increasingly out of reach, or pushed back to later in life, for the younger generations (and indeed the currently middle-aged, as I can attest). The economic and social realities of life under late-capitalism mean that it\u2019s much harder to tick off those markers of homeowning, marriage, kids. Or perhaps it\u2019s that more of us have broken free of those default expectations, that conveyor belt of adult life, and no longer feel it’s desirable to follow that traditional script? Maybe it\u2019s a bit of both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In some cultures the transition from childhood to adulthood is more formally acknowledged. There is a time, typically in the teenage years, when some kind of ritual takes place to collectively affirm this significant milestone. I was interested to read this take from the psychoanalyst James Hollis who writes: \u2018each civilization evolved rites of passage designed to ensure the transition from the na\u00efvet\u00e9 and dependency of childhood to adult sensibilities that sacrifice comfort and sloth in service to the common interest. When we examine contemporary culture, we find these rites of passage missing. Aging alone does not do it \u2026. Sooner or later, we are each called to face what we fear, respond to our summons to show up, and overcome the vast lethargic powers within us. This is what is asked of us, to show up as the person we really are, as best we can manage, under circumstances over which we may have no control. This showing up as best we can is<\/em> growing up. That is all that life really asks of us: to show up as best we can.\u2019 Words from James Hollis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as we heard from Moya Sarner in the reading that Hannah gave earlier on: Growing up is not really a one-time thing \u2013 as powerful as such ritual moments and rites of passage might be (and they are very important in crystallising a shift in consciousness for both the child at the centre of the ritual and the community around them) \u2013 we don\u2019t just switch from child to adult overnight. We each experience many \u2018grow-ups\u2019 through the course of our life \u2013 it never ends really \u2013 and that process of \u2018growing up\u2019 involves a number of internal shifts. I\u2019m just going to highlight a few dimensions in which these shifts take place, those which seem particularly significant to me: around practical wisdom, responsibility, complexity, and acceptance of some of life\u2019s limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First up, practical wisdom \u2013 this goes by many different names \u2013 it was singled out as the greatest of the cardinal virtues by no less than Saint Thomas Aquinas and in that context it can be defined as \u2018the ability to discern the appropriate course of action to be taken in a given situation at the appropriate time, with consideration of potential consequences\u2019.<\/em>  In other words: knowhow.  It\u2019s something that we accumulate over time, with a bit of luck, once we\u2019ve been around the block a bit. But actually \u2013 it takes more than luck \u2013 in order to learn, to develop good judgement, to know and do better next time around, we need to pay attention, be reflective, integrate our experiences. When Moya Sarner rings her mum to ask what to do about a bin full of maggots \u2013 she\u2019s calling on her practical wisdom \u2013 she knows that her mum will have already \u2018been there and got the T-shirt\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another dimension of growing up is taking on responsibility. The bits of adulthood that Brian Bilston described as \u2018duty, sense and all that stuff\u2019.<\/em> This one is quite prominent in my mind lately. Most of you know that I never left home \u2013 I\u2019ve lived with my dad my whole life and he died just a couple of months ago \u2013 and he always dealt with most of the household affairs. So, at the age of 49, I\u2019ve just started getting to grips with Council Tax and water meters and contents insurance for the first time. More generally though, I think of this as the aspect of growing up that\u2019s all about realising that \u2018somebody else isn\u2019t going to sort this out\u2019 and \u2018it\u2019s up to me now\u2019. Also, I suppose, it\u2019s about taking on board that our actions (or inaction) have consequences for ourselves and those around us, and we need to be reflective and aware about our likely impact on others (for good or ill).  This is about much more than domestic arrangements \u2013 it\u2019s about being a citizen \u2013 being engaged in our community \u2013 realising that there is not some separate class of people who run the world and get things done. If we want to create a better world \u2013 if we want good things to exist \u2013 we need to roll up our sleeves and get stuck in. When I was just 25 or 26, and I\u2019d only been at this church for a year, there was a big kerfuffle (I\u2019ll spare you the historic details of church politics) which meant we had nobody to stand as chair of the congregation. And I remember thinking \u2018I love this church, and I want it to thrive, and if I don\u2019t step up who will?\u2019<\/em> It seemed quite preposterous that I should take on such a responsible role at such a young age. But I did it, even though I felt out of my depth, and that was a big step in my own growing-up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another dimension of growing up \u2013 one that seems increasingly important to me \u2013 is around acknowledging the complexity of life (particularly of living on a planet alongside over 8 billion other humans). So many issues that we have to deal with are not straightforward \u2013 instead of seeing things in black and white, we become aware of all those murky shades of grey in-between \u2013 we realise that there are often multiple valid ways of looking at a situation and it can be hard to arbitrate between them. Truths can be paradoxical. And the practical business of organising society and running the world \u2013 it’s just very complex \u2013 there are so many competing goods and valid interests to be balanced. It seems to me that the troubling wave of populism that we\u2019re currently seeing around the world is, in part, rooted in an inability to face this great complexity and grapple with it honestly. Populist appeals to \u2018common sense\u2019 pretend that the answers are simple (but their so-called answers often revolve around flat-out denial of reality, misinformation, dehumanising, scapegoating and blame). You could also think of this aspect of \u2018adulting\u2019 as having the courage to face the fact that we live in an imperfect world \u2013 that there is a \u2018tragic gap\u2019, in the words of Parker J. Palmer \u2013 or as  the philosopher Susan Neiman puts it:  \u2018courage is required to live with the rift that will run through our lives, however good they may be: ideals of reason tell us how the world should be; experience tells us that it rarely is. Growing up requires confronting the gap between the two \u2013 without giving up on either one.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One final aspect of growing up I want to mention is around the acceptance of life\u2019s limits. Psychologist Klaus Rothermund is quoted in Sarner\u2019s book, saying \u2018It\u2019s different when you\u2019re young, when you can still try out everything. You can do things just because you want to do them, because you can do the important things later. But when you\u2019re old, doing the unimportant things first means you might never face the important things.\u2019 And Sarmer reflects further: \u2018This honing process, this sieving and sifting of what matters most \u2013 this is a key grow-up of old-old-age \u2013 although perhaps it has roots much earlier in life. It rests on another grow-up: understanding the fact that your life will come to an end.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the book \u2018When I Grow Up\u2019, Moya Sarner interviews people throughout life\u2019s ages and stages, getting older as she gets towards the end, and in the final chapter she interviews a 90-year-old woman who goes by the nickname of Pog. Pog says: \u2018I truly do not consider that I have grown up. And I\u2019m 90. But one thing that really pleases me, to the extent of being a bit smug about it, is the really childish pleasures. You know, where you sort of clap your hands and say, \u201cOh! Look at that!\u201d<\/em> And somehow I\u2019ve still got that, and I love it. It can be completely trivial things.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pog\u2019s excellent example brings us back to the paradox: one of the childish things we probably need to put away is this fixation on being entirely grown-up. Yes, it is<\/em> important to grow up. To keep growing up throughout our lives. To develop in practical wisdom, to embrace responsibility, to wrestle with complexity, to accept life\u2019s limits, and all the other aspects of growing up that we haven\u2019t even mentioned today. But as C.S Lewis hinted: there is<\/em> something to be said for retaining a bit of childishness too. Being free-spirited, idealistic, maybe even unrealistic, dreaming big, in touch with simple joys. We don\u2019t have to put away these<\/em> \u2018childish things\u2019. Sarmer endorses this view, she says: \u2018whatever life stage you find yourself in, the question of being more or less grown up, of being able to continue growing up or stalling somewhere along the road, has something important to do with how we relate to the younger versions of ourselves that we hold inside us \u2013 the concentric circles in our tree trunk. Whether we can hold on to them, find a way to live with them and look after them, to keep them alive in us, so that they can keep us alive.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I want to close with one last excerpt from the conclusion of Moya Sarner\u2019s book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She says: \u2018I started writing this book because I wanted to know what it meant to be an adult and to find out why I wasn\u2019t one yet\u2026 Now that I can hear that I was asking the wrong question \u2013 or rather, that question has changed. Now the question has become not why haven\u2019t I finished growing up, but how can I keep growing up, throughout my life? I wanted to find a definition of what an adult is, what it means to grow up. Now I understand that this definition will be different for every individual, and it will change from moment to moment for each of us, depending on the grow-up we are facing. I do now know, through this writing, through my analysis, through my patients, through speaking to so many fascinating people, that the work of growing up never stops \u2013 not if you\u2019re lucky. Not until the very end.\u2019 Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reflection by Jane Blackall<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An audio recording of this sermon is available:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\nhttps:\/\/www.kensington-unitarians.org.uk\/pod2011\/KU_jane.blackall_hybrid_sermon_04.08.24.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n