Rev. Cwirla's Blogosphere

Frederica Matthewes-Green, who is always worth reading (http://www.frederica.com/), has an opinion piece in the current issue of First Things entitled “Against Eternal Youth” (August/September 2005 (155):9-11).  In her usual provocatively insightful manner, she analyzes the plight of her fellow Baby Boomer generation as parents.  Her assessment:  They’ve never grown up, and now they are teaching their kids to be forever children.  Years of extended nurturing in schools have brought indecision and an inability to commit to much of anything.  Years of pointless dating and cohabitation have greased the path to divorce.  Thirty year olds are living on with Mom and Dad in a parental nest that has slim prospects of ever emptying.

Matthewes-Green writes:

“The Boomers as parents managed to go their own parents one better, extending the golden playroom all the way through graduate school.  But the emphasis on unlimited possibilities turns out to be a new kind of prison.  Many twenty-somethings find themselves immobilized by too much praise.  They dare not commit to any one career, because it means giving up others, and they’ve never before had to close off any options.  They dare not commit to a single career because they’re expected to excel at it, and they’re afraid they may only be ordinary.  A lifetime of go-get-’em cheering presumes that one day you’ll march out and take the world by storm.  But what if the world doesn’t notice?  What if the field is too crowded, or the skills too difficult, or the child just not all that talented?  It’s a sad but unalterable fact that most people are average.”

Kids who hang around with me know that I don’t believe in adolescence as a way of life.  At best, it’s a temporary state of being, a moment of hormonally induced insanity, a birthing process in which a new adult emerges out of the cocoon of childhood.  Yes, it can be awkward, painful, emotional, embarrassing, but then butterflies aren’t an immediately pretty sight emerging from their cocoons either.  Soon enough, however, they dry off behind their ears and fly off to greater things.

Adolescents are adults-in-training, apprentices in the art and craft of being an adult man or woman.  An apprentice learns a skill by working side by side with an experienced master.  Apprentice carpenters work with master carpenters; apprentice chefs work with master chefs.  And apprentice adults work with master adults.  There’s simply no other way to learn the craft.

Two generations ago, a thirteen or fourteen year old was expected to start acting like an adult.  You had adult bodies and urges, and so you were expected to pull your weight with the grownups at labor and worship.  Within a few short years you were married and having children of your own.  You knew how to cook, clean, maintain a household, keep a budget, and run the family business or farm.  That’s why we traditionally had the rite of confirmation at thirteen.  It was your blessing into the world of adult disciples.  You were considered mature enough to make a full committed confession before God and congregation that you would “suffer all including death” rather than forsake your baptismal faith.  These days we are barely willing to suffer inconvenience and a mild case of boredom.

Early marriage is Matthewes-Green’s partial antidote for the forever children.  That’s OK, but I think she would agree that a few other pieces of the cultural puzzle need to be in place before we trot today’s 18 year olds down the wedding aisle.  

Adults need to embrace their adolescents as apprentices, adults in training, not perpetual children.  They need to invite teens into the workshop of their actual adult lives, and give them genuine responsibilities not busywork.  They need to stop entertaining these emerging adults and start teaching them the skills they will need to survive and thrive in this world.  They need to stop cultivating a sub-culture of self-absorbed celebrity worshipers and begin training a rising generation to run the race that is now set before them.

That’s one reason I don’t believe in “youth ministry.”  Isolating kids from their adult counterparts encourages another generation of Christians who expect their every felt itch to be scratched.  Kids not only need to play together with adults, they need to work and worship with them as adults.  How else are they going to know what a real adult at work and worship looks like?  “Youth ministry” is nothing but the ministry of God’s Word and the Sacraments applied to young, emerging adults.  Same Word of Law and Gospel, same Baptism, same Body and Blood of Christ, same cross, same forgiveness, life, and salvation.

One thing I appreciate about Higher Things as a youth ministry is how un-youth ministry it really is.  Teens are treated as the young adults that they are; and adults occasionally act like kids.  And we’re all hanging together - worshipping, working, playing - under the cross of Jesus, and that’s the way it should be.  I’ve noticed that when teens are challenged to be adults, they often rise to the occasion in spectacular ways that amaze everyone.  And we grey-haired types recover some of the spontaneous joy we’ve lost in our “oh-so-serious” adult lives.  We need each other much more than we could ever realize.

When I wanted to learn to play classical guitar well, I sought out a master teacher.  Adolescents need to seek out the parental figures in their lives - fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, pastors, teachers, not only for an infusion of cash and the keys to the car, but for wisdom, knowledge, and skill in the art of living.  There’s much to be learned, and precious little time to learn it.

Life is something you grow into, not out of.  And speaking out of the experience of my generation - the “Woodstock generation” who brought you recreational drugs, sex without marriage, and disdain for all authority, being “forever young” is not a blessing but an insidious curse.