My fantabulous friend/colleague and I have been doing research together. No, not running little mice through torture mazes, but thinking about complicated and large ideas together and then writing down all of our thoughts. Then editing that crappy writing, and then making it all make some sort of comprehensive sense and even finding other people to show that we aren't the only ones who have thought it, but that we are the first ones to think about it quite in this way.
I could make this entire post about how great my colleague is, but I won't. I will say that I love working with an artist (her undergrad is in sculpture) turned psychologist. She also wants to specialize in working with adolescent females, just like me. If I weren't married, and I were a lesbian, I'd marry this woman. Her new boyfriend is a lucky man, and he better remember that.
Anyway, our research is focusing on developing a model for the spiritual development of adolescents that we can both endorse. There's quite a bit of published work out there, but much of it is perfunctory or just plain wrong. Other parts of the research lean too far toward universalism, implying that truth claims cannot be a part of a mature spiritual etic.
It's frustrating, because since I am on my way to be a bonafide published author, I can't share as much as I'd like of our work. Copy right issues and such. But I would love to get input from everyone on your ideas of what is essential to hold as ideal for teens as they develop into mature spiritual beings. One thing I feel comfortable saying is that our ideas of spiritual maturity leave room both for holding truth claims and for going on a journey of discovery that takes adolescents a few steps away from truth claims in order to examine their faith identity and to form an autonomous spiritual identity away from their parents.
So, what do all ya'll think? What is key in the spiritual development of adolescents? I'd love to have voices from all traditions and no tradition at all, but I think it will help us for clarity's sake to state our biases. I take a distinctly Christian viewpoint, but think that spiritual maturity can occur to a limited extent outside of that belief system.
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6 comments:
how about sampling the spiritual disciplines and religious temples, "looking" for the unseen in a variety of environments (downtown, near water, in a field, etc. . . .this one is maybe a bit too vague) and visiting countries with a different religious influence?
or how about having them develop a set of survey questions for random people on the street, and various temple leaders?
Interesting point, Duff. We are going to be using art therapy to access this stuff from a clinical perspective.
I guess a good way to frame this is where do you want your hypothetical children to be at the age of say, 16?
You've great some great ideas on what to do...but what's the lesson you're hoping they'll learn from them?
i guess it depends on what you mean by spiritual development.
the point i was making would be to see the big picture and make your own decision. as buddha would say "work out your own salvation with diligence"
i would hope the child would understand that there are universal (absolute?) truths out there, but they must be sought not received.
recieved from other people, that is.
that and a holistic approach to spiritual development of mind, body, and spirit.
The Pete, You make some great points. This is exactly the things that my friend and I have been batting around.
We think that we need to explicitly say that holding truth claims is NOT a sign of immaturity, but that having unexamined Truth claims IS a sign of poor spiritual development.
We're trying to find that middle road that will help adults be more comfortable with teens being on a road of discovery, and trusting God will help them to find if the seek.
Another said finding, sociologist Christian Smith found that even teens who had attended church all their lives could not articulate their faith, or explain what role Jesus played.
So, how do we teach kids the tenets of our faith in a way that aids retention while also encouraging exploration and understanding of other faith traditions?
Aye, I think most churches aren't even trying, because it's darn hard.
the Catholics have got a good thing going : church history / ancestry. where we came from, who made the decisions, etc. evangelicals seem to stress the individual to a fault. as well, the evangelical "conversion" is primarily an emotional thing. those are more difficult to retain.
that said, it would have been cool growing up to have either visited other temples (like mosques, budhist, hindu, cathedral) and have a Q&A / information lecture from a leader of those faith traditions instead of sitting in the church getting a filtered version (especially of the catholic faith).
the best i was able to do when i had the chance to be in charge was the book "The Illustrated World's Religions" by Houston Smith.
adults being comfortable with that? those are rare adults. it might help if the adults were included in the field trip. (sorry i'm stuck on the field trips)
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