How do you know when you are grown up? What makes an adult an “adult”?
In the YMCA, when we do youth development, how do we know when we’ve been successful? What do young men and women of character look like? Especially under pressure?
This extended quote from German Christian pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, taken from his Letters and Papers from Prison, resonated with me when it came to discerning some characteristics of being an adult.
Written while under duress during World War 2, his character tested daily, with time to reflect on his life, on humanity, on becoming a mature adult, Bonhoeffer writes this while in a Gestapo prison:
But is it not characteristic of adults, in contrast to an immature person, that their center of gravity is always where they actually are, and that the longing for their fulfillment of their wishes cannot prevent them from being their whole self, wherever they happen to be?
The adolescent is never wholly in one place; that is one of the essential characteristics of youth, else he would presumably be a dullard.
There is a wholeness about the fully grown adult which enables a person to face an existing situation squarely.
Adults may have their longings, but they keep them out of sight, and somehow master them; and the more they have to overcome in order to live fully in the present, the more they will have the respect and confidence of other people, especially the younger ones, who are still on the road that the adult has already travelled.
Desires to which we cling closely can easily prevent us from being what we ought to be and can be; and on the other hand, desires repeatedly mastered for the sake of present duty make us richer.
Lack of desire is poverty.
Almost all the people whom I find in my present surroundings in prison cling to their own desires, and so have no interest in others; they no longer listen, and they are incapable of loving their neighbor.
I think that even in this place we ought to live as if we had no wishes and no future, and just be our true selves.
For me: I am guided forward by Bonhoeffer’s comments on being an adult by becoming fully present with my whole self.
In whatever situation I find myself as a man, a dad and husband, a YMCA pastor or neighbor – being present as Tim is more vital than letting my desires wrench me a way from the present to the future.
And no greatness comes to from living in the past or the future.
In fact, at times, these desires have produced self-loathing and depression in me – for I felt that me being me would undermine my ability to fulfill my desires to great things.
On this side of that darkness, I am becoming more open to becoming more present by mastering my desires and focusing on the duties set out before me.
My future-oriented desires undermine the vitality of what is happening right now. I suppose the same would work for my past-oriented desires of regret or nostalgia.
I know that I don’t want to become the kind of person who takes no interest in others, doesn’t listen, and is incapable of loving my neighbor.
Learning to be aware of my desires, no matter how noble I think some of them feel, acknowledging them without fueling them, will help me live in the present; becoming aware of Christ’s presence in my life and embracing the duties that God and society have presented to me in the now is a sign of being a Christian adult.
May you continue to grow in spirit and character as an adult, becoming present now to the caring and responsibility set before you.
Or, in the words of St. Paul to the Church of Corinth:
“Love always bears up, always trusts, always hopes, always endures.
Love never ends; but prophecies will pass, tongues will cease, knowledge will pass.
For our knowledge is partial, and our prophecy partial; but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, argued like a child; now that I have become a man, I have finished with childish ways.
For now we see obscurely in a mirror, but then it will be face to face.
Now I know partly; then I will know fully, just as God has fully known me.
But for now, three things last — trust, hope, love; and the greatest of these is love.”
1 Corinthians 13:7-13 CJB
