Adolescent Spirituality

Adolescent Spirituality 1 Adolescent Spiritual Development by Donald Ratcliff, Ph.D. Reprinted by permission from Salt and Light (2002) I was a teenage hypocrite. Or at least that is what it would seem to most people, although I would not have thought so at the time. I was an adolescent who attended church regularly, prayed at least occasionally, and even worked at a Christian radio station on the weekends. At times I would lead people in the “sinner’s prayer” as they listened on the radio. When people called the radio station, I sometimes provided advice of a spiritual nature. Many people looked up to me as something near ideal as a Christian teenager. I was even featured on the cover of a magazine for Christian teenagers! But the fact was that when I was with my friends, I was a different person. Most of my friends were anything but Christian. I don’t recall hurting anyone, although we did cause discomfort with some of our pranks—a favorite was ringing the church bell in the middle of the night. We also did a few things that were outside of the bounds of the law, primarily for the excitement of the experience. Often teenagers participate in such risky behavior because they enjoy retelling the experience over and over with friends (Lightfoot, 1997), and I suspect that was a strong incentive for my group as well. At the time, my experience as simultaneous saint and sinner did not seem as wildly incongruent as it does in retrospect. I have been quite perplexed with those memories. My experience also points to the complexity of the topic before us. Adolescence is such a strange time of life, and to speak of spirituality during this time period only adds more complexity. What is Adolescence? Perhaps it may clarify things to define what we are talking about. First, what is adolescence? The simple definition seems clear at first, but quickly becomes murky. Adolescence, of course, is that period of life between childhood and adulthood. But when does childhood end and when does adulthood begin? For most of history, and for many non-Western cultures today, those two events coincide—childhood ends and adulthood begins with biological maturity, often celebrated with a special rite of passage such as the Jewish bar mitzvah. The time “in-between” childhood and adulthood is a few days, a couple of weeks at most, after which the twelve or thirteen-year-old is considered an adult; ready for career, marriage, and starting a family. It has only been about a hundred years that we have had a several year period termed “adolescence,” where the child is no longer a child yet is not considered an adult (Koteskey, 1991). Like many things—both good and bad—adolescence is the product of the Industrial Revolution, although it did not become firmly rooted in American soil until the Roaring Twenties, and became universally accepted with the Baby Boom generation of the late 1940’s and 1950’s. This social invention was created, in part, so that the prolonged education deemed necessary for a literate society would be readily accessible (it is also possible that high unemployment was a motive for removing teenagers from the labor market). It was a grand social experiment, this invention called “adolescence,” but the results at best can be described as mixed. When the negative consequences of the invention of adolescence are considered, such as increased use of illegal drugs, sexual license, vandalism, and other evils, the results for some teens is closer to catastrophe. Thus adolescence is an invented period of life when teenagers are provided with an ambiguous role to play—if they are neither children nor adults, what are they? They decide who they are, and do so in two ways. First, adolescents individually choose an identity, rather than having an identity provided for them, as it was prior to the Industrial Revolution (a boy usually entered his father’s trade, a girl followed her mother’s role). Adolescents also define themselves collectively in the phenomenon of “youth culture” (Davies, 1991), usually in the form of new music, unusual styles of dress, and creation of innovative words (“argot”), all of which distinguish them from children and adults. As a result, adolescence is in constant flux, as the youth culture of one era is infused into the mainstream culture of the next, and people bring selected parts of their adolescence into adulthood, leaving the next generation of adolescents to reinvent itself with different music, different styles, and different lingo. Adolescent Spirituality 2 What is Spiritual Development? In his summary of the literature, Kenneth Hyde (1991) describes many religious aspects of adolescence, such as their behavior, attitudes, influences, and understandings of religion. While most Christian schools and churches have emphasized learning about the Bible, God, and beliefs, the last few years have produced a new emphasis upon the experiential aspects of faith, often termed “spirituality.” This is in part because one can know a great deal about God, and even make an initial commitment to the Christian faith, yet not have an active, ongoing relationship with God that includes religious experiences. “Spirituality” emphasizes awe, wonder, and other experiences that are beyond mundane, everyday life, and that connect the individual to something transcendent and/or of ultimate importance. While spirituality includes experiences with God, it can also include awe and wonder from experiences such as viewing a beautiful sunset that overwhelms the person emotionally and even perceptually. Spiritual experience can be either positive and constructive, or negative and counterproductive (Hay & Nye, 1998). A Few Negative Spiritualities [this designation is similar to what Berryman (1991) terms “pseudo-play”] 1. Violence 2. Suicide 3. Bullying 4. Illegal Drug Use 5. Risk-Taking 6. Controlling with Detachment and Disguise (by “spirituality sponges” who are parasites, says Berryman) 7. Lack of Moral Impulse/Corruption 8. Lack of Concern for Others 9. Meaninglessness 10. Prejudice 11. Materialism 12. Evil Personality (M. Scott Peck) The Importance of Being Grateful and Tips to be Grateful Count your Blessings and not your Crosses we were told as children, and this holds as true for us as adults. Being grateful for what you have reminds you not to be envious and jealous and helps us in our quest to be content and happy. Here are the following tips to develop an attitude of gratitude- 1. In the morning and at night before going to bed, say a prayer of gratitude even for mundane things such as a new day, the fact that you have a home, family, job and so on. 2. Be grateful for each meal; that gives you three occasions in a day to be grateful for; to remind yourself how grateful you should be that there is food to eat on each of those occasions. 3. Verbalize one thing each day that you are grateful for, to a partner, friend or family member. Those that live alone can express the same thought of gratitude to a journal. 4. Be grateful for things you desire. Putting your goals into words can help you achieve those goal. 5. On the hour, each waking hour, look around and give thanks for one thing – set a cell phone timer or watch to go off each hour to remind you to do this.