Development. It seems that I've been studying it all of my life. Observing humanity in all its phases and the generosity of the people who have shared the secret stories of their lives in counseling have taught me many things. It seems to me that life advances in three stages. In stage one we are taken care of. In stage two we learn to care for ourselves. In stage three we care for others.
In the first stage we are children and we are taken care of. Every baby who survives has been cared for to some extent, well cared for or badly cared for. There is usually one main provider and a group of support providers who make it possible for the human to move through the years from birth to approximately 12. From 12 to early twenties we are in the autonomy phase and are seeking the skills and understanding to take care of ourselves. One who completes this phase successfully can say "I take care of myself. I pay my own bills". In actuality I hear this phrase from many 40, 50 and even 60 year olds who seem to think that their adolescent and self centered functioning is the pinnacle of their life goals. Fully developed people move from taking care of themselves to taking care of others. From approximately 22 on we nurture the lives of our spouses and children, our old ones, and the other neighbors who we have in our lives (siblings, friends, students, patients, neighbors).
Those who get stuck in stage two I refer to as Guys and Gals. They don't get the joy and peace that results from moving into stage three and they suffer a stunted, chronically adolescent life. Men and women advance into stage three in differing levels of success. Those who put some energy into spiritual growth have a heightened adulthood in that they extend the definition of others to include the poor, the marginalized, the people that are very different from themselves (the alien) and some, ultimately, move to loving their enemies (even those who actively work against their very lives). These I think of as having moved beyond adulthood and into the realm of the next Life phase. These are the saints.
In essence all the skills, knowledge and experience that we acquire through our childhood and student years have a purpose. Some work and strive to win, be the best. Their motivation is pride in their own talents and strengths. They want to climb higher than those around them. Our goats remind me of these people. Goats are always juggling for position. If there is a little rise of ground in the field the dominant goat will want it and if she moves a little farther off to graze the others will start to contend for the highest ground. The traditional school system plants and nurtures this thinking in many overt and subtle ways. Students are constantly encouraged to focus on the competition for college slots and scholarships. Work hard in school and you will beat everyone out for the good schools, good jobs, good life. You will win, others will lose. It's you against the world. The constant end goal in these encouragements is stage 2.
To help people become fully adult men and women we should point out the goal from their youths. The goal is to strive to become giving, nurturing, loving people. We develop our bodies, intellects, skills, talents so that we can share them with our neighbor (who includes our parents, siblings, spouses, children and everyone else in the world). We learn so that we can teach. We get strong so that we can give a strong hand to helping. We learn to sing well so that we can share joy and beauty with the world, not so that we can drown them out and forever sing solo.
God is so good in the way He teaches us to love. Babies don't really love they just receive love. As they grow they learn to love their parents and siblings then a friend. The first friend is usually the same gender and frequently has the same coloring and build. Many kids in their first friendship even choose to dress alike and wear their hair in the same style. The easiest love to learn is to love someone very much like ourselves.
Later we discover the opposite gender and much of the wonder of it all is that they don't look like us; don't talk or walk like us; and they certainly don't think like us. We begin to learn to love the OTHER and this is the first step to loving the alien, the stranger, the person of different race, language and culture. As we learn that someone doesn't have to be anything at all like us to be loved, we move toward the ability to love our enemy and to do good to those who hate us. This is the Gospel goal and the mark of the saint.
