‘Growing Up’

3/7/2017

I was Thinking…

I am the proud owner of my maternal grandfather’s (Pappy) 1954 pick-up truck. It is full of memories. As a young teenager Pappy would allow me to drive the truck when my grandmother and mother were unaware, of course. It is a “three on the tree” (a three speed on the steering column) that was simply fun to learn to drive. As I grew older Pappy would allow me to drive it around his 10 acre lake and it created in me a sense of fun and a sense of ‘growing up’.

Pappy smoked ‘King Edward’ cigars. Every now and then I get a ‘whiff’ of his cigar of which the aroma I suspect is embedded in the fabric of the old seat of the truck. When I get that ‘whiff’ my mind is flooded with memories of times gone by in my ‘growing up’ years with Pappy and his 1954 Chevrolet pick-up truck.

‘Growing up’ is a journey. It is full of many influences and influencers. It contains mistakes and victories. Some of what happens to us in our ‘growing up’ years is of no fault of our own. We don’t choose our parents, relatives, baby-sitters, neighborhoods and generally childhood experiences. Once we are of age to make choices we are often building on those experiences or trying to shun any unfortunate experiences. ‘Growing up’ is difficult work.

Author and counselor, John Bradshaw wrote many years ago “The problem we have in America today is that we have ‘adult children’ raising ‘adult children’.” I’ve not forgotten that insight. My goal has always been to ‘grow up’ and not remain a child…become an adult child. It is hard some days…it is a journey and it takes intentional work.

I am learning that ‘soul work’ has a lot to do with ‘growing up’. When I attend to the spiritual disciplines of prayer, study, generosity, fasting, etc. I realize a maturing of faith and life. However, when I neglect the feeding of my soul I find myself moving backward into an ‘adult child’ way of relating to myself and others. It is then my ‘growing up’ becomes stale, stagnate and stops in its tracks.

In this Lenten season how are we ‘growing up’? It is an ever evolving movement. As my dad has said about faith development across his years of ministry “We’re either rowing upstream or floating downstream…there’s no sitting still in the river of faith.”

Always Thinking…