Becoming ourselves !

Anna and I warmly welcome each of you to the FRIDAY FORUM, after a break of 14 years. It was a weekly ritual in our home, while we lived in the CMC Vellore campus till 2006. We had a conversation time at our home on Friday evenings, which evolved into a formative experience for some young people. 

Now we feel encouraged to revive it in view of some conversations or correspondences we have had with some friends. The dislocations or interruptions the COVID 19 pandemic brought to our lives have left us wondering and pondering.  Most of the questions or conversations we hear in the recent months were related to the theme of LIFE, LIIVNG and LEARNING. It was on this theme we reflected and wrote in 2006, a copy of which titled, Initiative for Integrated Living (IFIL) was circulated to you. That brief introduction forms the framework within which we shall have conversations when we meet on Fridays. 

Life is a treasure of happenings, events and experiences. Living is an exercise of journeying and encountering. Learning is an art of integrating life-events to educate, instruct and celebrate the joy of being ourselves. 

Let me share a reflection on BECOMING OURSELVES, which we would have explored on 6^th November 2020, had we had a functional internet connection. 

Years back, when Anna and I visited the House of Memorial in Jerusalem, erected in the memory of millions of children exterminated during the holocaust, something struck us and stayed with us since then. The interior of the hexagonal building was partitioned by mirrors. As you enter the house, one suddenly comes across hundreds of candle lights burning, which give a magnificent look with their reflections appearing from all directions. As we walk pass each section, we hear the recorded commentary of children of Jewish origin, from different countries who were killed, along with some information about the circumstances in which it happened. After about 20 minutes of walking inside the house, the guide concluded the tour with his remarks on the ‘beyondness’ of earthly life. While those children were denied the ‘fullness’ of life or a lifetime experience on earth, they still live on, as people, whose memory linger on in human hearts. They were not victims but valiant children, who gave their lives for redeeming the world from such a catastrophe happening anytime in the future to children of the world.

All lives have a ‘beyondness’ that is larger than the existential dimension of our lives. It is this which makes human lives sacred, valuable and eternal. 

There are three features which are common to all of us who have agreed to be part of this Friday Forum. We are medical professionals, most of us are in training in various disciplines or getting ready to begin our training and we are young adults. 

Erik Erikson (1902-1994), a developmental psychologist of considerable reputation who proposed the theory of Seven Stages of Psycho-social Development described the ages between 19 and 40 years as young adulthood. All of you joining in this Friday Forum are young adults. According to this theory, the young adulthood is a period of intimacy versus isolation, which leads to developing relationships. Let me explore this theme further.

What might be the features of this young adulthood season! How are we to know that we have entered the young adulthood cognitively, emotionally, relationally and volitionally, while we belong to that age group! 

Let me try if I can explore this from the life of Jesus of Nazareth, because He moved from a private life to a public life around thirty years of age. He at that time was a young adult. 

One experience in the early in public life of Jesus, might give us some insights about the way He exercised His adulthood in a rather demanding situation. We read about it in John’s gospel, Chapter 2, verses 1-20. Please refer to this passage in your Bible and keep it open while you continue reading the text below. Let me bring a reflection from this passage for our consideration on: Transition into adulthood to Become Ourselves 

At the wedding at Cana, the wine had run out. On hearing this, mother of Jesus, Mary said to Jesus, ‘They have no wine’ (v3). It appears to be a statement of fact superficially. It came from the mother of Jesus, who conceived Jesus following the visitation of an angel, who told her (Luk.1:30-33) that, ‘Mary, You, have found favour with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever; and His kingdom will have no end’. 

After Jesus was born, in the narration about the events related to Mary, we are told that ‘Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart’ (Luk.2:19). Mary intuitively had known that Jesus, her son was also the Son of God, whose authority and power would indeed bring surprises to people. Was that foreknowledge, that prompted Mary to approach Jesus, hoping that something unusual would be forthcoming through His intervention to provides wine for the guests at the wedding! Or was it only a mother’s expectation to see her son do something special to save the situation! Was it also an occasion for a mother to demonstrate her influence on her son in public! The whole passage has something to do with a transformation taking place in the mother-son relationship. 

There are three relational redefinitions we observe in this conversation between Jesus and His mother. Let me explore this.

The first relational redefinition was the question of Jesus to His mother, ‘What do I have to do with you’! (v.4) It is a disturbing or disrespectful question in one sense. It was a question of expressing independence about His position visa-vi His relationship with His mother. 

Jesus had demonstrated His keenness to pursue His direction in his life, at 12 years, when Jesus went with his parents to the temple (Luk.2:41-52). The parents of Jesus returned after the visit, presuming that Jesus was also in the caravan and went a day’s journey. Jesus had stayed back in the temple and His parents were unaware of this (v43). They looked for Him and did not find Him in the caravan. They returned to the temple. They found him in the temple, ‘sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions’(v46). His mother said to Him, ‘Son, why have you treated us this way? Your father and I have been anxiously looking for you’ (v48). That was when Jesus surprised them with a counter question, ‘Why is it that you were looking for me? Did you not know that I had to be in my Father’s house?’ 

Jesus was preparing Himself to follow His calling from young age. This involved gradual weaning Himself away from the ‘control and plan’ of His parents and others. At the wedding at Cana, it was the same freedom Jesus was seeking from His mother. To me it occurs to be an announcement that He was more than just a son to them and therefore they did not have a claim on Him to fulfil their aspirations.  

Every baby at birth has his or her umbilical cord cut in order to give a new life to the baby and to end the pregnancy. This is the earliest biological signal of two different identities for the mother and child from then on. During the infancy there evolves a new relationship between the baby and mother, which we call as ‘attachment behaviour’, which in the later years would develop into a mutually dependent relationship. This relationship is beneficial, but counterproductive if it does not mature into an adult relationship which has different features than what is inherent in the attachment behaviour.

Jesus with this question to His mother, ‘What do have I to do with you’ was seeking   freedom from the obligations of this relationship, in order to discern and choose His course in life as an adult. 

The second relational redefinition we find is the next comment of Jesus to His mother, ‘My hour has not come’ (v4). It was not His mother’s expectation that Jesus came to fulfil, but His heavenly Father’s, about which Jesus was aware, ‘My meat is to do the will of my Father who sent me’(John.4:34). It was not His mother who from then on would choose the scope and details of His divine purpose or mission, but He Himself. This was a clarification on the emerging new relationship, different from a child-mother relationship of inter-dependence. It was a new adult-mother relationship of freedom and space for choices for both. It is when parents become aware of the larger ‘becoming’ of their son or daughter as they enter adulthood, an adult 'child' can move from the shadow of his or her parents to a space larger than the family space they hitherto occupied.   

The third relational redefinition occurred, when Mary told the servants, ‘Whatever He says do it’ (v5). It was a statement of advancement in her understanding of the new contour and content of relationship with her son. Mary was letting Jesus to choose His plan and time to act, and withdrawing from an earlier position of nudging Him to act. Jesus felt freed from the imposing expectation of His mother and Mary allowed the beginning of new tone in their relationship. In this new role of an adult-parent relationship, there emerges a freeing and enlarging mutual acceptance and trust without the control by obligations or conditions. From then on, the relationship would be seasoned by freedom to give and receive freely and unconditionally. No more expectations or disappointments in an adult-parent relationship of respect and appreciation! It would be one of contentment and acknowledgments rather than of waiting for more and more from each other.

Each of us, according to the Psalmist (Psalm 139:14) is ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’. Our identity is embodied within us from the time we are born. The years of childhood through adolescence to young adulthood are the years of journeying into discovering this. One possibility that Erik Erikson pursued was, ‘whether we grow up into adulthood as substitutes of others with whom we were closely associated with’! 

One Biblical example of such an indication is from the life of David, when he was about to face Goliath (I Sam 17:20-49). When David was getting ready to fight Goliath, the king Saul ‘clothed David with his garments and put a bronze helmet on his head and he clothed him with armour’(v.38). But David declined to go with that armour as he was not familiar with it. Instead he proceeded to fight Goliath with a sling and five stones. His confidence to trust his arms and sling came from his earlier experience of subduing lion and bear who came to steal the sheep while he was tending them (v 34,35). With one stone from David’s sling, Goliath fell on his face. David had to choose to be himself in this challenging situation to the disapproval of all around him. David had to transcend the pressure of his brothers and King Saul to become truly himself. 

The transition into adulthood, is a continuous journey during post teen years. It starts with an inner awareness or desire to know through a discovery of what we are endowed with.   Each of us is not a phenotypical prototype of our parents, brothers or sisters or other role models that we are fond of or emulate in our lives. This consciousness has to do with our being- who we are, whose we are and what we are to be. This is obviously more than about our doing- what profession we are in or what work we do!  We do not enter adulthood automatically. The culture and traditions we are part of, often promote dependency, obligations and compulsions because of which we do not become free to grow and embrace our adulthood. It is this which makes some of us feel devastated or choked inside without the true freedom to discover our true self and nourish and nurture it. 

 

I remember reading a story from the book, The gardener by Grian, an inspiring collection of stories about a simple man and the wonderful garden he cultivated. One story, The wood is about a lake surrounded by woods and cliffs, which the gardener used to visit. He found peace and beauty during his visits. To his utter disappointment, a dreadful fire had grazed the woods to the ground during a bush fire in the summer. Saddened by the sight of the deserted land around the lake, the farmer during each of his visit in the spring and autumn, scattered bag full of seeds of maple and oak. He revisited the lakeside next summer to find that among the new grass, there was a new growth of pines and tender leaves in the oaks destroyed in the fire. He found shoots of maple and oak spread out on the lakeside. His dream while scattering the handful of seeds each time was to see the lakeside restored to its earlier wooded state. What he saw was the beginning of that dream. The gardener restored the landscape by him sowing the seeds in due season. 

The inner landscape of our life might suffer losses and we might feel bereft time and again. It is on such seasons we are depleted of energy and enthusiasm to live our lives fully and joyfully. God is the gardener of our inner landscape. He would redeem and restore, but also would make our inner landscape a garden of abundance. 

Allowing the gardener to access our inner landscape is the beginning of the journey into adulthood!

It is when we are aware of the events and experiences in our inner landscape, we are ready to welcome God of our lives to visit and refresh our lives.

The first step in Becoming Ourselves is grow in this dual consciousness- knowing ourselves, our journey station and being known of God who is ever present within us. 

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)