Maturity Measured

We may miss the meaning of both human and spiritual maturity in our preoccupation with only physical maturity.  When we speak of our children reaching their maturity we may strike on the image of a young person beginning their majority on graduation from high school, or reaching his or her twenty-first birthday.  It may be a short period that is widely appreciated and sought after in the physical appearance of the individual for decades after firm flesh and inner energy have been diminished, perhaps lost, along with innocence.  The period is so attractive to the self of persons that even society tends to forgive early violations of maturity, and permits youth some delay, a factor necessary for the health of life, families and society. (Juveniles are sometimes evaluated for classification in law-breaking, relative to their generation in court – whether to be tried as a juvenile or adult.)  Without maturity both individuals and groupings of individuals, young or old, are likely victimized by their own unsatisfactory development.  Persons seeking satisfaction in ill habits (like drugs and alcohol); selfishness (like anything that disregards other persons); omission of universal values (depletion or distortion of morality in honesty integrity, ill conducts and the like); disregard of responsibility (making little contribution, to the maintenance of healthy life); and, for Christians a neglect of effort to seek and practice the preferences of God (summarized in Scripture) – are persons who to greater or lesser degree evade the duty to become mature in thought and practice.  This call to maturity is an important reason why the early years were formed, and maturity, a growing reality in individuals, may be chosen at any point, having no necessary connection with the age of the person’s physical body.  All persons within their contexts of life are called to maturity and in its careful formation find the good life for self and others.  We may mature well in some factors, and poorly in others.  Every high-schooler should be asked if he/she wants to be treated like a juvenile (child) or an adult (maturity) as a personal objective).  Context becomes different in the answers.  We offer too little attention to process.

Early in my studies I discovered the literature and contributions of Erik Erikson who, in his halcyon professional years, came up with a list of eight distinct stages of human development.  In the growth perception of his theory he would develop new material in the stages and amend other ideas.  At last, growing old in retirement years, he added another stage that he felt he missed in his professional years.  He called it wisdom in which the elderly could ward off despair that was brought on by old age.  Articles on the subject of wisdom quote this or that psychologist, sociologist, author, artist, ordinary person saying the same thing, but I have seldom seen in these excellent papers and articles a reference to Scripture that long ago gave the menu of life that would accomplish what the writer/speaker was communicating to me.  For the Christian all this is given with icing on the cake that includes God’s assistance to those who request that help, and absorb it, especially related to prayer, so to manage well the decline of the body, the body once used to define the meaning of maturity, that now defines overpowering weakness and declining functions.

Maturity should be a favorite theme for persons and institutions.  It bears an appeal in the word itself. Christian maturity was seen during much of church history as emanating from the holiness of God.  It functions, when at the full, with a concern for the right and best for both self and others.  It moves toward excellence, for intelligence rather than nonsense, for affirmations rather than negations.  The most complete compliment anyone might give me would be that I am a mature person both humanly and spiritually.  Scripture rates maturity to excellence.  The King James Version uses the word perfection for maturity.  It is important to any perception of a full life and relates to meaning for life with some mastery for life.  It includes the knowledge and understanding of that which is available to us, and does not wail about omissions.  In affirmations there is problem solving and personal management.  We call it wisdom because that is what God calls it.  We like to call the Magi visiting the infant Jesus, Wise Men. They came in an orderly way, perceived Herod, and Mary, Joseph and the Babe.  They went home by another route.  We honor them as wise and fulfilled.  Wisdom can enter our lives early.  It takes a lifetime to ripen fully.