Passages

Life is made more complex in that we face passages, transitions into varied contexts in life.  Those passages may be upward to better things, or downward to lesser.  They may appear slowly, or they may come in like a tsunami that seems unmanageable.  Many are small and some are extensive, but all are important to the order of mankind and nature.  They appear both in personal and social patterns, for individual persons and nations.  The personal and the social affect each other, sometimes colliding so to create tangled webs for us.  It takes well-formed maturity to manage the passages of life – large and small.  One is impressed how quickly the infant makes passage from womb to outer nature, from total dependence to assisted maintenance, in pain and ecstasy when all goes well for parents and attendants.  There will be other transitions along the way until the child, now an adult, decides alone to enter other passages and relationships for good or ill to the end of natural life.  Nearly all passages impact not only the individual persons in them, but in relationships between persons.  Relationships between parents and children are changed by the passage from childhood through puberty to adulthood for the child, and the aging of the parents.  The same thing happens for nations, so that after a war the combating nations may become better friends than that holding for allies in the warfare.  Society does limited planning for understanding and adjusting to the passages of life – personal or social.  Pain of the passages can be greatly reduced by educating populations to plan for world benefit so to reduce the negative factors and expand the positive. 

In the modern world there ought to be a common requirement in life course addressing the issues of passages in society touched by the explosion of population, the inescapable factors of individuals, families and community life, and the management of world society – showing the benefit of affirmations through all the weathers of life.  Such a course might do wonders for harnessing the marvelous energy of youth for constructive purpose, for themselves and the world they inhabit, and will inhabit.  Marriages would change from the early fires of romance, to the integrity of family, the nurture of children, the decline of the forces that dilute what we are meant to be as mature persons competent to solve problems – one of which is to accept persons as they are and contribute to helping them become what they are meant to be.  This is in a world in which God is more interested in one’s contribution to others than in concern for self – even concern for legitimate rights.  Every life should have some of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ in it as a point of identity with the family of God.  We need to know that if he accepted misunderstanding, and accusation, even physical abuse, we too can take some negatives in life without seeking self-aggrandizement.  It may be beyond my competence to affirm the specialness of such a life that brings a sense of fulfillment, a feeling that one’s own weaknesses and failures have been forgiven, partly corrected in contributions for good to others.  I have been dramatically aware of the sacrificial persons managing the transitions of their own lives and helping others to do so.  They have divine love and maturity – as in biblical Ruth/Naomi.

Some of the most moving and practical books I have read have dealt with the transitions of life.  Gail Sheehy gave us Passages, and followed up through decades with additional material.  Van Auken gave us A Severe Mercy, dealing with the death transition in a Christian context.  Van Auken highly regarded his eminent friend, C. S. Lewis, for insights and courage, but Van Auken was able to manage the transition of his wife’s death better than Lewis did on the death of his wife.  Lewis’ wife managed her own ordeal to death better than did her husband.  In all this there is a story to be told that leads to acceptance, joy in difficulty, problem-solving, and maturity for life – even for relationship with God.  The matter of passages goes on from personal understanding and adjustment to nations.  I have watched the English through the years go from a massive empire to the little Island in the North Sea.  Once an empire builder so that: The Sun never sets on the Union Jack.  That line is now outdated.  The British have steadily reduced foreign holdings in peace and good will.  The voluntary withdrawal from colonies was impressive.  The world ought to give some attention to honoring the ladies and gentlemen who transitioned from colonialism.