There's no mistaking the fact that society is on to something in its increasing attempt to unpack mysteries of the modern "twenty-something." I wonder how the Church might most aptly come alongside, if not lead, this process?

 

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What Is It About 20-Somethings?

By ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG

My friend Deborah just forwarded the following NY Times article. So much to learn from these lines...

Bill Wilson’s Gospel

By David Brooks

On Dec. 14, 1934, a failed stockbroker named Bill Wilson was struggling with alcoholism at a New York City detox center. It was his fourth stay at the center and nothing had worked. This time, he tried a remedy called the belladonna cure — infusions of a hallucinogenic drug made from a poisonous plant — and he consulted a friend named Ebby Thacher, who told him to give up drinking and give his life over to the service of God.

Wilson was not a believer, but, later that night, at the end of his rope, he called out in his hospital room: “If there is a God, let Him show Himself! I am ready to do anything. Anything!”

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Two Men and Two Paths

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

When Wes Moore won a Rhodes scholarship in 2000, The Baltimore Sun published an article about his triumph. He was the first student at Johns Hopkins to win a Rhodes in 13 years, and the first black student there ever to win the award.

At about the same time, The Sun published articles about another young African-American man, also named Wes Moore. This one was facing charges of first-degree murder for the killing of an off-duty police officer named Bruce Prothero, a father of five.

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A well of tears led the words I was hearing from across the table: “I thought following Jesus would make life easier; I thought it would make me be a better person. But clearly what I thought about following Jesus was wrong.” I sighed, empathizing with these shared sorrows, but inwardly somehow rejoicing, too, knowing a new stage of growth was evidencing before me.

Too often we equate spiritual maturity with a life of ease and absence of sin. Too often we assume the “mature Christian” means the one seldom wrought by weakness, fear, or insecurity, ascribing such “fleshly tendencies” as “fixed” and far from the faithful one’s attention. Such is untrue of the Christian Gospel though.

Fruits of maturity do not entail perfection, independence, or a lack of weakness, but rather, realized imperfection, Dependence and lack of solo strength apart from the ongoing rescue of Christ. When talking about true spiritual maturity, we’re talking about inadequacy no longer binding us to a dead-end, but rather, to a Stained Beginning, beckoning us beyond our selves, back toward our true identity and state of Home.

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I’m reviewing a thoughtful book called, No Stones, Women Redeemed from Sexual Addiction, by Marnie Ferree (IVP, 2010). Though I’ve known a lot of men who struggle in such realms, I was unaware that women struggle at similar frequencies and degrees. Ferree’s spiritual, psychological and practical insights are quite remarkable, and definitely recommended. Consider some of the following quotes:

“Why is this called “sex addiction”? I hate that label! Don’t you get that it’s not about the sex! Sex is just what I have to give to get what I really want, which is love, and touch, and nurture and assurance I’m okay” (a Christian woman battling sex addiction…married with young children and teaches in a private Christian school). Page 56

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Why no! I never thought other than
That God is that great absence
In our lives, the empty silence
Within, the place where we go
Seeking, not in hope to
Arrive or find. He keeps the interstices
In our knowledge, the darkness
Between stars. His are the echoes
We follow, the footprints he has just
Left. We put our hands in
His side hoping to find
It warm. We look at people
And places as though he had looked
At them, too; but miss the reflection.

R.S. Thomas (1913-2000)