Searching for a Spiritual Home

I was lucky enough to find The Christian Community in its early days as a teenager. We began in Vancouver in a small house, where Werner and Alsten Hegg lived. Because it was also their home, we always felt welcome. In those days, there was actually a group of young people who had been drawn to it. You have to remember, it was the early 70's. Young people were actively seeking new ideas and answers. They weren't happy with the world they were inheriting, nor with the narrow religious beliefs they had grown up with. They knew things weren't working, and there were tremendous wrongs that needed to be addressed.

Our church was SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT! It was in a small, cozy room. There was the deep purple background, which seemed to draw you into something mysterious. There were clouds of incense - heavenly! The priest seemed very intent, and the things he talked about were DEEP! This was great!

The lure of the deep and mysterious is something we overlook as adults, but for young people, this is something they are instinctively seeking. Perhaps they are dimly aware that their spiritual guardians are drawing away, and it is now up to them to find their way back.

I was privileged to attend a parenting class last Fall, in the process of being developed by the Psychology Department at Simon Fraser University. It is based on all the theoretical work that has evolved over almost the past 100 years: Freud, Maslow, Jung, etc., only now it is focussed on developing practical applications. The whole exercise is based on attachment theory: independence and connection. Teenagers are at one and the same time striving for independence, but still want to feel connected. This is the same path humanity is following, too. We want to make our own decisions in freedom, but still need to find ways to stay connected with our spiritual home.

These days, there are so many electronic distractions for young people, it is hard to compete. We need to find ways of opening our doors and letting them know of the possibilities that exist within. We need to find ways of including them, in participating, exploring. If you take a few minutes to tune in to a popular teen music radio station, it will help you to begin to understand today's youth. Like the music in our generation, it may be loud, rebellious, rude, lewd. But there are some very good songs, too, of love, hope, friendship, sacrifice. Artists always have the pulse of the current generation: poets, songwriters, graffiti artists, playwrights.

It is up to us to LISTEN and LEARN. That is partly what parenting a teenager is all about, too. As toddlers, children are always asking, why? why? until sometimes we become so exasperated the answer is "because"! As teenagers, the question is: why not? Why can't we solve world hunger? Why can't there be world peace? We say, it is not that simple. But the answer becomes the question, Why Not?

Sparky