Monday, June 25, 2012

Generation Gap Revisited


This year mountain laurel showed up in places where I had never noticed it before.  It has already faded.
I want to include here some further observations about Rohr's Falling Upward.  Like other models of growth, Rohr's model says that you must go through one to get to the other.  It is essential to do the tasks of the 1st half of life well, in order to do the tasks of the 2nd half.
It is also true of other growth theories that those at the lower levels do not understand those at a higher level.  To someone in the 1st half of life, the thinking of someone in the 2nd half of life doesn't make a bit of sense.  A pastor said that his associate thinks the pastor is way out of line.
Those in the 2nd half of life, like those on a higher level of development in other growth theories, are able to undertand those in the 1st half of life because they have been there and done those tasks with absolute surety that that's the way things must be done.  That helps me in understanding some of the young who seem so inflexible.
Along the same lines, Rohr says that most institutions are 1st half of life, concerned with boundaries and membership and rules.  It is in the nature of most institutions. And sometimes those who make it to the leadership of institutions are still in the 1st half of life.  I hope that insight can help me to be more patient when institutions aren't what I think they should be.
To those in 2nd half Rohr observes, "You learn to positively ignore and withdraw your energy from evil or stupid things rather than fight them directly."

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