Identity Development in Early Adolescence

One of my chief interests, the interest that holds together my broader sense of calling to ministry, counseling, and academia, is identity development. Dr. Lynn New was instrumental in planting this seed of understanding and interest in me, a soil predisposed to such a vocational area, given my unique and varied collection of personality traits and social contexts. I believe that there is a measure of Providential will in my stumblings over brilliant writers like James Fowler, Frederich Beuchner, C.S. Lewis, Erich Fromm, M. Scott Peck, Kahlil Gibran, Carl Rogers, Lesslie Newbigin, Ernest Becker, Victor Frankl, and G.K. Chesterton, each who have their own way of ascribing meaning to identity development, calling, and vocation, each who have offered me a certain indispensable lens for which to interpret life and the process of becoming more and more mature in this world.

We're each children of God searching for our own way, our own selves, our own purposes, our own journeys; and, part and parcel to the maturation of a self is the commitment to love and serve others. We have each seen glimpses of the face of God; yet, we are also each still babes, wondering if our Parent any longer exists, since the glimpse has faded and most of what we see are just the Hands of something greater that we can't explain...at work, yes, but hiding behind themselves. "Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief." So, in faith, in mind, in heart, in the relational, we develop toward something awaiting beyond ourselves, and part of how we get there is by taking others with us.

And I am fortunate and energized by opportunities to assist real people in this way: parents who are distraught or disoriented; peers who covet the experience of home or relationship or calling; and, most of all, children and adolescents whose identities are just beginning to bud. They remain at the brink of something both excruciating and enchanting, waiting and longing for the encouragement and empowerment to emerge. They are us, back then. They are the questions and confusions and longings that we barely remember, yet that are still central to who we are. They are the sages and gurus and princes for our children and our children's children. And, whether we are sages or gurus or princes, we are called to the service of their mentorship, by which we may actually resolve some of our own unconscious neuroses, our emotional bag, the insecurities and restlessness that impede our metamorphosis to the next stage of development. Maturity is ongoing; you may be mature for yesterday but childish for tomorrow. C.S. Lewis once said something to this effect: "I finally began to 'put away childish things,' as I was taught in Scripture, when I began to put away the childish desire to be something more than a child." Being ourselves is, ultimately, so basic and elemental.