Spirituality

Campfires, Tattoos, and Blood Oaths: Rites of Passage in Adolescence

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / Leave a comment

When I was living in North Carolina several years ago I attended a great training on helping youth navigate their transitions to adulthood by appreciating their need for ritual and rites of passage.  I may still have that material around here somewhere, but for now I “dig out” a lot of resources with Google.  Today I found this project that is very similar to the one I knew in Durham:  ROPE is Rite of Passage Experience.

Children and teens have a natural impulse to create or take part in rites of passage experiences to claim their place as adults. If this impulse is not acknowledged and channeled, it can result in them turning to destructive activities such as drinking, smoking, bullying, sex, delinquent acts, joining gangs, and the use of drugs to mark for themselves and their peer group their entry into adulthood.

I loved the training I attended, because it was open to exploring the opportunities around young people’s natural instincts.  It also helped me appreciate why I think the West Virginia 4-H Program at Jackson’s Mill had such a strong influence on so many adolescents in my community.  The program has taken some heat for borrowing too heavily and perhaps not always authentically from Native American traditions; that said, those traditions, campfires, chants, shared songs, peace pipes, tribal affiliations and spirit sticks grabbed hold of a tremendous amount of teen energy and kept it constructive, serious, and positive.

Adolescence is a time of growth, and change, and mystery.  It is a time of powerful transition and even spiritual evolution.  It fascinates me how primitive but important developmental “tasks” are fulfilled one way or another as kids grow up.  The picture I chose for this post is from the movie Dead Poets Society. Students of a particularly inspiring teacher take to secret meetings in the woods to read the works of dead poets, but also to bond with each other and explore amongst themselves thoughts, dreams, and goals they have never allowed themselves to consider before in the broad light of adult expectations and rules.  For those who are supported, it is freeing and resets their life course for the better.  For the one student whose new fire is abruptly extinguished by a disapproving parent, it is devastating.

Like adults, kids have a need to mark their dramatic transitions with ritual and rites of passage.  That process will happen one way or the other in the adolescent years.   Caring adults can help it happen with purpose and long-term benefits.

Image credit: The Students of Welton Academy

How It Stops: Some Thoughts on “Westboro Baptist Church”

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / 5 Comments

“Westboro Baptist Church” is the name of a disturbed cult of a few dozen people.  They are not a church, they are not Baptist, and they are most likely severely mentally ill.

If you don’t know about this group, congratulations.  If you would like to learn about them in some detail, you might start with this link in the Huffington Post and then do some Google searching on your own.  I prefer not to link directly to any of the group’s websites.

I have seen this group do its thing in celebration of the deaths of West Virginia coal miners.  What got my attention above anything else seeing it “live” was the presence of children.  Weeping children are dragged along, forced to carry signs that say “God hates (fill in the blank).”  Because the children are with the WBC adult picketers, any negative energy that comes from opposition to the protest on the street lands like another crushing boulder on these young souls.

Keep in mind that WBC does what it does very well, and by design.  It is an emotional terrorist organization that preys on grieving communities and attempts to spark rage and backlash so as to further fragment fragile situations. 

Fragmentation increases the likelihood that people will turn on one another over the slightest differences or misunderstandings.  The first thing to do is have a moment of outrage in private with people you trust.  Get it out of your system if you must, but it is crucial to move on to a firm conviction that these people have no power, no authority, and no voice of significance about God, your loved ones, or your community.  They are themselves desperately in need of positive energy and even prayer for their well-being.

The children in the midst of the chaos need the most help.  However tempting, don’t engage WBC in anger.  The only way this ends, be it WBC or any band of disturbed hate-mongers, is to respond in peace and love.

Fake it if you must, but get it done in front of these kids.  That is how it stops.

Image credit: Pablo Picasso