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PASTORAL PSYCHOLOGY
young people, this period is critical because it seems so
uneventful. The man or woman has largely adapted himself to his world.
He has gained a degree of poise and self-acceptance; he feels he
has come to terms with existence and its mysteries; and, perhaps
not least, he has achieved a certain measure of control over the
body and its importunities.
This new stage of life’s journey is for these reasons often
marked by spiritual tiredness or complacency. Now one is
ashamed of the impetuosities and vacillations of adolescence,
and finds great satisfaction in the sense of settled maturity.
Certainly some kind of synthesis has been achieved; but often it
is the result of a compromise. The years of learning are behind.
Personal development and spiritual growth seem to be less
important than the pursuit of ambition and enjoyment of the
rewards of progress in a chosen career. There is developed a
naturalistic attitude in which, half cynically, half sorrowfully, the
individual assents to the idea that ‘everything in life is a
compromise’. This attitude does not necessarily involve a radical
deterioration in sensitivity of conscience, but it may occur. It is
very common among women who were over-conscientious
when they were young.
If during the earlier periods there was strongly emotional
religiosity, the thirties often bring a change of feelings of a
reactionary kind: religious tiredness and disgust, or perhaps a
sense of desperation at the loss of the fervent spiritual ardour of
youth.
Accompanying these changes there also occurs at this time a
transition of attention from the Church and its activities to
other forms of fellowship. Naturally and unavoidably the centre
of interest shifts to the life of the home and the responsibilities of
raising a family.
It is important that people who are going through this
critical phase of spiritual life should realise the psycho-physical
as well as the environmental changes that explain so many of its
characteristic attitudes. They must be helped to understand
that the bed of their life-stream is widening and that it is not
possible for them to feel about spiritual things—or indeed about
anything—as they did in earlier years. A new dimension is being
added to experience, and spiritual values must be discovered in
new contexts.
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