Wisdom, Emerging Adulthood, and Dora the Explorer

This evening I head down to Camp Cascades in Yelm, WA to speak for Quest’s Life Together Retreat.  I think I’m going to be a little ambitious in attempting to tie together themes from the OT Wisdom literature (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job) with recent research regarding the psycho-social lives of twenty somethings in urban settings and make it applicable for our people.  Jeffrey Arnett has recently coined the term, “Emerging Adulthood” to describe this generation.  This is in contrast to Erik Erikson’s widely held notion that in industrial societies people pass through the following eight life stages:  infancy, early childhood, play age, school age, adolescence, young adulthood, adulthood, and old age.  Today adolescence and adulthood are becoming blurred where people live in a stage of prolonged adolescence well into their 20s and possibly into their 30s.  Arnett describes Emerging Adulthood as displaying the following characteristics:

1. It is the age of identity explorations, of trying out various possibilities, especially in love and work.
2. It is the age of instability.
3. It is the most self-focused age of life.
4. It is the age of feeling in-between, in transition, neither adolescent nor adult.
5. It is the age of possibilities, when hopes flourish, when people have unparalleled opportunity to transform their lives

I thought Arnett’s research fits the wisdom lit, particularly Proverbs because these books are designed to instruct people who are in transition, in-between, and going through a liminal experience.  Proverbs walks guides a man from adolescence into adulthood.  Qohleleth remains in a continually state of experimentation with life similar to emerging adults.  Job experiences the pros and cons of processing questions in community.

Last night as I tried to come up with an illustration of how my talks will manage this intersection of the transitional stage of life that many within our group finds themselves and the wisdom lit I thought of a map.  Our weekend together will be the study of a map.  The landscape of the map would consist of the life story of our people – where they have been, where they are right now, and where they see themselves going.  Here Arnett’s research may help us make sense of this landscape.  But certainly it doesn’t end there.  Arnett’s research is merely informative, not transformative.  Add to this map three destination points that we will all encounter:  Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job.  These conversation partners may help us make sense of where we have come from, may clarify where we are right now, but most important of all, provide us a fresh, perhaps new vision of where we are going.

And so who better to help demonstrate a journey with the use of a map?  Dora the Explorer!  If you’re the parent of a toddler you know Dora.  And if you know Dora, in every episode she encounters a new terrain – jungle, forest, desert, etc.  She always has a destination in mind and always has a map that will compel her to make three essential stops to in order to reach her destination.  Dora helps me make sense of my talks.

Vamanos!  Let’s Go!