Healing Our Pathological Adolescence

by Danielle Shroyer, Haden Institute Faculty & Mentor

In our Western understanding, teaching information was the proper path to spiritual understanding. Particularly in Christian contexts, we want people to know things: Bible verses, Bible stories, creeds, theological concepts. In a culture drunk on Enlightenment, we put all of our eggs in knowledge’s too-small basket.

And we forgot the most important kind of knowledge available: a lived, experiential knowledge of the Holy. In lieu of the mystery, we’ve settled for the creature comfort of ready answers. 

Where the Collective Is Stuck

After nearly a century of focusing on the singular tree of “information,” we are discovering how impoverished we have made the soil of our collective spiritual lives. If we take an honest look around the religious landscape, particularly if we’re in the Christian tradition, we are faced with the uncomfortable truth that most of our attempts at spiritual formation have failed. 

Our collective society suffers from what sociologist Bill Plotkin called pathological adolescence: incapacitating social insecurity, low social-emotional skills, narcissism, greed, arrested moral development, apathy, addiction, and a tendency toward violence. 

And all the information in the world is not going to heal that. 

What heals a society stuck in pathological adolescence is spiritually mature people who show the way. People who embody emotional resilience, comfort with the uncomfortable, and a sacred appreciation for all things. 

But how do you teach that?! 

We Need Practical, Compelling Frameworks for Practice

It’s not something that can be taught as much as something that must be practiced. The problem is that when we’ve set up our entire framework around informational competency, almost no one feels up to the task. (I have had people with literal PhDs tell me they do not feel qualified to teach a small group class!) So what we need are resources that guide us and help us to hold a certain kind of space: one that is conversational, relational, and hospitable. We need the kinds of spaces that can actually form us. And that takes a little bravery, the risk of being open to seeing what comes together rather than following a prescribed script of questions and answers. But the risk is well worth the reward, which is a community of people who begin to learn what it means to be present with one another, and with themselves.

What we have given people is information when what they have needed is time: time with their own souls, time to nestle into the wisdom of their inner silence, time to listen with the heart to the insights of those around them. 

What we need is a forest, rich in diversity, where the ways each person experiences the Holy can be explored, encouraged, and enlivened by a shared witness. 

This work comes one encounter at a time. It can come through personal reflection, thoughtful small group conversations, workshops and retreats. It comes through practice, and it comes with practice. The more we show up to this work of honoring the sacred among us and within us, the more we become the people who can show a new way of being in the world. One that is harmonious, generous, compassionate, and just. 

Re-Setting the Table

As I’ve worked with local churches, I’ve found that we’ve trained most people to be uncomfortable with spiritual formation. Instead, people expect to learn from “experts” who can tell them the “right” information, which they can write down in notebooks. But that’s not formation: that’s modern education. And our spiritual traditions have never played by those rules. 

Across time and tradition, people are formed by presence, silence, reflection, and listening to varying experiences of diverse people. So what if we designed resources to cultivate that?!

Making the Shift

The biggest hurdle in making the shift from education to formation is helping leaders and spiritual guides feel prepared. Unlike in the modern education model, where preparation means answers, formation requires redefining the purpose and feel of a group to focus not on outcomes, but the process itself. 

Once leaders learn that their primary role is to serve as gracious hosts who offer listening ears and compassionate presence, they can feel empowered to hold the space. 

And, unlike the pressure of needing to know all the answers, they can begin to relax and understand that groups offer everyone, leaders included, with the opportunity to practice. After all, that’s what all good spiritual formation is, anyway: practice, practice, practice. 

It’s Just Our Time

For those of us who are spiritual directors, ministers, and trained lay leaders, it is part of our work in the world at this time to serve as the spiritual guides the world needs, leading with compassionate presence and open-hearted listening. Despite all the complex challenges we face, we have everything we need to serve one another and the world in love. And while many of us wish we could do so in simpler circumstances, as one of my mentors says, “It’s just our time.” It is our time to serve the world, just as it is.

As someone who has often felt like an outsider, walking new trails alone, I believe more than ever that this is work that must be done in community. We are here to carry each other, and to support one another’s mutual flourishing. That’s one of the things I continue to value about the Haden community. For a long time, we’ve gathered to create the sacred spaces where this kind of work helps us do our own work—and learn how to walk with others.

I brought all of my work and lived experience at Haden and the many faith communities I’ve worked alongside to the table when I developed Via Forma in the last few years. We invested all the time, careful attention, money, and more it takes to create spiritual formation resources that actually resonate with people’s lives and deeper needs. 

We just released the Via Forma resources out into the world earlier this year and I’m thrilled that all kinds of leaders and those who just want to go deeper are starting to use these materials and frameworks for growth in their communities. It’s my deep hope that the work of Via Forma can bring quality spiritual formation resources to individuals, groups, and congregations. 

That’s one small way I’m hoping to build a world of wise and grounded people. This is part of my work to help offer my culture and the collective alternative paths to growth that ring out, that awakens the sleeping need to grow up, that shakes off the binds that keep so many of us in pathological adolescence. 

How about you? Where have your gifts, your training, your communities, and the deep, abiding wisdom of your lived experience brought you? This is our moment—and your moment. What is the one thing your love for Self and others is leading you to next?