Seasons of Strength
LECKEY, DOLORES R.
Mid-life meditation SEASONS Or STRENGTH: NEW VISIONS OF ADULT CHRISTIAN MATURING James D. Whitehead & Evelyn Eaton Wtaitehead Doubleday, $13.95, 215 pp. Dolores R. Leckey THIS YEAR Christmas...
...Sexuality is an important issue in midlife, and I wonder why the authors did not devote a new chapter to the fullness of the subject...
...I wonder, too, about the borderline stridency that surfaces when the authors point to the church's attitudes, limitations, and mistakes...
...Dolores R. Leckey THIS YEAR Christmas brought home to me, quite literally, the sure signs that I am one of those people whom devel-opmentalists describe as "a midlifer" or a "middlescent woman," or in the religious/devotional literature, "a mature Christian...
...It could even sustain one through any number of Christmas-week dinners with adult children...
...That would be a mistake...
...Obedience is, we read in Seasons, "the proper response to legitimate authority...
...Paternalism, authoritarianism, and sexism exist in the church and need to be exposed for the health of the body...
...That old-fashioned term, obedience, is reintroduced into the conversation on auCommonweal: 156 thority...
...The authors show that authority and power are clearly linked...
...it is "an adult strength...
...The chapter on authority and obedience might well be required reading for all church ministers, lay, ordained, and religiously vowed...
...It's a topic worthy of discussion, surely, but the chapter is dropped in, a visitor from another book, one that borders on intrusion...
...Perseverance uncovers something original and something important for our life as contemporary Catholic Christians...
...In fact there are several worthwhile points to be discovered...
...young adult development, and often a more forceful presentation of the material...
...The themes of intimacy, personal vocation, discipleship and stewardship, generativity and power which are so central in their Christian Life Patterns (Doubleday, 1979) reappear in Seasons of Strength...
...There is,Heljeve, wisdom in the following: "All of us who are attempting to sustain relationships of some depth — whether in marriage or ministry teams or religious life — know how necessary is the strength of obedience...
...that's how I know my place on this particular bell curve...
...Because of this, there is the temptation to leave Seasons of Strength to those uninitiated in the Whiteheads' premises and methodology...
...Let me tell you, it takes effort and energy to try to adjust the fit...
...Now in their twenties, my sons and daughters brought to the Christmas fireside their different worlds of aesthetics, of reason, of child-rearing, of what's-the-meaning-of-life-anyway questions, and we tried to accommodate all of this to my world of ordered, dependable home...
...It does remind us that we are participants in determining the pattern of authority in our civic and religious lives...
...Nevertheless, one quickly senses (if acquainted with the Whiteheads' books) that the authors have said this all before, in some cases word for word...
...It's a topic that needs to be squarely faced, and Seasons of Strength does that...
...One is a useful typology which the authors have developed in order to speak about the complex issues surrounding power — the "faces of power" they call it...
...Quintessential adult educators, the Whiteheads tap into the experience of those they're working with, whether they be workshop participants or readers...
...Now that's the stuff of mid-life meditation...
...Readers of the Whiteheads' earlier works will be on familiar ground with their latest contribution...
...It is a movement of solidarity...
...James D. Whitehead and Evelyn Eaton Whitehead, known and respected for joining development psychology and theological reflection, have produced a new book, Seasons of Strength: New Visions of Adult Christian Maturing the title of which suggests some fresh insight into the reality of Christian faith as it is tested and "seasoned...
...The questions at the end of each chapter of Seasons of Strength could certainly launch some Lenten reflections...
...For example, why include the previously published chapter on homosexual holiness...
...it is an act of interdependence...
...This is not to suggest that it [authority] is simply arbitrary and subjective...
...But these "isms" exist not only in them, but in us as well...
...The children came home...
...Why not "befriend" the church, to use one of the Whiteheads' memorable terms...
...The Whiteheads understand well that each of us is responsible for his/her use and abuse of the faces of personal power, and that some others of us ought to be accountable for the social power which we exercise...
...There remain a few puzzlements about Seasons of Strength...
...We are the church, in the bad times and in the good...
...True, in Seasons, there is a bit more elaboration, an intentional focus on maturity vs...
...Without flexibility it is hard to respond creatively as our shared commitments take new shape...
...For the latter this takes the form 6f reflection questions, intended to link social science theory and theological and pastoral analyses to the bottom line of people's experience...
...Without the willingness to modify personal behavior it is difficult to deal with change as bur relationship grows...
...But it is not only that...
...Authorities — persons, laws, customs — arise from our judgments about power...
...It's understandable, then, that I welcome help in any form.That's why I read books about Jungian functions and changing prayer patterns, or about the special bonding between grandparents and grandchildren, or the research on mid-life creativity...
...This is not a matter to be left free-floating around the unconscious...
...And as the devel-opmentalists will explain, this comes at a time when energy is at a premium...
Vol. 112 • March 1986 • No. 5
