Desire, Being Present and Becoming an Adult: Bonhoeffer & the YMCA

How do you know when you are grown up?

What makes an adult an “adult”?

For all of us who work with youth, how do we measure success?

This paragraph below by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, taken from his Letters and Papers from Prison, resonates with me, in particular discerning the characteristics of becoming an adult.

But is it not characteristic of adults, in contrast to an immature person, that their center of gravity is always where they actually are, and that the longing for their fulfillment of their wishes cannot prevent them from being their whole self, wherever they happen to be?

The adolescent is never wholly in one place; that is one of the essential characteristics of youth, else he would presumably be a dullard.

There is a wholeness about the fully grown adult which enables a person to face an existing situation squarely.

Adults may have their longings, but they keep them out of sight, and somehow master them; and the more they have to overcome in order to live fully in the present, the more they will have the respect and confidence of other people, especially the younger ones, who are still on the road that the adult has already travelled.

Desires to which we cling closely can easily prevent us from being what we ought to be and can be; and on the other hand, desires repeatedly mastered for the sake of present duty make us richer.

Lack of desire is poverty.

Almost all the people whom I find in my present surroundings in prison cling to their own desires, and so have no interest in others; they no longer listen, and they are incapable of loving their neighbor.

I think that even in this place we ought to live as if we had no wishes and no future, and just be our true selves.

Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

What is it about that quote that sheds new light for you the role of desires in becoming an adult?

In an era that idolizes being “young” and resists becoming “old” – how does this description of desires and becoming an adult subvert those idols?

Bonhoeffer’s lived experience and seasoned reflections as a Christian pastor and theologian – he died in a Nazi prison at age 39 – are meaningful to me, and have shaped my striving to become an adult that is fully present with my whole self.

For me, no greatness or gratitude comes from regret-dwelling on the past or day-dream living in the future; that usually only fuels self-loathing and depression.

If I don’t master my desires, it also undermines me becoming the kind of adult who takes genuine interest in others, who truly listens, and is capable and willing to welcome and love neighbors, strangers, and enemies, as instructed by Christ Jesus.

In the YMCA and our communities, in the youth work we do, in the collaboration we do with adults, mastering our desires, by God’s help, gives us freedom to become our true selves – not enslaved to our desires.

This is how we can all live richly and authentically in the present; it enables us to embrace the duties that God’s Spirit and society have presented to us in these turbulent days.