Quotes about Maturity

there is an early stage "holiness" that looks like the real thing, but it isn't.

The first half of life is discovering the script, and the second half is actually writing it and owning it.

The first half of life is discovering the script, and the second half is actually writing it and owning it. So

This new coherence, a unified field inclusive of the paradoxes, is precisely what gradually characterizes a second-half-of-life person. It feels like a return to simplicity after having learned from all the complexity. Finally, at last, one has lived long enough to see that "everything belongs,"4 even the sad, absurd, and futile parts.

There is a deeper voice of God, which you must learn to hear and obey in the second half of life.

We need to hold together all of the stages of life, and for some strange, wonderful reason, it all becomes quite "simple" as we approach our later years.

is actually undoing the fourth commandment of Moses, which tells us to "honor your father and mother"? This commandment is necessary for the first half of life, and, one hopes, it can be possible forever. As we move into the second half of life, however, we are very often at odds with our natural family and the "dominant consciousness" of our cultures.

I think humans prefer magical religion, which keeps all the responsibility on God performing or not performing, whereas mature and transformational religion asks us to participate, cooperate, and change. The divine dance is always a partnered two-step.

A mature Christian sees Christ in everything and everyone else.

Do not be shocked, but I suspect some priests' and ministers' moral failures are actually very helpful to their own "salvation" and necessary for their growing up.

If my underlying thesis in this book is true and Christ is a word for the Big Story Line of history, then the incarnational worldview held maturely is precisely the Good News!

One cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life's morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie. —CARL JUNG, THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE PSYCHE