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Feeding the Spirit

© Joan Archer

I opened my e-mail today, and read a note I received from my nephew in Oklahoma. "I am desperate!" he says. "I am fed up with my family here!" "I am sick and tired of everything here!" He goes on and on in an unpunctuated stream-of-consciousness paragraph of desperation brought about by the death of his mother's sister last week. "I can't find any comfort from anyone here!" It is enough to bring tears to my eyes, for well I (and everyone else I know) know what it is like to not only experience loss, but the feeling that compounds the sense of loss-the feeling of not being able to share the experience with anyone else to whom this matters as much as it does to us, personally.

I consider myself a spiritual person, but have yet to find a particular religion that I find comfortable to be with. I get a lot out of reading authors such as Iyanla VanZant, and I believe it is my lot in life to revive the spirits of those who are wavering. Of course, it is equally important to celebrate and rejoice with those who are experiencing those gifts of life, but the problems associated with awakening spirituality in the young (especially those whose only association with spirituality has been the mention of The Lord at funerals) is quite a chore.

My nephew is only fifteen. How do you tell the difference between teen-aged angst and a real problem? I don't to tell you the truth. I remember being that age, and what I recognize now as a bad case of The Fifteens at that age seemed like a life-threatening, world-crushing problem that had no end in sight. Of course, that is not how it all worked out, but it sure seemed like it at the time.

The first thing taught in counseling is to "be where the patient is". This means, don't preach to a fifteen-year-old that his problems are not real problems. Don't compare your horrible work day to his, and tell him how easy he has it. Try to feel what he is feeling, try to think what he is thinking. Acknowledge where he is in his confusion, and eventually let him tell you how he is going to lead himself out of it. Just like when we were fifteen, we like to believe we have all the answers, but we still don't.

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