Today I got some books back from a friend of mine. I loaned them to him a couple years ago, so I haven’t read them in a while. I was excited when they came, because I’ve been waiting to reread the series. They are three books by an author named Orson Scott Card. He’s a Mormon Writer who does a lot of Science Fiction. It’s not usually my genre, but I was turned on to the series in high school when my teacher gave me the first book Ender’s Game.
Today I was reading the introduction to the second book in the series, Speaker for the Dead. The author is explaining how he came to write the books in the Ender series. I want to share part of the introduction to the book with you:
Only when the loneliness becomes unbearable do adolescents root themselves, or try to root themselves. It may or may not be in the community of their childhood, and it may or may not be their childhood identity and connections that they resume upon entering adulthood. And, in fact, many fail at adulthood and constantly reach backward for the freedom and passion of adolescence. But those who achieve it are the ones who create civilization.
For me this passage rings true on a few levels.
Right now I feel very much sandwiched between adolescence and adulthood. I’m finding that where I root my identity as I attempt to become a solid adult is fairly wide open. The one non-negotiable is that it needs to be rooted in the freedom I find in Christ, the security I find in the God of Israel.
Then I started thinking about the adolescent/adult sandwich as more of a without/with Christ sandwich. In our spiritual world, to live a “responsible”, “adult” life is to live a life in tune with the Spirit of our God. Without Christ we are spiritual adolescents — the deepest parts of our selves have no root. When we begin a new life in Christ, we are spiritual adults — we put down roots in the purpose granted us by the consuming Spirit of God.
And then I thought about the line “those who achieve [adulthood] are the ones who create civilization.” The author here is speaking a truth about the world in which we live. In the Kingdom of God, it is the Spiritual adults who create civilization. To be civilized in the Spiritual World is to live the life of Christ.
Pray that God would make the Spiritual Truth of His Kingdom an earthly reality. Pray that those whose identity is rooted in Christ would truly be those who impact our earthly civilization.
