The title for this post might seem naively optimistic, but if that’s true, that’s precisely my point. We no longer seem to expect maturity. A whole generation of millennials are frequently (and unfairly) criticized as immature and not necessarily maturing. We don’t seem to expect maturity from politicians or even […]

It is not being conservative to honour and respect the traditions and wisdom of the past, it is mature. It is not being liberal to question those traditions and that wisdom, it is mature. It is not being fundamentalist to have deep commitments that you honour, it is mature. It […]

So, now that I’ve introduced maturity and explained why I believe development toward maturity would be better described by “facets” (that all co-exist at the same time) rather than “stages” (that one moves through in a consistent order), it’s time for me to explain how this co-existence works. At the […]

For many years I had always appreciated and occasionally taught James Fowler’s stages of faith development (and still do). But one day in my late forties, I saw some key elements suddenly fall apart. I thought back to how, in my early twenties when I first read about these stages, […]

Summary The Mosaic of Maturing Spirituality model is based on facets as opposed to stages. This is to shift the focus from an expectation that we go step by step through predictable stages toward an alternate understanding that we have a variety of “facets” that are all simultaneously present in […]

Summary 1. The important part of maturing is not how fast we go or how far we get but that we keep moving (or pause briefly enough that we can get started again). 2. Fear can make us resist the complexity of the world, or the pace of change can […]

Summary The Mosaic model I’m working on has two dimensions. The first – and subject of today’s post – is the continuum of maturity, defined as “increasing complexity held together by integrity.” I think we can find many aspects of maturing that reflect this pattern. By describing the dimension in […]

Here’s what I’m trying to do: I want to provide a description of the way we develop into maturity, particularly in a way that includes our spiritual development. First, I want to introduce the heart of my model (“The Mosaic of Maturing Spirituality”). I will begin each of these next […]