On becoming…

 The specialness of fitting in

C

oming to soldiership relatively late in life, I assumed that I’d experienced just about every emotion that could be experienced. So I was unprepared then, as I stood in front of the flag last Sunday, to feel something entirely new. And this sensation was so novel that I couldn’t identify quite what it was.

This past week, I’ve concluded that what came over me was a wonderful combination of liberation, protection and permission to be the person I was supposed to be. And even more, I sensed that right then God wanted me to be right there in that specific community. I’d thought of soldiership as a calling but now I felt it as a strategic directive. It was as if a detailed plan had been drawn up and I was following my part. It was just one part among many and I was glad of that. The specialness of it didn’t reside in my standing out, but in my fitting in.

In the biographical documentary The Sketches of Frank Gehry, the architect talks about how his career was somewhat stuck until psychotherapy allowed him to move beyond an immature self-centeredness, support those around him more generously in the use of their talents and grow an architectural practice. Given the way humans (let alone a “starchitect” like Frank Gehry) are fashioned it’s probably impossible for any of us to be fully alleviated of our narcissism, but knowing one’s part and one’s place in relation to community feels very adult to me. It involves shedding the narcissism that is the hallmark of North American adolescence and adopting an identity that is centered on Christ.

Before I answered the call to soldiership, I had assumed that it was a rough parallel of the sacrament of confirmation, but it is more like vocation. And I’ve yet to meet a North American teen who I’d consider ready for vocation. Not that I’d advocate that everyone ought to wait for late middle age to take up soldiership, but I wonder why the Articles of War with their strong proscriptive and prescriptive clauses are seen as covenant befitting someone who can not even be bound by a cell phone contract.

And yet the teen years for all their tumult can be critical one in terms of coming to faith. Teens, their families and the broader community have a need to recognize this time of growth. What I’m suggesting here is that we think about a new ceremony, one that is more developmentally appropriate.

Writer: Social policy analyst and mother to a teen son, Andrea Demchuk soldiers out of Corps 614 Regent Park in Toronto, Canada.

2 Comments to On becoming…

1. I think what is needed is a deeper, more rounded teaching of the nature of covenant. At 14 I had an idea of what I was signing. I loved God and I was serious about not smoking or drinking (and didn’t have much desire), and had been taught plenty about the perils of premarital sex; but I don’t know that I really even began to come to an understanding of what a covenant with God means until last year (I’m 21 now). I think this generation coming up needs and really really wants to go deeper into the heart of God, and soldiership is a great answer to that longing, but I think better education, apart from meeting a handful of times to read the doctrines, is needed.
Jonathan Taube on May 5th, 2008

2. Thanks for the comments, Andrea. I’m very glad you found your place!
   Heather
Heather on May 5th, 2008

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