Drug use, at least in its early stages, feels spiritual — there is a sense of getting to the heart of things, of transcending the petty and mundane irritations of ordinary life, of entering something large and beautiful and peaceful. There is a sense of being insiders in a world to which square, conventional people are excluded. Drugs heighten interior perceptions, open windows and doors to what seems like transcendence.
And so the first thing that parents must understand about drugs is that there is almost always a spiritual element in adolescent drug-taking. We can never comprehend it if we view it simply as a matter of … rebelling against parental or societal standards. …
Only by firmly establishing this appreciation and understanding of spirituality as a context is it credible to then assert that drugs are fraudulent spirituality. Initially, they provide the illusion that matters of soul, meaning, love, destiny, beauty, and cosmic connections are being dealt with, but they always, sometimes soon and sometimes late but always, turn out to be the cruelest of illusions.
Like Dew Your Youth: Growing Up with Your Teenager, by Eugene H. Peterson, pp. 92, 94
Tag: Eugene Peterson
Quote about something scary: Adolescence
Adolescence is a time of expanding spirituality; parents must never underestimate its authenticity or its intensity. But adolescent spirituality is not wise, it is not well formed, it is not mature. We accept the witness of our adolescents to the emphatic presence and necessity of spirituality at the center of our lives, but we do not to look to adolescents to guide us in matters of spirituality. It is essential to distinguish between the two elements. We are completely attentive to the witness of their lives; but we are detached and discerning regarding whatever they have to say on the matter. Like the canary to the miners, they are a signal that we notice, not a model that we imitate.
Like Dew Your Youth: Growing Up with Your Teenager, by Eugene H. Peterson, p. 89
Out of Babel Books 