Dare to Grow Up

Book excerpt: People often think it's something that you gain over the years, feeling that if you live long enough, you'll end up a mature person. But it's an achievement, one that not only takes time, of course, but effort and courage as well. Paul Dunion compares this process of growing up to the cultivation of crops: Some seed can simply be tossed about and regardless of light, water and nutrients, this seed will prevail and come of age, he says. The rest of us resemble the seed in need of stewardship, where attention needs to be paid to weeding, watering and enriching the ground that holds us. If, with much effort, and the help of others, we remain open to the mysteries of life, enriching ourselves with all living has to offer, then we may begin to learn who we were meant to become.