Baptism
“Three Phases of Our Growth
in Faith”
October 6, 2013
SLI Spiritual Integrator +++++++++++++++++++++
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SLI
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Addictions and Personality Disorders
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Integrate Psychological into their Spirituality
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Images of God from Family of Origin
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Trace back to see the thread of what their image is
and how it came to be
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I think of our life of faith as having 3 phases:
infant, adult, and in the second half of our lives it becoming childlike
“Let the children
come” +++++++++++++++++++++
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We have only to look at a tiny infant to see how it
started out
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Qualities of infants
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Characteristics of the child before the Family of
Origin
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Open, loving, embracing, tasting and touching
everything, docile,
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And then came the toddler’s education, first
informal then formal
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Must receive the concrete
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But the collateral damage, as we say, were the barnacles
and scales of training & education
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Once all the education and concrete information has
been imparted be being a new journey in the second half of life
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Returning to qualities of infancy
Our part in “Letting the
children come” ++++++
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The best we can do for the middle section of that
3-phasees of the journey is:
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Dedicate the child as we are doing
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Love Ben as God loves him, relationally
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Draw him into a community of faith that will nurture
and help him in a healthy way for his second phase of growth
conclusion +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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So as an adult may be one w/ God
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Takes some unlearning
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Takes some relearning, reconfiguration, mental
restructuring
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We may not be patients ready for a mental hospital
but we can always grow in our love of God and our dedication to help others do
that as well
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