ELDERS AND INITIATIONS PART 1

We discussed the importance of elders and initiation in our parsha class that covered the binding of Isaac.  I decided to write a three part blog.  The first part talks briefly about why elders are needed, and then second and third parts discuss two periods in my life where an elder might have made a profound difference.  Here’s what I wrote to shape our conversation.

Elders are decisive in the possibility of successful initiations. Reading the anthropological literature, it is clear that initiations often involve a fair measure of ambiguity.

You have a vision of a sacred hoop or a jaguar comes and licks you three times.  What does that mean?  Even what seem to be unambiguous experiences need guidance from community elders.  If you successfully survive a walkabout, or decide to return to the Amish community after a period of interacting with the English community in a more adult way (rumspringa) or do you first solo successful hunt, that’s on the face of it pretty unambiguous.   But what did you learn about yourself that will let you take your place as a young adult in the community?  That’s less clear and needs the guidance of elders. For instance, returning to an Amish community because the English world scares you is very different than returning because you want to farm in community—and both motivations could readily be present.

It's often said that we suffer from the lack of elders in our world, and that’s true.  What I mean here by elders is people who mentor you as a younger person not because it suits some motivation like having allies as they climb a corporate ladder, but because they are committed to raising adults

Have you had elders in your life or only “olders”?  Who were they and how did they help guide you?

The discussion centered on the utter lack of elders we have all experienced.  I want to highlight two places in my life where having elders would have made a profound difference in my life direction.  In this first blog, I’ll talk about life on a hippie commune, and in the next blog I will talk about my first vision fast.

Wendell Berry