Three Stages of Growth: Creating a Heavenly Family

David Tranberg
October 9, 2012

I originally gave this presentation at the local church -- 3 times. By the third time, I realized that what I was describing was the very reason God and pattern God used in creating this "middle" course in our total existence- that of the physical world. With that into, I'll keep this as short as possible. Comments and corrections are welcomed.

Life is in three parts. It may come as a surprise to some (especially those who have not walked all the way yet) that there is a very real purpose and strategy for our individual growth at each stage and as a course overall. What then could the purpose be for our physical, life? It is to prepare us to inhabit our actual real existence when we are living in our eternal home.

1st stage: This stage "seems" to be well understood; we are born, we go through our life until we reach adulthood, then we go on and "do stuff" until we die. Well, sort of.

This stage I was guided by God to divide into three sections; 1-8, 9-16, and 17-24. The first, that I called childhood is initiated at the beginning of life and goes until what I termed "the boyhood (or Girlhood) ceremony". Why a ceremony? to make a clear demarcation in the life of the child and the life of the community that this soul is no longer a "child" stage. his/her responsibilities and prerogatives are different. I found that this ceremony made a large difference in how my children act and felt about themselves. This ceremony is presided over by the parents.

The stage between 9-16 is a time of great challenge for the kids and for their families, and yet making this time clear was very helpful (some in our community have used the "Il Wha" ceremony to some of the same effect). At 16 I held what I called the "adulthood ceremony" for my kids as well as holding it publicly at the church for many of the kids in our community. The important part here is the, while the Il Wha ceremony is an excellent preparatory program for the kids to begin to take real ownership of their life of faith, the "adulthood" ceremony is for the purpose of, again, stating before the COMMUNITY that this young person was ready to enter the stage of adulthood. A critical element of this ceremony is the prayer of as high a CF as possible (Reg. Director/State leader, etc) so that it is understood that the kids are now responsible to a greater unit than the family. Likewise for having them "proclaimed" by many in the community (Elder members/ friends/family, etc)

The final stage (of the first stage) is finished with the last 3-4 years "landing in the world". By the time a soul is 18-19, they have learned the basic lessons of how to be an adult human soul from their parents. (There is little they will "listen to" at that point, it seems sometimes:) It is at this point that kids go to college, get jobs, become members of society, etc, but they are not yet complete. As they act out the lessons they learned from their parents, they come to realize, in actuality, rather than in theory, what these lessons actually meant. If this stage is successfully lived, the "child" becomes a True adult; A person that has come to understand, in concept and in truth, the essence of being a true soul. If this stage is misused (and this is why Satan puts SO much energy into corrupting youth of this age), then this soul may spend his/her entire lifetime doing remedial training, trying to finally learn how to interact with the world/cosmos properly.

I will make the rest brief:

As we go through the stage from 24-48, our "growth stage", we do two things: 1) we raise a family and so help another human soul (or many) to their realization of maturity. and 2) WE COME TO FINALLY DIGEST OUR OWN FIRST 24 YEARS.

This second is a very crucial step in our OWN growth. As we are going through our 1st 24 years, we, generally speaking, don't have the time or perspective to be able to digest our "1st life". As we help another person to go through their life from 1-24, we are also re-living our own, day by day. This is how we come to FINALLY digest it (ideally speaking). Every teacher knows that the BEST WAY TO LEARN IS TO TEACH. It seems that that maxim is, in fact an immutable law of God.

The "last" stage; our perfection stage. As we then help our children to raise THEIR children, we come to finally see what life is actually about. We cab then see the 1st stage's reactions to life and the 2nd stage's reaction to the 1st's reaction, so to speak, and in that perspective, we finally begin to see God's point of view. This is why grandparents are in God's position. They have the perspective to say to the grandchild "listen to your dad-he really loves you." and also the perspective to say to the dad "lighten up!- you didn't like it when I treated YOU like that!". Wisdom, indeed.

Classically, then, any time after (around) 72, we can say that we are "getting ready for spirit world" and, in fact come to the realization that we have finally "grown up". Yes, it is that simple. People often wonder through life whether "am I mature, really?", but the answer is easily understood as "NO". it takes all of life for us to truly grow up. until then, we are helping each other and coming to fulfill what God put us on this world to learn; how to go to our true life in the next world.

I am writing this now in hopes that through this missive, any that read it can come to understand that, contrary to the "American" viewpoint, we are not "individuals", in any sense of the word. My children really ARE my 3rd messiahs, and my spouse is really my 2nd (which I've not addressed here). It takes a whole family for us to become "human", in the true sense of THAT word.

One last point: We are not, in the last examination, our children's parents, or our parent's children. We are brothers and sisters in Christ-literally. True Parents ARE our parents, embodying God almighty. We are given the gift of being able to "play" parents by our father/mother God so that we can learn what it means to BE parents, and in that learning, we learn what it means to BE children. It is, in the end, God's greatest gift to us. Let's do our best.