Emergence Of Wisdom Research Articles

Developing Together: Parents Meeting Children’s Developmental Imperatives

It is well known that the parent influences the child, but few realize how much the child changes the adult. This paper reports research that explored how adults change when they learn to nurture their child’s developmental needs. It also explores how empathy with the child impacts an adult’s ability to move through his or her own unresolved childhood issues into new meaning and relationships. Using qualitative methods and quantitative measures, the research captures perspectives of 20 parents about their own development from using child development principles. Analysis resulted in the identification of five themes: (a) cognitive development in perspective, differentiation from past ways, and new meaning-making; (b) emotional development of trust, empathy, and affective complexity; (c) personal agency of intentional effort and use of critical self-inquiry; (d) adult well-being; and (e) emergence of wisdom. More research is needed to determine the association between child development competence and adult development.

Post-traumatic growth and the origins of early Christianity

This paper applies the concept of post-traumatic growth, and some contemporary psychological models of wisdom, to the phenomenon of the emergence and development of Christianity in the aftermath of the traumatic death of its leader. It is argued that a process of ‘sense-making’ is evident in the New Testament texts, particularly the Passion narratives. There is evidence that this process involved a modification of existing cultural schemas to accommodate both the challenges posed by the death of Jesus and his followers’ affective experience of his continuing presence. The texts also contain evidence of a developing wisdom tradition based on the transformation of suffering into victory, the finding of strength in weakness, and the emergence of wisdom where human thinking reaches its limits. It is suggested that the meaning and social cohesion that this provided for the primitive Church go some way towards explaining its dramatic growth and resilience in the face of persecution.