Gozo Citadel-August 2016

Pulitzer Prize– winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn spent eight years in prison during the Soviet era for criticizing Joseph Stalin. He went into prison an atheist and came out a person of faith . The experience didn’t leave him bitter. It left him grateful for the development of his faith and the strengthening of his character. Looking back on the experience, he said, “I bless you, prison— I bless you for being in my life— for there lying on rotting prison straw, I learned the object of life is not prospering as I had grown up believing , but the maturing of the soul.”

John Maxwell, in his book , The15 invaluable laws of growth.
In the growth journal, one of the themes I built upon is how when two or more persons come together, they create a unified separate force, which different writers have described..something like a Joint personality of the group.

MATURING OF PROCESSES

Sabratha..2007

A few days back, I sat with my uncle in my family home, and he talked with great emotion of the time when he cremated his father at around 12 years of age. He is Sagittarian like me, 20 years elder, and taught me to make notes, ( a habit which I have used in many different ways) . He knows me from my primary school days. I told him of the processes involved with the practice – Write a letter to a loved one who has passed away – a practice I have been doing regularly for around two years. The initial flow was a bit awkward, but then slowly, we went into many places , each family having it’ s spoken and unspoken truths, or as the writer James Ellroy writes…My Dark Places.

How does a letter change the dynamics?

If life is seen, not as a means of prospering, but of maturing of the soul, the monthly letters,start giving a picture of span of decades. Then.one starts watching the tone of one’ s voice, which sometimes becomes irritated, in the day to day frustrations. If one keeps a soan if fifty,hundred years, some day to day limitations will just melt away.

JOINT FORCE OR PERSONALITY

Port Credit-Mississauga, October 2014 : MERCHANT OF VENICE Many lovely hours spent at Port Credit- Discussing Nuances of Literature How Shakespeare created characters such as Shylock and Falstaff, who outgrew the confines of their play, and talk to people through the centuries. …………revenge! I’ll treat you as badly as you Christians taught me to— and you’ll be lucky if I don’t outdo my teachers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_5adzpdkdw

Does the joint personality evolve similarly for all persons concerned?

A fourteen year old will.look at the Qutub with a different eye . Recently,I took my sister there, and we told our young fourteen year old, how our parents had brought us here. Maybe, some day, he will also.bring his children here and remember us.

INTEGRATING THESE INTO A GROWTH JOURNAL

In.the chapter Law of the Ladder,John.Maxwell writes that character growth.determines your personal growth. Using the tools of
Writing letters, joint discussions on.shape of different facets of family life, and walks with joint journals with persons of different age groups in.the family, I.saw these as opportunities to.grow one’ s perspectives.

Do you remember any such relation?