These four areas are a kind of window frame through which Don Bosco saw the world of the young. Maintaining a healthy balance between these four areas is part of Don Bosco’s wisdom in working with the young.

But, as one comedian often says “there’s more”. Those same four words can help us, as people concerned for the young, to look at our own lives. Belonging, learning, meaning, and celebration could be seen as four points on a compass that can keep us on a balanced course in our lives too. Checking our inner world against these four pointers can help us chart the way through the storms and over the quieter flat lands of our spiritual journey.

If we put too much emphasis on one of Don Bosco’s pointers we are likely to ignore the others and lose track of that Salesian spiritual path and the balanced wisdom it follows.

• When I work so hard for others that I stop reflecting on my own experience with them, I risk going out of balance and doing them little good. I have stopped learning the lessons God presents to me each day.
• When I begin to feel so alone, that no one really understands (or even cares), then my sense of belonging is at risk and I only have my own resources to rely upon. In that situation I can lose touch with the wisdom that comes from teamwork and community. I could lose my way and young people may suffer.
• When activity bumps into more activity and I get so tired that I begin to ask, “why am I doing all this?” it is a sign that I have begun to lose touch with meaning in my own life. We need some kind of inner dream or vision to give shape to our lives, to drive us. In the Christian tradition this vision or sense of being drawn forward is called the Holy Spirit. Losing touch with that leaves us without a compass and we are likely to drift with currents and storms and perhaps lose our very selves and our sense of meaning.
• When the end of the day, term or project arrives, and I have no energy to celebrate and count my blessings, then my Salesian balance has been lost. It is not a Salesian virtue to have no energy left for celebration. Celebration is recognition that something has been achieved, that it has been achieved together with others. In our togetherness God’s mystery has been made visible. Inability to celebrate is perhaps a sign that I think no else needs credit; all the work is mine. I get so concerned that others do not appreciate all the work I do. I am in danger of slipping into self-pity rather than celebrate in God’s mysterious presence.

This fourfold balance can help parents, teachers and youth workers on their own spiritual journey. This is what three of them have to say about Salesian balance in their own lives.