Why are there so many boys?

"Are you a girls' leader?"

The eighth grader who has been talking to me in a constant stream of words for the last fifteen minutes suddenly stops to peer at my name tag, as if he has come across some sort of bizarrely disturbing fact. 

"Yes."

"Then, why are there always so many boys around?"

He twists his face into a comically exaggerated question, first glancing at the few who are clustered near me on the edge of the stage and then out at several more playing dodgeball. Picking "mine" out of the crowd with a laser like accuracy.

We've talked about everything from his current school to his elementary school to the fact that my sister is getting married, but this is the one thing that befuddles him. Why are there always so many boys around?

And, I almost turn the question back around on him, the eighth grader who is standing in front of me because his seat beside me was taken over by a sixth grade boy when he left to get a drink of water. "I don't know; why are there always so many boys around?"

But, I know that he'll tell me that his camp counselor isn't here, so he "doesn't have anyone else to talk to."

We've talked about it already.

As if the gym isn't swarming with other leaders who would be more than happy to talk to him. It's the Sunday after Christmas. We're across the parking lot from where we normally meet. We have maybe a third of the students - but almost all of the leaders. Better ratios than anywhere outside of camp or discipleship groups.

There are plenty of people to talk to. But, not the one or two that he tends to follow around like an eager puppy.

"Because, I've known a lot of these kids since they were in elementary school."

"Oh." He nods.

And, the conversation being with this particular kid, it continues with more words than I would be likely to get out of some of the boys in a month, but the gist of it is that there are always kids around. That today, even outside of their normal space, is no different.

Boys who call my name just so that we can pull faces at each other from across the gym. Who peg me with dodge balls, borrow my phone, and beg me for gum before the lesson. Who sit almost quietly for most of the talk.

Girls who sit to talk about friends and life, help me clean up at the end of the morning, and challenge the boys to play them one on one at the basketball hoop. Who don't mind my pitiful attempts to hit a giant volleyball and who long ago quit asking why there are always boys - if they ever thought to ask in the first place.

Kids who simply happen to share the fact that, at some point, they hung around me for long enough to decide that they thought it was a positive experience.

Kids who play sports like breathing. Kids who avoid them like the plague. Kids who always have the right answer and kids who just say whatever words pop into their heads. Top of the middle school heap. Bottom of the totem pole. And, everything in between.

The ones who wiggle and squirm and talk and run wild.

The ones who text me mid week. The ones who tag me on Inst*gram. The ones who keep me up at night praying for them. And, the ones who hone in like a missile whenever they see me.

These are "mine," this odd little combination of people who keep me always on my toes, by doing things like this, when ones who don't normally have my password get their hands on my unlocked phone.

(Yes. My sisters really are just as … unique as my kids. The conversation only stops where it does because he passed my phone back to me ding the lesson.)

(Yes. My sisters really are just as unique as my kids. The conversation only stops where it does because he passed my phone back to me during the lesson. The kids aren't the only ones who keep me well versed in the art of strangeness.)

Truth in Technicolor

Let no one ever tell you that sixth grade girls are not capable of doing work.

Each week that we have breakout groups, they thunder up the stairs with a herd of seventh and eight graders and slip off into our empty classrooms. Half on one side to talk through the discussion questions. Half on the other to work on a "triangle."

The more linear ones like the numbered questions. A checklist that tells them when they are done. A chance to give the 'right' answer. They thrive on it.

Others prefer to tell us what they already know, what they're already thinking and feeling and deciding to do. Prefer to flop belly down in a messy circle on the floor and jostle for markers.

"I get to write first."

"I'll write second."

"Can I write the big word?"

"I want to do the shwoop!" 

The last one makes a sound effect and demonstrates the underlining or decoration that is always the final step, the cementing of the big idea.

"Tell me a thought." We start at the top of the triangle, although they're well practiced enough now for the next breakout group to start somewhere else. "One true thing that you heard [the speaker] say today."

The first color of marker goes up near the top of the triangle, just under where I have written the word "THOUGHT." 

Careful sixth grader spelling as they retell truth with their own lips. Sort out what was illustration and what was real. Find the pieces that are solid enough to believe in. And, there is always more than one. More than one thing that they have heard. More than one thing that they want to talk about.

"Okay, so, if you really, truly believed that X, how do you think that that might make you feel?"

Private. Frustrated. Incredible. Confused. Thoughtful. Empowered.

Sometimes they know the word that they are searching for. Other times they only know the feel of it, turning to the rest of us, trying to explain, waiting until someone provides the elusive syllables.

Whatever they come up with, it goes inside the triangle, because, this is the part where, perhaps, they are the most honest, where they do the most work to share what it is that they are thinking. Feeling. The way that this truth feels in their gut.

This is the part where there are no 'right' answers. The part where we normalize this idea that faith can mix with doubt. Pain can mix with joy. Grace can mix with brokenness.

"So," the next step comes, "if you really, truly believed X and that made you feel A, B, and C, how do you think you would act? What would that look like?"

Sometimes they know. Sometimes we have to talk it through.

But, it seems to make more sense this way, when they've given themselves that why behind the action. If I believe this and feel any number of these ways, then I do this. Read my Bible. Talk to Jesus. Talk to  people. Ask questions. Care about others. Tell somebody. Live in awe. Live humbly.

Orthopraxy out of orthodoxy.

Heart. Soul. Mind. Strength.

And, then, a new color and a new writer, and we start again with another truth. Top right. Center. Bottom left.

Two truths, maybe three total, if they have a lot to say. Until the clock starts to run down.

"Alright," the notebook goes to the next set of hands, ready and waiting with a thick, bright marker, "what's the big word that [she's] writing today? What is all of this about?"

Forgiveness. Prayer. Gifts. Jesus.

This step has nothing to do with CBT and everything to do with the way that we draw 'triangles.' This is the wrap up that makes them feel like it's finished. Like they've accomplished something. The summary that they look for when they flip back through the book.

This is the part that feels a little like art.

They give the answer, and we fumble around a little bit, until everyone is certain of the spelling. Until it criss crosses our page in giant letters. The big picture behind all of these careful stacks of syllables.

Someone else decorates the 'big word' with squiggles, or dashes, or bold underline; and the markers go back into my bag, the rainbow of colors that have captured their thoughts. One of the girls prays. We hand out any paperwork that needs to go home. And, they scatter to the wind.

10-15 minutes. A notebook. Some markers. And, a slightly crooked triangle.

This is how we draw theology.

Perfect

 

Snow falls on Friday morning.

Fast. Heavy. Quiet. Wet and warm as only desert snow can be. Too late in the day to mean a change in school. Too vulnerable to the wind that comes after to stay.

By the time I drive home, it is almost melted. Almost. But, not quite.

Because, there is a patch on the mountain that stays brilliantly white. One spot.

The place where last summer's fire burned through.

There is a scar on the mountain, a burnt place that might heal when the spring brings rain and that brief flash of green that paints the desert in the early parts of the year, as if even nature can't wait any longer to shake off the last vestiges of winter.

For now, though, it is black. A few minutes of heat and rain that still show themselves half a year later.

Every time that I see it, I pray. Pray for Haiti. Pray for churches and programs and children. Pray for the kids that we took this year. Pray for the kids that we have taken in the past.

Pray for the places where these trips have marked them, the memories that they hold as proof that God is good even when times are hard.

And, it is always a little bit sad, knowing that something was destroyed in the process, that we stood beside them and allowed their hearts to be broken. But, the memory of it takes my breath away. As if my protective side and my whatever-the-other-side-is are arguing with each other. Arguing over how best to do life with these kids.

And, I am reminded of the oxymoron of grace.

Because, today, the scar is white.

Today, the burnt spot is the place where the borrowed purity of snow shows through with the greatest definition. Today, the broken place most clearly demonstrates His grace.

As it does every day.

When it's almost Christmas and they are antsy with the thought of it. When it is Lent and they are growing faster than any of us can keep up with. When we're in the midst of the ebb and flow of normal time.

Every day, His grace shines through the most clearly when it is allowed to cover our brokenness.

But he said to me, 
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
2 Corinthians 12:9a

Tidings of Comfort and Joy

There is something in me that wants to put a neat bow on everything that I write; wants to pick apart every story, find the whys and the hows that are hiding in each line of black and white text; wants to understand.

Even if mine are the only eyes that see it, it seems important that it make sense.

Neat and gift wrapped and tidy.

But, it is December. Advent. Holy time. And, the messy bits of humanity seem to ooze out from under the tape and burst at the seams of the wrapping paper.

The stories blend together, and I can't seem to decide, even as I am telling them, whether the mess is joy or pain. Can't decide if this is the part of the Christmas story with the angels and the shepherds and the newborn king. Or, the part where the Savior escapes into the night while children are slaughtered.

We pause mid song with the high schoolers, and they are given a chance to write down something that is heavy on their hearts, something that they want to give to God.

They step forwards as one.

Without hesitation. Without pausing to consider. Without having to think.

Advent.

When we carry our hurts raw and close to the surface. When things spill over and out and I am constantly, constantly reminded to pray. When the gentle tugs at my soul that means each child blend over and around and beneath each other like a chorus, whispering every time of a unique need to talk to the Savior.

The Savior whose birth brought eternal hope, but also a temporary sorrow. Who knows what it is to be poor. To be a refugee. To be oppressed. To play. To laugh. To live with the messy ups and downs of a ragtag group of humans.

So, we celebrate Advent. When a tiny young family made a journey required by a harsh decree. When the unknown and the despised watched their sheep, not knowing that they would live to see angels. Live to see the Son of God.

When Magi prepared to travel, already carrying the gifts that spoke of burial.

So, there is a tiny tree beside my bed, and, tucked into its branches, is a tiny cross. Carved out of two pieces of playground bark, years and years ago. Lashed together with a well worn piece of string. Keeping watching over the creche where a wooden family kneels.

And, I am reminded of the gifts that used to appear at its base when my sisters and I were little. Advent gifts. Unwrapped. Loose. Small piles of candy or coins. Socks or a book. Movie tickets on one special Sunday. No paper. No bows. No neat finish but the one that was coming.

The one that is still coming.

1 Chronicles, where I am reading with my high school girls, rewinds back to the beginning. Back to Adam. To the garden. To genealogies that are important because they carry the thread of a promise. A promise already come, but not yet fulfilled.

And, I am reminded that none of our stories are ever finished. That the longest book I could ever write would never fully come to "the end." That eternity stretches in front of us. That it matters less if this record makes sense, and more, for my own sake, that it is true.

Even when it is a mess.

When one of my kids is too quiet. When we go through this pattern every December. When I am too chicken to ask the question that I know the answer to, because I don't want to see the tears that will spring up in his eyes. When I know that next Sunday, for his sake, I will have to ask anyways, so that he knows that I care.

When there isn't enough time or I don't have enough eyes or ears or hands for everyone. When I haven't yet started shopping for presents. When I don't have the words to pray. When the answer to the story is somewhere out of sight.

When we're still waiting.

Because, there is something uniquely holy to this kind of a mess. Some kind of unique treasure in this unwrapped, mixed up, pile of gifts.

A reason, in the midst of the mess, for rest. Comfort. Joy. Blessing. Charis.

Waiting and Carving Spaces

The second Sunday of Advent comes bitterly cold.

Still. Silent. Frozen. As if the entire world is waiting.

The fifth graders come in slow and quiet. Only three of them this morning, the rest hiding away from temperatures that no one here knows how to deal with.

Tired after a full week of school, we manage to collectively complete an entire verse of "Angels We Have Heard on High" to the tune of "Hark the Herald" before the music leader manages to stop the momentum.

But, we tuck into our small group spot under the stairs and draw quietly. Talk about Song of Solomon and Isaiah's coal. Talk about how God purifies and how every poem may indeed be about God. Add to our "Because of Jesus" pages and listen. Listen to spoken word. Listen to "Overcomer" and sing along.

Because, they know this now.

They know that the things that we do here tie in to the things that they do and hear throughout their week. They know that we listen and we watch and we find videos that connect.

This is how we make this space theirs.

There are a thousand other things that we could do. But, like always, there isn't time to fit them all in. Not enough space in an hour and twenty minutes to cram in all of the words and thoughts and life that ought to be shoved into this box that we call church.

(I am mildly convinced that heaven will be one long Sunday, where we have all the time that we could ever want.)

So, we fit as much as we can, and we call it good. This messy thing that is spilling out over all of the edges and defying our best efforts to scoop it back up.

Because, they aren't the only ones who are tired this morning.

Tired and close.

Close enough to spin circles within circles as they weave conversation around us like a web. Sixth, seventh, eighth graders. Freshmen who still come over here to hang out. Words that continue even when one of us is in the octagon and the other is not.

Kids who get me out, just so that I can go and grab a bandaid for someone else.

A game that separates us by grade and gender, but seventh graders who materialize afterwards with the ease of long practice.

Complaints about "sexist" gym teachers and constant play with the simplest of apps on my phone. Mischievous glances during music and constant comments during the lesson from the one who has once again glued himself as close to my side as he can possibly get.

We talk about racism and colonialism, about politics and human nature and the scope of history - and about girls and mad libs and the fact that my phone keeps vibrating in his pocket. 

Another leader tried to be playful and ended up dropping him, and there is confusion in his voice as he tells me the story, rubbing the sore spot on his head, crowding a little closer, capturing my attention the way that they have always done when their worlds are sideways.

Because, it's Advent.

When my quiet ones spill out words and my goofy ones go quiet, withdraw a little, waiting.

When we're messy and raw, honest and beautiful, and I could ignore the schedule all morning and still not quite get to the bottom of it, not solve the things that have them twisted up in worried, tired knots.

When I can feel them carving time out of a Sunday morning, claiming chunks of it as their own.

Like the kid who asks if I'll take him and some friends to the storage room where we spent the coldest of his elementary school Sundays. Notices instantly that I am wearing shoes instead of flip flops. Sits apart for the first time in several weeks but carefully, still catching my eye when he is talking and knows that I am about to shush him.

Gathers up his friends after service and follows me to the "secret room." Not because he doesn't know the way or forgot the passcode or can't find the lights.

He knows all of those things.

But, because this is his time, his space, his constant at an age where everything feels like it is changing. 

Because we can laugh and hide and tell stories as we remember. Because we can jump around corners at a friend and watch his eyes light up as he tells his brother about sword fights and hide and seek. Because, for a thousand reasons uniquely his, this is what it looks like, for today, to jump in and drown ourselves in grace.

This is what it looks like to wait together for a Messiah.

Wait

Sunday comes, and it is almost so par for the course that I don't take note of it.

But, I know that I'll want this record next year, when I am trying to sort through behaviors, trying to find the patterns and the normal. And, I know that our par for the course, is not necessarily par for the course.

So.

Advent comes gently this year, a Sunday right on the tail end of Thanksgiving break.

They come in well rested and well fed, and, if doesn't make it easy, it makes it easier. Makes this first weekend of Advent more like a late night with friends waiting for a midnight premier, and less like white knuckling through.

The fifth graders come in full of questions and humor and stories. Full of life and the desire to move. Eager for Christmas songs and simple games.

We work on a project and notebook.  Run wild around corners in a relay matching up bits from Proverbs and Ecclesiastics, and play fly up until the parents get there. Sing songs, and listen to teaching. 

There is a rhythm to it that they fall into easily these days, a knowing of what comes next. They know what we do, and when and where and how we do it. And, it makes the rest of it fade into the background a little.

My one who fidgets and bounces her body off of mine, but adjusts the impulsive sarcasm at my gentle reminder that it is beginning to be hurtful. The iPod that continues to go off with texts during the lesson. The whispers that are louder than they should be. The irony of the sudden volume and violent shaking of my arms that comes with their excitement over Silent Night. 

And, the kid who stays with my group of girls simply because he knows me and it seems like a better idea than going with the rest of the boys and a leader he has never met. He stays, and no one dies from cooties on either side of the equation.

We finish. One of the seventh graders and I walk to middle school together.

And, it's different, but still so very much the same.

They come in bouncing and eager and full of the need to have eyes turned their way.

I pass out bandaids and gum, and, when we split off into groups for the game, point the ones who drift towards me in the direction that they need to go. Because, it might be the age or the season or the unexpected method of diving up groups, but it takes a while for everyone to figure out where they need to go, and they drift back close while they try to figure it out, like boats coming back to the harbor.

But, they make it, eventually.

We take a Thanksgiving quiz, and they're pretty sure that Columbus sailed the Mayflower in 1492, loudly certain of it, while the little peace maker of a sixth grader murmurs confident answers beside me.  One of the more exuberant boys tries to google whether wild turkey's fly and somehow comes up with the wrong answer.

(That they can be in middle school in 2013 and not know how to research something is an entirely separate conversation about the American education system.)

Boisterously talkative. Silly. Grabbing. Pointing. Poking. Circling.

Not quite hyped up. But, not quite settled, either.

We finish, and my circle dissipates, coming back to check in a few times, but largely finding other places to sit. In their place come the kids who were once my small group.

They cluster in, not as tight as last week, but very conspicuously here, as if we've given them a broken compass and this is the one place that they can find. And, there are a thousand things going on beneath the surface that we try to deal with at the same time that I try to hush them into "acceptable" behaviors.

*nn* reminds me to smile. M*t** reminds me to laugh.

And, even if they are loud enough to draw another leader, every hand goes up during worship. And, it might seem small, that they are doing the same thing as every other kid in the room. But, it isn't. Not for these kids.

Their hands are up. If only for a moment. There are words coming out. And, I will take it.

On this week, when they can't keep their hands and feet off of each other. When the youth pastor talks about being distracted and they are too focused on other things to even glance at me guiltily. When there are no breakout groups and the extra time sitting is like pulling their teeth, but somehow still easier than it would have been to send them away.

When even the shy ones stand close and spend long minutes sticking a name tag to my sleeve over and over and over again. When church runs long but they stay close instead of going to the storage room. When they need me to chase them or jump into the octagon.

When it is gentle but still Advent.

On this week, I will take it.

This is easier. Easier than it could be. Easier than it has been.

Even the high schoolers grin and laugh during the game at Intersect PM. Run around. Just act goofy. Play.

They tell me ridiculous things, and, even though it isn't light or fluffy, there is a settledness to this waiting. An end game. History.

Advent means coming. Jesus is coming.

Already present but coming again.

So, we pour a little extra oil in our lamps, and we sit close to one another, because the night can get cold. And, we wait.