Enough?

"He was talking about you [at school]and he said that, 'my church leader has a phone on her app.'"

It's a simple phrase, the fore spoken 7th grader looking sheepish at my other elbow, and I don't want to put too much into it. She's only telling me because of the flip flop of words. Phone on her app instead of an app on her phone. It's gentle mocking. Nothing more.

But, I do anyways.

Between the quiet laughter and the half listening to game instructions that leaves all of us uncertain of what we're supposed to be doing - I over think it.

My brain spins a million miles an hour when I'm with this group. We've made four years' practice of sifting through every word and flicker of action in order to find truth that has always been buried in a certain level of noise and chaos. And, I'm not about to be able to turn it off now.

These are my kids.

Or, they were, but they aren't, but they are. And, it's as mixed up in real life as it sounds on paper.

As mixed up as it sounds in K*r*n's rendition of J*d*n's story. His church leader, even though this is the second year that I am not officially his leader at all.

But, I am.

Some weeks they are as close as my own skin, like someone forgot to install the normal space between our elbows, feet, knees. And, some weeks they remember that there are other people here, other leaders, other adult - or nearly adult - humans who want to teach them and love them and learn who they are.

Some weeks they forget in one moment and remember in the next.

Some weeks I am intentional about giving them space, about letting another leader step in to handle it, whatever it is. Some weeks they are intentional about not letting me do so.

Some weeks it is relatively clear that I am a sixth grade girls' leader.

Other weeks, a quick scan of the kids around me would make that distinctly less than clear. Because, there are still weeks where I am surrounded mostly by seventh grade boys.

Sometimes I think that I am as mixed up about it as they are, like a mom who can't decide if it is better to let her child cry for a few weeks in the nursery until he gets used to it or just not bother bringing him in at all.

I may have become that mom who just starts working in the nursery with her kid instead.

Over thinking.

Over thinking because church is meant to be a place where we can come to feel safe, known, steadied against the instability of a broken world. But also pushed, grown, challenged.

And, I have to wonder if we're finding the proper balance between the two.

Am I pushing them hard enough? Would they learn more if I stepped back? Or, would the lack of connection just be an excuse to disappear?

Since forth grade, I have trusted, we have trusted, these particular kids to self select, to put themselves in the groups where they need to be. They moved around a little, at first, but they stopped here. For the fourth year in a row, they have largely stopped here.

Is that okay? Shouldn't the boys have males at church that they look up to more than me? How much does shared history outweigh shared gender?

Is it enough? It must be enough. Surely it is enough. Is it enough to teach them how to be human and trust that, once they know how to be human, they will be wise enough to figure out how to be men?

Is enough to be slow and gentle, to let them learn to trust other leaders at their own pace, without breaking their trust in the process?

Is it enough, for the boys and the girls, to just do life, and trust God to take care of the rest?

These kids have a marvelous ability to set my head whirling, to bring up constant questions that might not have any answers. To turn ecclesiology back into a pondering of this situation, with these people, right now.

And, when ecclesiology turns to eucharisteo. When eucharisteo turns to chario. When the study of church turns to gratitude and gratitude turns into a greeting, a cause for joy.

That might just be enough.