Today

Today, the fifth graders are restless and antsy, asking for a chance to "get rid of some wiggles" before we start.

Today, they don't want to stop running, so we don't. We pull out the relay cards, and the five of them race against the clock. Faster. Faster. Faster still. Flipping through the pages of a well used Bible. Cheering each other on. Putting together verse after verse.

All the way up until the parents arrive, we run relays.

Relays because they need to move. Relays because they need to succeed at something. Relays because they need to work as a team. Relays because I need to change it up. Because we're only half way through the morning, and I'm tired of saying "no thank you" and correcting behavior.

Because we have tight boundaries this year. Because they are coatless and shoeless and it is still cold outside. Because relays have always been one of my go to games for elementary Sunday school. But, mostly, because, even with this most structured group that I have ever run, I need the chance to remember that they are wonderful, even when their insides are too full to sit still.

This one is back after long weeks of absence. That one squirms as she tells me about an animal that she gets to dissect, conflictingly excited over the prospect and sad that it had to die. 

This one is visibly unsettled by the number of no's and redirects from a teacher whose most common answer is "yes," and that one will patiently throw her whole self into anything that we do.

The other one wears that lost but feisty look of re-entry shock, and part of me wants to sit her down and give her information, give her tools to come back from Belize well. But, she wouldn't hear me. Not today. Not right now.

So, today, we run.

Today, we remember a faithful God, because these relay cards were never "supposed" to be for them in the first place.

They were for middle school. Are for middle school. Where a hundred kids divide up into teams and run, skip, crab walk, army crawl, and roll across the slick new floors to put together the same verses about fear and courage and a good and faithful God.

Where leaders cheer on kids and work together with kids, and the ones who win are rewarded with a pack of socks to donate to the Union Gospel Mission.

Today they jump up to help me explain the game and jump into it with enthusiasm, even when I worry that it is too young for them. And, the shiny new floor echoes with the sound of a dozen verses. Today a seventh grader rebuffs an introduction with, "I know her [Jessica]. She was my sub. Well, not really. She was my…something. She's cool. Be nice to her."

Today they make sure I know when they get there and when they leave. We talk and dodge balls and watch a video that rips some of them wide open.

They sit around me, three of them, each on their own side, and, today, like every day, I can't help but love these kids.

Normal Time

There are patterns to this thing, layers of constant action and reaction that feel both brand new and incredibly familiar.

There are Sundays like today where I could take what I wrote exactly three years ago and fill it in like one of the Mad L*bs that the kids love using on my phone.

As we were getting ready to take off on our ... game for the day, [pool noodle line hockey], a few of my more active kids were ... bouncing [up and down on the rubber cones that they had shoved their feet into like stilts]. They were excited. People were finally all back from vacation. And, we [had a brand new, slippery, shiny floor], which threw them even more off kilter.

"MH," I caught his attention first…

…rolling my eyes and catching his gaze for the thousandth time already this morning, like we're trying to make up for all of the weeks that he missed on vacation.

He's full of it this morning, goofy and right in the middle of things, causing general, sparkly eyed mayhem wherever he turns; no longer December's too quiet, ghost of a child who flitted along the edges like he was trying to be invisible.

It's January. 

Epiphany is past. Christmas is over. 

And, they breathe a little different during normal time.

The fifth graders settle in to draw while one of the girls tells us stories about her ministry trip to Belize and the people that she met while she was there. They braid each other's hair during the lesson and use up extra energy in goofy fights over pens and glue sticks, filling up a page in their notebooks with words that describe their identity in Christ.

We talk about Hosea and Joel and about how Jesus bought back humanity after we had gotten ourselves into trouble, the same way that Hosea bought back Gomer. Something about the bugs in the book of Joel gets us totally side tracked, but we make it back to focused. 

Sort of.

There are Mad L*bs on my phone while we wait for parents, fourth grade boys who come over to show me masks that they made, and more talk about trips out of the country, this time with a second hour leader who was on the same Nicaragua team as my twelve year old self.

Nicaragua. Kenya. Belize. The US.

One of my seventh graders comes up while we're talking, and we begin the transition into second hour. Some time with him and a quick promise to be over in middle school soon.

Two eighth graders and a freshman who I pass in the hallway with a sarcastic comment about "an awful lot of trouble all standing in one spot."
"Actually," one of them grins back at me, "we'll follow you."

So, we walk across the church with smiles and eye rolls and teasing, talking about all of the times and things that they have done to my poor little phone, which is somehow just another extension of my self to these kids. Not my property so much as it is a part of me. A set of memories and events that they can tangibly hold on to.

They fall back to talk with a couple of sophomores, and I stop for a pair of seventh grade girls.

The leaders' meeting is started already, but I never quite make it in, caught up, for today, in the January-ness of my kids. The smiles and the words that come so easily this week. The blatant way that they ask for more time.

The seventh grader who I finally step across the threshold with as he spins around and looks at the new floor with wide eyed shock.
"I don't like it. It looks like it will hurt."

The pair of them who pull me off to find a space where they know that we won't be interrupted.

More talk about Belize, this time with the oldest sister, and we are fully into the swing of things.

Game. Video. Music. More video. Breakouts.

And, it's less talking now and more doing. More hauling them to their feet every time that we need to stand. Explaining the game until the girls understand. Connecting a new sixth grader with friends he knows from school. Leaving the side where I am "supposed to be" to check on the boys, who are still vaguely confounded by the idea that splitting the game by gender means Jessica being on the other side.

Laughing with them at the difference between the girls, who are actually playing the game, and the boys, who are largely just beating on each other with pool noodles in a semi organized rotation. Nodding as the ones I would have expected mention their distaste.

Too violent. No rules. No structure that they can follow.

It's noisy in here with the new floor. Bright. Loud. Slippery. Echoey. New colors on the walls. And, they have a little of that shocked and dazed appearance like we have just ripped the rug out from under them.

But, they gather back together for the video and music. Quiet. Focused.

And, the echo means that they can hear each other sing. Not individual voices, but the mass of them. From where we stand in the middle, one of the girls whispers how odd it is to be able to hear the boys. Hear them and see them.

See my wiggly ones standing still. See the talkative ones being quiet. Watch as two boys near the front, each with their own reason for less developed inhibitions, throw their hands up into the air in worship. Watch as the friend standing next to them glances around, smiles, and does the same.

Watch as it spreads. As we end worship with dozens of hands in the air. 100+ voices echoing, "For the sake of the world, burn like a fire in me."

It's January.

Normal time.

In it's own strange way, this is their normal.