It's May the 4th, and we do Star Wars all day just because we can. Because the sun is out in fits and starts. Because summer is almost here but not quite, and the kids aren't really sure if they want to speed up the clock or slow it down. Because there are lightsabers, and why would we not?
My fifth graders are a squiggling mass of energy that bursts in the doors to tackle me with hugs and words and noise and wild energy. The cut outs on their notebooking pages are all jagged edges and hasty streaks of glue, a crooked pile of papers that I'll sort out another day - some time when there aren't children to hold on to.
When my hands don't need to be constantly busy, landing on shoulders, curling over fingers that want to poke their friends, gesturing to turn front or keep their eyes on the speaker. When this one isn't leaned against my knee and that one isn't drawing a flower onto my skin. When I'm not sliding one across the floor so that he's sitting with our group or looking at the half dozen things that they have found in their Bibles.
When my lips don't need to whisper quiet explanations during story or murmur "later" when they ask for stickers or gum or whether or not we're going to play a game.
Because, these kids are more important than the papers will ever be. These ones who slip into our spot under the stairs to talk about two new-to-us books of the Bible and try to beat my score at Flappy Bird. Who want to know "where we're going today." Who are almost in sixth grade but not quite.
Today. Today we're going out to the grass with a bag full of lightsabers, K*d*n hopping along on one foot as he tries to preserve his good socks while still finishing the decorations on the bottom of his shoe. Today, K*yl* will scrape her foot on the sidewalk but jump back into the game anyways. J*yd*h will prove herself fierce with a lightsaber, and they will have a giant battle until they are breathless.
Five lightsabers and seven kids means that they drop their weapon anytime that they are hit and read me off the memory verse before they are allowed back into the rotation. "A new command I give you," H**l*y and H*yl** race each other to finish first, to get to the blue and silver plastic that was just thrown onto the grass, "love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."
*n*k*'s voice layers over theirs as they finish, and, when we finally go inside, K*r*ss* beelines for the memory booth, suddenly confident enough to recite.
"By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
"LOVE:" the band from middle school is wide and obvious around my wrist, red letters dark against the gray, "As I Have Loved You," and I have to wonder at the half way sassy response from one of the kids, "But, I like being alive."
If Jesus loved us enough to die for us, the simple logic turns behind their eyes, then does #JesusStyle love mean dying too? Or does it mean this? Does it mean carefully placing stars on a waiting forehead, blue, gold, and green bright above sparkling fourth grade eyes? Or, passing out the gum that one of my seventh graders has taught them to ask for?
"Will you take me and D*n**l to the storage room today?" He steps into place beside me, this thirteen year old man/boy who carries around a piece of my heart with the same easy confidence of so many of my kids.
He knows that I'll say yes. Just as clearly as he knows that he could get there without me. Because we both know that he's done it on his own a dozen dozens of times. That the question and the answer aren't about a place but about a state of being. About a chance to simply be.
And, here is where the narrative falls apart a little, where we're still trying to sort out this ever changing dance that is middle school: D*n**l doesn't come this week. The trip doesn't happen. Instead, we talk a little in the precious quiet before a leaders' meeting, and then, he glues himself to one of the high school guys, always just within eye sight as they roll on the floor like puppies - if puppies were to put each other in head locks.
He loves it, loves being roughhoused with and held onto, but I can also watch him, see him still trapped inside his own head. This is good, but it isn't quite what he thought he wanted, so we sort of muddle our way through making the pieces fit. Dance a little bit off beat, off step, and syncopated, the way that the boys like to clap on the in between of the rhythm during music.
Lightsabers and spagetti noodles in the grass. Selfies on my phone and kiddos who are tucked in so tight that we're nearly sitting on the same piece of floor.
My hands are busy again, flicking shoulders and curling over fingers that want to poke at their friends, tapping my temples and pointing forwards in a years old reminder to focus on the music. There are lightsaber battles after Sunday school and whispered explanations during the lesson. Conversations and laughter and never enough time. Slowly growing up, but still a thousand times my kids.
It might be messy, rough around the edges and held together with jagged streaks of glue, but this is how we love. This is how we try to prove that grace is enough.
This is #JesusStyle.
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