Sunday.
The 5th grade girls have written "Nepal" on one side of their rocks, uncharacteristically quiet as they draw on the other side. This morning, the silent scrape of marker on stone is the rhythm of our prayer. Safety. Courage. Comfort. Healing. I don't know what their hearts are lifting up before the one who hears, but I know that they are heard.
Rocks go into pockets. Markers back into the bag. And, they request to play, "that one game." Our mutant version of Shipwreck that has them running up and down the hill, calling out the names of spiritual gifts and scrambling to complete the proper actions. Because, I have a thing about covering spiritual gifts with outgoing 5th graders.
Notebooking, treasure hunting in the storage room, telling stories, running up and down this hill.
Late spring comes, and we talk about Spiritual Gifts.
One of my 8th graders is down the hill and across the parking lot, running slow circles in the play area as he is chased by laughing tinies. The girls confuse him for one of the senior guys an older sister used to date, and, for a moment, we're talking about relationships and dating, and pet rocks and Nepal all at the same time, and then they remember that it's entirely possible that boys still have cooties, and we're back to getting ready to play our game.
They aren't giggly today. Thoughtful, perhaps. Too full of earthquakes and protests and grandma's with cancer. Joyful still. Looking to the end of the school year. Content in this community. Competitive, but with no bite behind the competition. There is something underneath. So, they smile, and they talk big and bright the way that Gryffindor classes do, but they don't giggle.
The 8th graders are full of endings, full of questions about dates and events and changes that are staring them straight in the face.
And, it's the sort of strange, irreverent, passing conversations about Jesus' humanity and language and wearing masks at church that only fourteen-year-old boys could get us into and out of in three sentences or less. The rambling 'problem solving that borders on gossip' of fourteen-year-old girls with a protective need to not leave messes for younger siblings to walk into at their respective schools.
There's hurt here. Raw and just under the surface. Present for a hundred different reasons. But, they are trying so hard.
And, I can't help but be proud of these rapidly growing humans. These ones who live out memories with their actions just as often as their words.
I'm back with them again in the evening to fill in for a missing leader, playing a game that is glowsticks and running and proof that teamwork is one of their more well developed instincts. Talking about anything and everything. Wandering through the grass. Climbing trees.
Watching as they watch these high schoolers who have come to visit, weigh options, listen for the truth behind words.
They clamber up into branches, high and close to the high school gathering, as if the perspective will grant understanding, the way that it used to, back when I would sneak their whisper quiet selves into the balcony to peer down on what the middle schoolers were doing, all fifth grade ninja skills and nervous energy.
They're more grown up than that tonight.
We post pictures afterwards, as if proving to ourselves things that are real, and they confidently declare that they are going to kick butt in high school.
And, they will.
If they stick together like this, these kids will be a force to be reckoned with. If they learn to work with the soon to be seniors, who are so much like them, I am fully confident that they could find the stubborn grit and courage to move mountains - even if they have to do it spoonful by tiny spoonful. They'll wrap a few more leaders around their finger on the way, and, they will move mountains.
Not because they are bigger, stronger, faster, smarter. But, because they are convinced of a Grace that covers. Because they have the eyes to see Beauty and Light and Joy in the midst of Pain. Because they climb trees and create and learn and listen when the universe plays her Creator's song.
These kids will kick butt because they Love.
There's hurt here. Raw and just under the surface. Present for a hundred different reasons. But, they are trying so hard.
And, I can't help but be proud of these rapidly growing humans. These ones who live out memories with their actions just as often as their words.
I'm back with them again in the evening to fill in for a missing leader, playing a game that is glowsticks and running and proof that teamwork is one of their more well developed instincts. Talking about anything and everything. Wandering through the grass. Climbing trees.
Watching as they watch these high schoolers who have come to visit, weigh options, listen for the truth behind words.
They clamber up into branches, high and close to the high school gathering, as if the perspective will grant understanding, the way that it used to, back when I would sneak their whisper quiet selves into the balcony to peer down on what the middle schoolers were doing, all fifth grade ninja skills and nervous energy.
They're more grown up than that tonight.
We post pictures afterwards, as if proving to ourselves things that are real, and they confidently declare that they are going to kick butt in high school.
And, they will.
If they stick together like this, these kids will be a force to be reckoned with. If they learn to work with the soon to be seniors, who are so much like them, I am fully confident that they could find the stubborn grit and courage to move mountains - even if they have to do it spoonful by tiny spoonful. They'll wrap a few more leaders around their finger on the way, and, they will move mountains.
Not because they are bigger, stronger, faster, smarter. But, because they are convinced of a Grace that covers. Because they have the eyes to see Beauty and Light and Joy in the midst of Pain. Because they climb trees and create and learn and listen when the universe plays her Creator's song.
These kids will kick butt because they Love.
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