It's grad weekend in this part of the desert.
A staccato whirl of intersecting with many of the same people over and over and over again, eating a little here, and then there, and then at the next place. Finding new things to talk about and old things to say. And, loving these people enough that we all keep going to just one more party and then one more and one more again, even when drooping, social kids have just about reached their limit, moving place to place in the weekend's 100+ degree heat.
Backyards in neighborhoods old enough to have shade trees see circles of grateful bodies settled on the grass, watermelon slices in hand and cups of some from of flavored water balanced nearby - because you can't have a summer grad party without watermelon.
The graduates patiently answer the same questions over and over and over again
The graduates patiently answer the same questions over and over and over again
And, in between, we take the time at church to graduate up a class of 5th graders and a class of 8th graders.
It's a little bit haphazard, but somehow carefully marked. Donut holes and sunshine for the 5th graders, one last week to run up and down this hill, to laugh, and to prove the things that they have learned to these 6th grade girls who have come to join us for our final week. Come back to the space under the stairs that they occupied themselves just twelve sort (long) months ago.
"They do so much Bible." The 6th grade leader who was with us mentions afterwards as we sit in the cool across the parking lot, waiting for high schoolers to trickle into this safe space after yet another whirlwind round of parties. "It challenges me to push them more in middle school, to be more about God things and life things."
Pushes us to grow and to change, to find the things that they need and to pour into them with everything that we have.
Because, kids have a gentle way of forcing grown-ups to be better.
"Can we go play ninjas?" The eighth grade girls make the request that I haven't heard in years, since their fourth and fifth grade years, when it was still sort of, kind, almost, not quite acceptable to trail lines of scattered children giggling silently through the empty places of the church. And, it's yet another facet to the way that we say goodbye.
Like the sizing up to determine if they can fit a no longer so tiny person through a very tiny window and the wandering down to the courtyard that they had forgotten they knew existed, the taking of pictures and the wrapping in toilet paper.
Eighth graders are always wrapped in toilet paper before they leave, sent off with all of the love that a crowd of middle schoolers can pour into the act.
Donut holes. Toilet paper. Parties.
These are the liturgies that mark the slow end to one season and the beginning of another.
It's quirky and it's odd and it probably wouldn't work quite the same anywhere but here, but this is a little of what grad weekend looks like in this part of the desert.
It's a little bit haphazard, but somehow carefully marked. Donut holes and sunshine for the 5th graders, one last week to run up and down this hill, to laugh, and to prove the things that they have learned to these 6th grade girls who have come to join us for our final week. Come back to the space under the stairs that they occupied themselves just twelve sort (long) months ago.
"They do so much Bible." The 6th grade leader who was with us mentions afterwards as we sit in the cool across the parking lot, waiting for high schoolers to trickle into this safe space after yet another whirlwind round of parties. "It challenges me to push them more in middle school, to be more about God things and life things."
Pushes us to grow and to change, to find the things that they need and to pour into them with everything that we have.
Because, kids have a gentle way of forcing grown-ups to be better.
"Can we go play ninjas?" The eighth grade girls make the request that I haven't heard in years, since their fourth and fifth grade years, when it was still sort of, kind, almost, not quite acceptable to trail lines of scattered children giggling silently through the empty places of the church. And, it's yet another facet to the way that we say goodbye.
Like the sizing up to determine if they can fit a no longer so tiny person through a very tiny window and the wandering down to the courtyard that they had forgotten they knew existed, the taking of pictures and the wrapping in toilet paper.
Eighth graders are always wrapped in toilet paper before they leave, sent off with all of the love that a crowd of middle schoolers can pour into the act.
Donut holes. Toilet paper. Parties.
These are the liturgies that mark the slow end to one season and the beginning of another.
It's quirky and it's odd and it probably wouldn't work quite the same anywhere but here, but this is a little of what grad weekend looks like in this part of the desert.
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