Bird Song and Old Steps

There is a certain kind of hoarse shriek that I am convinced only the middle school male is capable of producing. Some of them with more regularity than others.

It is unique. Identifying. And, I can tell without looking which sound belongs to who.

Other people learn bird songs. Jessica learns the piercing sounds of middle school boys who shriek like they are trying to use echolocation to orient themselves in space.

Some weeks it is quick, announcing their presence as they come running in or jumping over or hurtling down. Other weeks, like this one, it continues until I am sure that their throats must be raw with it.

Over and over and over.

Not quite echolocation, but almost. 

Shriek. Look up. Catch eyes. Play. Shriek. Look up. Catch eyes. Play.

Bump. Run. Catch. Torture. Release. Bump. Run. Catch. Torture. Release.

Shriek. Look up. Catch eyes. Play. Shriek. Look up. Catch eyes. Play.

He's in seventh grade, starting to get long and lanky, and the walk from one end of the church to the other was punctuated by greetings from the kids that he teaches, little boys who adore him.

And, maybe it is because it doesn't seem like so long ago that he was that size himself that I indulge the repetition and the patterns that we haven't used quite this way since elementary school.

Or, maybe it's something in the kids.

He brings up stories from our small group. *bby talks with me about when she was a baby. *nn* compares only knowing me since 4th grade. The girls huddle close but don't blink when I go to chase the shrieking one.

J*m** sits beside for the first time in forever, and J*m** rubs coins across the carpet until they are hot, pressing them against the tops of my bare feet, challenges me on our mini basketball hoops. There are no breakout groups. And, it's one of those weeks where growing up means going back, just for today, to being little.

So, when our pattern is interrupted by a game, he makes sure to tell me what side he is going to be on, makes sure that I see him during music (even when I break old patterns and don't come over), maneuvers his space during the lesson until we have a clear line of sight.

Because, these are steps to a fourth grade dance.

It's been three years, but we were once very good at this.

It gives us something to fall back on, something known. Something other than those messy questions that no thirteen year old wants to answer in a room filled with dozens of peers. "How are you doing?" "What's wrong?" "Are you okay?"

Not honestly, at least.

But, there is something raw and honest to the shrieks that never stop, to the running and the catching and the chasing. To the little boy who never gets up until I do, who asks that we not add other leaders into the game the way that most weeks allow. Who stops when I am talking to another boy and allows me to reach out and snag him.

Right to left. Back and forth. Rhythmic. Steady. I talk and swing him in a loose basket hold that he doesn't fight. 

And, I am reminded of the fourth grader who used to run wild circles, watching me out of the corner or his eye. Until I caught him. Reached out and snagged him in the circle of an almost basket hold. Let him stay there until he finally melted.

These patterns. Seasons. Fourth grade steps in a seventh grade dance. Grown up and little all at the same time. These are the languages that we speak.

Languages where shrieks are sometimes just as good as words.

Because, well, that's just middle school.

Cluster

For four years, I have co-led a high school girls' group with two other people, one of whom was actually my high school leader once upon a time.

Every week, the girls are incredible and insightful and thoughtful and oh so very funny, and I wish that I had the freedom to write more. But, what happens in cluster stays in cluster.

Unless, of course, we put it on YouT*be for all the world to see.

Because, yes, in what has to be the most exuberantly truth and information loving of all the clusters, this is the sort of thing that we do… talk about the eight sections of the Old Testament and how which of the things that we are reading fit in where.

And, then we make up hand motions to help remember them.

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.

Spinning Sabbath

Sabbath.

First day back to fall Sunday school, and I am reminded to breathe deep and make each moment count, reminded of how short the time is that we have them here.

It is a specials week. Music. Gym time. Four speakers. Twenty minutes of small group time carved down to ten, and we notebook at the speed of light. They're learning, but I don't think that they realize it yet, these girls who love to draw and cut and glue. They're having fun, and, as they close up their folders, they tell me so.

5th graders now. The smallest group that I've ever had in children's. Six girls this week.

And, yet.

This day of rest spins around me like an overzealous puppy.

Fifth grade. Fourth grade.

Boys. Girls.

They'll settle soon, divide up, begin to sit with their small groups. But, for now. For now, they sit close and play with my lanyard or the ring on my finger. For now, they take half a dozen pictures, not of themselves, but of me. As if I might cease to exist when they stop looking.

I won't, but they don't know that yet.

And, it's okay.

We're setting patterns for the rest of the year. Patterns that they are seen. That they are known. That every moment is precious. Patterns that might just carry us through the tempest that comes as they get just a little bit older.

Because, the middle schoolers are raw today. Antsy. Close. Coming out of a rough week.

Remembering last Sunday's video and quiet tears.

Last week, the boys miscalculated and ended up separated from us in a game. This week, they flop down into tight spaces, this messy muddle of different friend groups who all claim to be mine. 

"Your kids are misbehaving," one of the girls teases me as they jostle and talk and play with my phone when they should be listening to instructions. 

They should be listening.

But, truth comes out in spurts, blurbs that I want to hold on to, go back to. Honest words from the sad eyed one who almost always choses to speak to me with actions instead. Words that I would delve deeper into. If only we had the time.

So, I am listening instead.

Because, these moments are few and precious. These minutes where they pretend to still be a small group.

We split for game, girls on one side, boys on the other. Separated again. And, it does nothing to ease the restless hurt in their souls.

One of my quieter ones connects himself elbow and arm for music, nonstop chatter and fidgeting like the slow release of a pressure valve. He bounces his knee over mine during the lesson and finally spits part of it out as we transition to small groups.

Not all of it, but part.

Enough.

And, I am in the middle of a whirlwind. But, there are patterns.

Patterns that allow them to scramble close at the beginning of the lesson, because, during last week's video, they were too far away. That let them move back to where they were when it becomes clear that this week holds no such surprises.

Patterns that tell stories about soccer games, football, volley ball. But also about boy problems, friend problems, people that they miss, hard things at school.

That make it okay to just be close without needing to talk.

They are raw, and it isn't pretty or smooth, but there is a trust here that has taken long years to build.

Hours in trees and busses and storage rooms. Semi's filled with shoeboxes, kayak rides on a river, and frozen fingers out in the snow. Donut fights and crayon wars. Honest conversations and a thousand holds and catches.

There is a beauty here and also a sweetness. A sweetness in seventh grade boys who offer me m&m's or tuck pieces of gum inside my phone case; in kids who feel no hesitation in referring to me as one of their "best friends;" in girls who lay on their bellies around a piece of paper and allow me to see a glimpse of their hearts; in shouted goodbyes across the parking lot, and in a phone that, almost every week, carries a mark of their presence.

In kids who take pictures of themselves, because they know that I am not going anywhere.

And, even the nomad longing in my soul can find the beauty in this. 

Steadiness. Consistency. Trust.

Sabbath.

A day to rest and to heal.

Loud and raw and spinning.

But, good.

Broken

It's one of the "older" kids who vocalizes it, one of the sophomores who have put in enough hours that they finally feel at home here.

One of the Haiti boys who speaks truth at our tiny evening youth group.

Under twenty kids. Eleven leaders. 

The numbers don't matter. But, they do. In this church of thousands, there is a quiet purpose to the smallness of this thing, a reason that this steady dozen get themselves here week after week after week.  These twenty are no accident.

And, I think that he begins to speak it out.

He talks about brokenness. Not in the way that adults in the Church are using it now, as a buzzword for sin and depravity, but distinctly the way that a high schooler would.

Brokenness: pain, fear, the unknown that whispers a need to cut into flesh, to abuse your own body. Brokenness as a wound needing to be healed, a hurt that can be soothed, a pain the shouldn't be but is, that one day will no longer be.

Brokenness, not as sin, but as a symptom of it.

He talks about the church as a hospital. As a place to come each week to begin to heal.

This is what they understand this place to be.

What it will turn out to be depends on any number of variables, a terrifying ratio of which are in the hands of those of us over the age of twenty. But, for now, this is their hospital.

This is where they trust themselves to limp in each week and find a measure of safety, of security, of sameness and rest.

This is where they expect to do the hard work of helping to heal others and of stepping back and allowing themselves to be healed.

Because, like most high schoolers, they understand themselves to be broken.

They feel the emotions in their souls that refuse to be silent, and they know that they need a place where they can be at peace.

They mean it the same way that every generation of teenagers has meant it, each with their own vocabulary and set of shared understandings. But, they also mean it differently.

Not very differently, but enough.

Because, he means it in the way that they have spent the last year discovering, the way that they found on winter retreat and on summer ministry trips.

Not as a place to hide, but as a place to be changed, a place to become strong enough to change their world. And, if we can find the self control to leave that alone, to walk with them and let their understanding shape what we see and how we explain, I think that it has the power to become, to continue to be, a very powerful thing. 

Wide Eyed. Humble. Curious

The sermon is gentler this week and the kids are quieter, exhausted after a second week of school, drooping in their seats and all too ready to be calm.

Or, as calm as we ever get.

The 1st-3rd graders last less than five minutes on the games that we have been given, so I send them off to find rocks and sticks instead, and they spend quiet moments creating land art, piles and swirls of careful color on the sidewalk.

Twigs snap and they relax in the sunshine, consumed with the act of creating.

Time finishes, and they put the pieces back where they found them without complaint. It didn't need to be permanent. It simply needed to be. To be a mountain or a tower, a tree or a Minecraft figure, a face or a mandala. To be something made, even if only for a moment.

4th and 5th graders join in just as quietly, finishing a quick game of tag, curling themselves under my arms and settling against my side.

They want to know when we start back to small groups, and the answer is two weeks from now. One week of training and then we'll be back into our fall schedule.

I have notebooking planned out for them, things to color and glue and cut and write. We have memory verse sheets, books of the Bible cards, and ways to look at Spiritual gifts. I have a box almost prepped, almost ready to go.

But, for right now, it is enough to simply be consistent, to know their names and their stories, to let them twist the promise ring around and around my finger and drape my arms over their shoulders like a cloak. 

It's not a running week or a manic week, but a tired week to simply be.

The seventh grader who has had a made up a identity on his tag every week for over a year is finally wearing his own name. It was a joke at first, a test to see how long it would take for leaders to really learn who he was. 

As far as he can tell, they haven't. And, he's ready to be known.

They're quiet. Even as balls fly and bodies chase across the room, they're calm.

Younger siblings stick just-close-enough to older ones, and kids who don't always sit with us settle down close. My phone trades hands as they add me on Instagr*m, take goofy pictures, or simply try to stay awake.

We talk and sing, and one of the girls nudges my hand up into the air during One Thing Remains. My sixth grade girls get down on their stomaches, heads together around paper and markers as we use our triangle method to dissect the lesson. 

It's the first time that we've used it since camp, our twisted version of a CBT process, but they love it. And, I love the truth that it draws from their lips.

"If I believe that Jesus died for us," they tell me, "then I will feel spectacular, awestruck, and blown away, and, if I feel that way, then I will be wide eyed, humble, and curious."

Crazy Grace

One of those days, where I am left dizzy by the grace that rushes past us, surrounds us.

The sermon is gentle rebuke, and the kids respond to it viscerally, these 7th graders who have always had their spiritual nerves so raw and close to the surface. They didn't have to hear it to know, to feel that something is going on.

They are noisy and wild and close, filled beyond the capacity of growing minds and souls, letting off steam in bursts of sound and movement. And yet, I am reminded all the more clearly of Grace.

Grace that covers. Grace that soothes hurts that haven't been spoken and pulls us ever tighter under its wing.

Grace for the tears that they shake off before small group. For the holding on to that keeps them grounded, the lifting to their feet or out of the octagon. Grace for mixed up small groups and conversations that cover more ground than ought to be possible.

Grace that is enough when I am not.

Not enough hands to hold on to them all. Not enough ears to listen. Not enough moments to dig into truth. And, not the right gender to follow my boys to small group and hear the things that are bubbling up behind their eyes.

Because, they are heavy with it today. Their own mess spilling out of cups that are too full with what is happening in the sanctuary.

But, there is grace.

Grace for the exhale that follows each deep breath in.

Grace in kids who gather at night and use Haiti as the lens through which they interpret their world.

Grace.

Because, it has been long years since the high school group has felt this safe. Long years since we have had one of these seasons, where they let their guard down and, together, we speak the words that build trust.

It's not perfect. Not without its flaws and its missteps. But, it is new and growing and vulnerably strong.

It is an exhale.

Safety. Trust. Memory. Grace.

Crazy grace that highlights our weaknesses as well as our strengths.

Crazy grace that would sacrifice everything to set us free.

And, it is ours.

Tapestry

Sometimes I wonder if I am doing this right.

There are moments when I let myself listen to the well trained part of my soul that whispers that there is a difference between "serving at church" and "going to church," that church is a thing to be sat through, rather than an identity to be lived out, that there is only one right way of doing this thing.

And, then I look into the eyes of my kids.

And, I remember that the Church is a people.

Church is a people that can serve and play and listen and pray and demonstrate to the world what it means to be a living, breathing, messy, beautiful community. So, it's church when I sit in service with my parents, but it's also church when I listen to that teaching later, because the service time is spent living it with my kids.

If the Church is a tapestry, an incomplete work of art, then this is how we weave together the layers of life.

Several of the middle schoolers work in the children's wing. Two layers. We pass each other in the hallway or on the lawn, trailing trains of little people behind us. Three layers. We sit mixed in with them during story or music, or we work together to help tiny fingers finish a craft. High schoolers work alongside and in between and everywhere that they could possibly serve. Four layers.

To sixth and seventh and eighth grade minds, this is what the Body does. Layers upon layers upon layers. Practicing being mature in their faith, but with older hands waiting there to catch them if they start to fall.

And, it's amazing.

I love when they talk to me about 'their kids' the way that I talk about them as 'mine.'

A new sixth grader acknowledges the upcoming transition by asking whether it was weird to teach Sunday school without *brother* and *brother's girlfriend* who graduated from high school this past spring, and I have to smile, even as we talk about what it's like to have a sibling leave for school.

Not because he misses them or because we have changed the world with ninety seconds of conversation, but because of the absolute muddle of categories that just fell from his lips.

Elementary. Middle school. High school. College. Adult.

Even in this big church, with all of it's classrooms and schedules and (much needed) directors of this and that, he somehow understands what it is to be a part of the Body. Everyone mixed up, tumbling over each other, creating stories faster than we can share them, teaching each other, making messes, and learning together: part of the Body.

Over and over, parents and Sunday school teachers and youth leaders have told them that work is worship, that community and relationship and reality intersect with the Divine, that there is Truth and Glory to doing life together.

That the layers help make this thing beautiful.

So, we get glue on our fingers, water on our shirts, and grass on our feet, and we prove to ourselves that these little people who sing Ten Thousand Reasons in lisping baby voices are the Church.

We run and throw balls and answer questions and remember that these middle schoolers who nudge my hands up during music with a quiet, "You forgot," are the Church.

The tiny group of highschoolers, with the boy who remembers to ask how my sister is doing in South Carolina, they are the church.

The adults mixed in with every age and the hundreds of people who sit in any given service.

These are what our portion of the Church looks like on Sundays.

And, it's okay not to be everywhere at once, okay not to be in service, because this is Church, and it's never had much real formula outside of loving Jesus and honoring one another.

Truth

These kids. They're harder to pin down these days, less the wild children who used to run across the parking lot to their favorite tree or laugh and dance and throw the last bits of their donuts.

Tomorrow, if I came with donuts, I would be hard pressed to bring enough for extras. They're growing, and I don't know how their parents feed them, these cavernous creatures who stretch up each time that they see me, marking growth against some invisible line on my arm, my shoulder, my neck.

I can hip check them now with only the slightest bend of my knees, and their shoulder connects with my bicep when they slam the side of their body into mine. "I'm faster." M*t** shoves into me with all of the confident strut of a twelve year old, knowing that I'll drop my shoes and my conversation to chase him. Faster than last year. Faster than last week. Faster than yesterday.

He is. And, it's harder to tell these days which one of us is going easy on who.

At camp, he holds his force when we play chicken on the log, waiting to really tackle me until the end of the week, when he's confident in my ability to stand my own and fly into the water unharmed. But, he refuses to go kayaking without me, and there is something still young and unhindered in his eyes when he asks me to change buses, to ride home with them, when he reminds me a half dozen times that I promised to try.

They aren't quite my littles any longer. But not quite my "big kids" either.

They're middle schoolers: sixth, seventh, eighth graders.

We're learning new steps to an old dance, and sometimes it feels like the curve is too steep for any of us. But, we're figuring it out in that same messy way that we always do.

They show up for a youth group night at a local water park and ask for just enough time to go home and pack a bag before we go back to camp. They're joking, but there's truth behind it. Truth behind the talks about adoption and race and body image, about what they used to be like when they were little.

Truth to the kid who tells me that he isn't having such a good day. Truth behind the smiles that meet mine and truth behind the tears that still come when they find themselves overwhelmed. Truth behind the constant circles on the lazy river where we don't talk at all. Truth to the girls who chain behind me like a trail of ducklings and truth to the boys who reach for a hand out of the whirlpool.

"Wait right there." One of the boys commands after we miss our grip and he is left still spinning in whatever game they're playing. "I want to talk to somebody when I get out."

If he were a little younger, I would tease him about the lack of a 'please,' force him to use manners in the same gentle joking way that we do everything else. Except that he did. I can see it written in every line of his body, the 'please' when he needs it to be his turn. Sooner or later, he is going to make it happen.

I wait for a few moments, but we've (together) been on the wrong side of lifeguards before, and he hates it, so I let go of the wall when she starts giving that look. We never do talk. And, I'm racking up quite the list of kids who would like a quiet stretch of time all their own.

It feels unfinished. Hard to pin down. Messy. But, there is just enough truth to make it beautiful.

Beautiful when they use my towel and when we can't find the showers before we get in. Beautiful when a 7th grade boy wordlessly comes up and passes me a pack of cookies from the cafe. Beautiful when they wave and grin or shoot me with a water cannon. Beautiful when our small group breakout is as scattered and vehement as their thoughts. Messy but beautiful.

August Rush

their 4th and 5th grade sized selves

It's August, and the transition to Fall is nipping at our heels. They are restless, and rightly so. Loose inside bodies that grew like weeds over the summer. Uncertain of where they fit into a new school year. Squirming under the sense that it is almost here - but still so far away.

It is a season filled with worried eyes. With fears that sit half remembered under the surface.

But, also by their confidence.

Not the proud, heady sort, but the quiet kind that trusts me to chase them, to play, to continue without remark when we turn off the lights and a twelve-year-old becomes my shadow. The quiet kind that knows that they are safe and seen and protected.

Because, I am reminded that kids who still don't know each other's names know mine. And, that they use it. Again and again and again. Almost as often as I use theirs. As if we are making each other real. Giving identity to flesh and bone. Creating stepping stones in the muddle that is this transition.

Toby. Gabe. Jonah. Mateo. Gabby.

We're still cashing in on the trust that was built up at camp, using it to carry us through.

They remember when they were "little" and in my small group. Maybe more so now than they ever used to. Because, it's one of those seasons where we go back and trace old threads, where they count back how long they've known me and start to follow one another on Instagram after years without contact, Snapchatting with other kids who remember the storage room or the tree or the constant foot races.

They're deciding who they are, going back and building their own stories.

They've only had a few months to settle into these new grades that they've been given, haven't had the chance yet to test them out in school, and we're at that stage where they feel the need to shake it all up, to see if they can find a better fit. They are testing their wings, creating their own stories, and it becomes a dance to see how much yield there is in this system that has been created.

Boys this way. Girls that. Sixth grade. Seventh grade. Eighth grade.

Summer has reminded them that not all of life is divided into these categories, and they push a little, wondering how firm they really are.

We let them push a little, test, explore, experiment. And, I marvel at how far we have come, from the wide eyed sixth graders who sat as close as they possibly could; from the fifth graders who sat under bushes and covered themselves with bark, pretending to be Peeta; from the fourth graders who used to flip their chairs upside down and use them as spaceships; and from the kindergarteners who we team taught, simply because no one thought to make us stick to the curriculum.

It's August, and this season won't last for more than another week or two. It's a transition, a last holding on before we jump back into the school year. But, we'll take it while it lasts.

Debrief

"It kind of feels like a dream," the girls admit during debrief, "like maybe it didn't really happen."

"I'm not really sure what I learned."

"I think that I got more out of Bridgetown."

"Coming back was a lot easier than I expected."

They mean it. As much as they can be certain this soon after the trip, they mean it. This isn't our first team who came back with Haiti haunting their sleep and waking them up at 4:00 every morning. It isn't our second team who came back with a village in their eyes. This is our third team, and the new girls have made it very clear that they don't like being compared.

So, they were this team, the team that pushed so far beyond even their own expectations of themselves that it doesn't seem real. The team that went expecting to come back with sad stories of impoverished children but never got them.

Instead, they came back with Haiti as just another country. Full of people. Who like some of the same music. Who serve the same God. Who work on the same team. Who have history and struggle and joy. Who dance and sweat and make life work.

Smiles and laughter and playing with kids makes for good pictures, but it's harder to condense into a story. Harder to explain the quiet voices that want to know when you are coming back, the recognition exploding in shy smiles across faces that you never dreamed of seeing again.

You see, there's a strange thing about ministry trips, where you're supposed to come back with gritty stories about poverty and inequality and courage, a quiet whisper of white man's burden that no amount of training can silence; and something in them tells them that they don't fit that mold.

No one was the rescuer, not from Haiti or Curacao, not from the Pacific Northwest or the deep South, and humans aren't quite sure how to tell stories that don't have an us and a them. So they tell it differently here than they do with other people, a little more raw. Both versions are true, but I wonder if this one isn't a little truer.

Can we tell a different truth here and there and still have both be honest? How do we tell the right story, the way that it really happened?

"I think that this year was more about the team than anything else," they start to vocalize it, this thing that they've been sitting on since we got off of that final plane, "more about what God did between us than about coming back with sad stories."

More about smiles and laughter and tears; more about piggy back rides and bandages on bloody knees and feet and shoulders; more about late nights and quiet mornings; more about The Church in all of its grace and messiness.

More about people.