First off, a dozen new pictures of Matilde in this photo album. Lots of good action shots; this one is our favorite.
I note that UCLA -- my graduate school alma mater -- plays for the national championship in basketball tonight. Here's what makes me feel old: in 1995, the Bruins won their last national title when I was in my second year of teaching here at Pasadena City College. I had a Monday night class back then, and thus had to listen to the radio during a break to catch the score. Tonight, I'll be able to go online during that same break period to get an update -- but once again, eleven years later, I'll miss the entire game with teaching responsibilities. My Trojan wife has agreed to root for the Bruins tonight (thanks to my willingness to cheer on USC in the Rose Bowl three months ago.) We both agree that Los Angeles is in its right state when USC dominates in football, and their cross-town rivals on the basketball court.
I'm home, a bit bleary-eyed, from another confirmation class retreat in the San Bernardino mountains. Here's my post from last year about the 2005 retreat, and the "creed-writing" process; most of what I said then applies to this past weekend as well.
Having been in the youth ministry game for a number of years, I've begun to see some real changes in my approach to teenagers. When I was first doing this work seven years ago, I was far more anxious. There's something about doing youth ministry that can bring back all of one's own adolescent anxieties! My first thought, as I've written before, was that I wasn't "cool enough" to work with teens. I feared being exposed as a fraud -- or worse, in a sense, as a "geek." In my nightmares, I saw the faces of All Saints teens (particularly the "popular" ones) transposing with the faces of the poised and the beautiful kids I knew in high school -- the ones I both idolized and feared. But a good friend told me, "Hugo, they're much more worried about what you think of them than what they think of you"; those words gave me the courage to begin my career as a volunteer senior high school youth leader.
What I love about working as a youth minister is that it does, in a very real way, allow me to stay in touch with adolescent wildness and adolescent intensity. I may be nearly 39, but teenage emotions (with all their grandiosity, volatility, sentimentality, and vulnerability) are instantly familiar to me. That doesn't mean, mind you, that I think of myself as an over-grown teenager! The kids in this year's confirmation class were mostly born in 1990 and 1991 -- after I was already married for the first time. With each passing year, the age of the kids stays the same (they are perennially 14-16); Hugo gets older. But as I get older and softer and (one hopes) wiser, I'm happy to say that I don't ever forget just how intense and pure and overwhelming it can be to be in the throes of mid-adolescence.
The easiest part about youth ministry is loving the kids. The hardest part -- and I suspect most who do what I do professionally or avocationally would agree -- is the feeling of powerlessness one often gets in the face of great pain. So many of our kids are hurting so much! Some of their woundedness comes from family trouble; some of it is a result of their own poor choices; some of it is a result of their own unique brain chemistry. Though I've written before that I believe that the most vital thing we do in youth group is love, I'm also keenly aware that my love is not the same as God's love. I can't rescue troubled and unhappy kids, though I can reassure them and hug them and tell them I do care. But in the end, the hardest thing I have to do is to step back and point -- point the kids towards God, and ask them to take the steps they need to take towards Him.
Teenagers, like all of us but only more so, are inclined to confuse the messenger with the message. I've learned the hard way that it is all too easy for me to seek validation from my high schoolers by trying to make myself emotionally indispensable. I want them to love the messenger too, of course -- but not at the expense of the message itself. My intentions were always, at least on the surface, very noble: "I want to be there for my kids!", I would regularly proclaim. Yet at times in my first couple of years as a youth leader, I was too quick to "rescue", to play the role of "white knight" I so love to play. Lordy, I always have to be on guard against the impetuous demands of my own ego! Yes, I want the kids to know I love them; yes, I love that so many of them love me back. But my job is not to draw kids to myself, my job is to point them and nudge them towards a relationship with God. Though I've dried a lot of tears and heard a lot of stories, in and of myself I have no capacity to transform the lives of these young people about whom I care so much. In partnership with God, they must become agents of their own transformation.
I've been doing this long enough that I've seen some of my former high school youth go on to graduate school. I've been blessed to see tremendous growth in them -- and, I'm pleased to say, in me as well. I've been learning, to paraphrase the St. Francis prayer, that I am called to be an "instrument of His peace" -- but I am not the source of that peace. It's a distinction I am happier to say gets easier to make each passing year, even as my compassion and love for "my kids" grows and grows.
I got a lot of hugging in this weekend. I also got in a lot of junk food, and will need to be very mindful about my eating in the days to come.
I spent the first few years of my life in Pasadena while my dad went to Fuller Theological Seminary. Then he was a minister at Arcadia Friends Church for 8 years...
I can tell you are quite a resource for young people. That's good to see. The love thing, being the most important thing, I agree. Hugs and listening to their stories and tears, I think, will be the longest term impact you've given them ... each person will always have had that from you--for always.
Connecting with God (depending on what that means to you) is pretty natural if you've got support and love and someone to listen to you. God IS love, right?
If they confuse you for the message but you don't collude (as you aren't) they will figure it out. They're smart. But good for noticing and watching for that.
Posted by: Sea Ganschow | April 03, 2006 at 12:30 PM
God IS love, right?
Amen, sister.
Posted by: Hugo | April 03, 2006 at 02:52 PM