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Daughter of the King

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Daughter of the King

Tag Archives: youth

7. Bleached Coral

03 Thursday Nov 2011

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100 words, aging, Bonaire, character, city, coffee, coral reef, exercise, experience, fast, http://ibecameashepherd.blogspot.com/, island, life, ocean, one hundred words, pace, past, profile, slow, train, tropics, urban, writing prompt, youth

Thought I saw you on the train today as those tired eyes caught sight of mine. Saw beneath the shadow brim, shifting greys hiding a wrinkling face. I’ve seen you differently before, skin aglow, dancing with youth and light. I knew you a traveler, a good doer. As in motion, as a curious seeker. A morning waker coffee drinker.

You step carefully in new cloth flats around puddled sidewalks, rain waterfalling down subway grates. Measured and slow, left risk at the front door. Searching for rewind. Lifeless and aged, a bleached coral changed by this undercurrent of cold winter waters.

Children at Play

05 Friday Aug 2011

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childhood, children, freedom, gender, gender roles, growing, kids, lust, Park, playground, sex, sexuality, youth

They say children should play in mixed genders until aged 5. It’s most healthy that way, I hear that they say. More natural according to charts of developmental stages. Good for their brain chemistry. Normal, I suppose. Status quo.

Children don’t realize their gender differences amidst primary-colored dump trucks and plastic-parted dolls. Or don’t care. There aren’t attractions or sexual urges to push this or that boundary. None of the things that make us worry in our ages beyond 5. That make us click it’s complicated.

So when they pile up down at the bottom of the slide, boy-girl-boy, limbs all askew, bodies pressed Oshkosh together, hands pushing to free themselves from tangle, I can be sure their laughter is not questionable, not laden with lust or the leaning towards such. It’s innocent play, the tummy-flip feeling that the benign drop of the slide breathes into young lungs. And, in giggles and sandaled steps, they’ll do it again, running up plastic stairs to pile platonically again at the bottom. But three times is a bore. They’ll move on, unassuming, to something more. Naa naa na-naa-nah, taunting as they run.

All Together

29 Sunday Aug 2010

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adult, change, college, friends, friendship, graduation, group, growth, Jesus, marriage, Michigan, youth

The last time we were all together was when one of us, the only one of us, got married.

Kristin's Getting Married!

There’s been some redemption since. Some efforts towards healthy interaction, yes. But mostly there’s been destruction and chasm. And one of us is gone entirely, as far as anyone can tell. She doesn’t mind being so far, but everyone always makes comment about her absence. It’s the saddest sort of equation.

You see, years ago I gave a name to this crew of friends I had. No one agreed with me. Even these friends though I was silly for being so semiformal and so I stood alone. I thought I was being intentional, thought I was drawing us closer together and facilitating the relationships we were building. I see now that it may have been a bit much. It’s possible, I suppose, that I grew somewhat overzealous about creating us this little team of friend-making. But there we were, willing or otherwise, a group of gals with a label.

In keeping with the fact that I thought the idea, the people, the plan were all fabulous, when I referred to the crew, I called them the Fab Five. There were five of us, of course. We all lived in Michigan at the time, in various parts of the state. We had met years before through a youth camp where we all served as young adult staff members. We had Jesus in common at the most basic level, a love for Him, surely. Beyond that, we had visions and dreams of all kinds yet we still dared to dream together. We dreamed big dreams, too. Dreams that knew no boundaries. Dreams which didn’t consider destruction.

Now with college there’s graduation and with growing up, parting ways. With moving up, moving on and so forth. So, pretty soon Michigan had lost the core of this crew. The easy answers are in the telephone calls as the day winds down, the emails with pictures attached, even the hand-written letters and the packages bursting at the corners, waiting to be torn open and indulged. But when the weeks go by with conversations only between one party and the voicemail and nary voice to voice, the phone calls start to space out. When the emails and the letters go out, but space and silence are sent back, no postage necessary, the incentive grows dim. The cords between us grew thin as time passed by.

And eventually, I started to see the spaces in the world we’d built together. We hadn’t quite considered the pull that change would have, we didn’t commit like I thought we had. And still, of the five of us, only I ever use the label that I gave us. We’ve been living apart for years now, our dreams abandoned in limbo, empty, uninhabited. The last time we were all together might have been the last time we’ll ever all be together.

Plus the Bride makes Fab Five

The Boy Who Calls Me Miss Linda

29 Thursday Jul 2010

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camp, Hiawatha Youth Camp, love, ministry, personality, summer, teenagers, youth

He stands in a swaying sort of way with his weight shifting from one untied tennis shoe to the next. He holds one arm behind his back with the other arm, holds it at the elbow in an awkward way like he might be nervous for a first date or to ask a girl if she might want to dance at a middle school turn-a-bout. When he stands in the sand on the beach, it always seems like he’s standing just a smidge sideways. He’s a teenage camper at this youth camp who calls me Miss Linda, which is out of the ordinary.

This is the boy I fell in love with in the early days of the camp. In love like I’ll make sure no too-bold high school gal breaks his fragile heart.  In love like I’ll help him with his science project after school.  Or listen to his piano solo before the big recital.  I’ll match his checkered tie with a green collared shirt under his suit and tie a double windsor for him, show him how.  In love, like I’ll screw his glasses back together, even when he loses the screw.  In love like I’ll spend my time in want for him to succeed.  Not in love like the romance novel; in love like my Father for me. 

When we herd a hundred or more campers onto the busses Saturday morning, the girls from my cabin shuffle around in the sand searching for me, requiring hugs before they depart.  So I stand off by a fallen tree and sip my Starbucks coffee, waiting for them to come running.  And out of the crowd comes my favorite little boy, whispering Bye, Miss Linda.  And, more in love with him I fall.  And even if it’s just this one thing, which it may be, this one thing has made the summer a summer of purpose and worth.

Close Isn’t Comfortable

02 Friday Jul 2010

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camp, conversation, family, frendship, Hiawatha Youth Camp, life, Mom, movie, pain, staff, summer, youth

Mom said your name. Your mom, I mean. It’s just that after so many years of the way we were, friends the way we were, I became so used to saying her name the way you say it, like she was mine. I see now that she’s not and that I just became so comfortable so close. It pushed you this far, I did.

Anyway, she said your name. Your mom did. My ears leaned closer, my body didn’t move. No one knew I was listening hard to the mumbled words she said next across the room where the lights were off and the staff was chattering. Something about something and then, she’ll arrive at midnight. The last name I’d heard was yours and I thought she still meant you. My eyes opened wide in the dark, my pupils like shutters, wide to let in low light. Wide to let in the thought of you, here with me and us, like every year before. Ashleigh asked what while I hung my head and confessed. I thought you were coming, but I’d made a mistake.

It’s fine, I said. Ash’s elbow leaned on my knee, we were about to watch a movie. She heard me sniffle, saw my sleeve up on my face. Of course you’re not coming at midnight tonight. You’re down South, done with this, all grown up. Close isn’t comfortable anymore; I pushed you this far.

UnEdited

29 Monday Mar 2010

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choice, Christianity, church, conservative, God, godliness, Jesus, liberal, life, lifestyle, Metro South, morale, unedited, youth

I listened to a sermonette this week by one of the youth pastors, Adam, at a church in Downriver, Michigan, MetroSouth.  It was about how those we teach and disciple will live the unedited version of our lives. Because of this, we teachers must consider our choices and actions and live extra-above reproach so that the example we set cannot be adulterated.

Main Point?  If we live out these medicated kinds of moral choices so that we can sorta walk the liberal line, the youth that we lead with unmedicate our choices and live totally raucous lives, no line-walking in sight.   Adam says something to this effect towards the end of the sermon, “God has not called us to just live the edited version of what the world offers.  God has called us, as followers of Christ, to live lives that are radically different.  He has called us to a life that doesn’t even have a hint of the stuff of this world.”  He’s so right about this.  There’s a million chunks of Scripture that say so.  When I heard him say this with such conviction, I felt convicted.  Sometimes, I edit the way I live so it’s not totally out of line, but so that it still sort of “fits” with the regular life.  As I considered these instances in my life and listened to Adam, I thought: Not good.

That’s the part where I agree.  He spoke of the Pauline Scripture where Paul boldly says: Be like me, cuz I’m like Christ.  Whoah!  What a claim, right?  But, that’s the way.  I should be strving to live confidently so much like Christ that I can say to my youth gals or my camp cabin or whomever, “Do it like this, this looks a lot like Jesus!”

So by these standards, I’m off the charts.  I go to the bars, I forget to filter my mouth, I flirt far too often, I read edgy material, and, and, and.  Some of this is sin; it’s struggle, but some of these things are choices I make for very specific reasons and here’s the part where I’m not sure I agree with Mister Adam.

Because here’s the thing – if I don’t ever venture near “the line”; if I and all of the Christians like me live so straight edge conservatively as far as my moral choices go, then there’s no one who loves Jesus living in the “gray area” with a buncha folks who don’t care a thing about Jesus.  To say it gently, that’s very bad news for the Kingdom.

I wholeheartedly disagree that Jesus doesn’t want those “gray area” folk to know that He loves them like crazy!  He does, and they need to know.  And the only way that’s gonna happen is if someone (maybe someone like ME) goes into that scary gray area and lives with them and loves them.  To do that means creating real and lasting realtionships with these people.  It means sharing their interests and loving what they love.  It doesn’t mean I give up what I believe to do so – that wouldn’t make any sense.  But it can mean bending in the areas where I am strong of conscience and, without sinning, and still glorifying God (glorifying Him even more!) meeting some of these people where they are in order to share the love of Jesus Christ.

Maybe the point of disagreement I have with Adam is not in action, but in audience.  I’m not a youth leader in any capacity right now.  I think he’s right about how they watch us and emulate the things we do.  I think the “rules” for youth camp counselors are heightened for these very reasons.  That makes sense.  But the whole discussion changes when we expand the audience to talk about everyone and about real life, doesn’t it?

These lines become gray and fuzzy and the decisions are so much less black & white than I expect them to be.  It’s why I have alays re-evaluate the choices I make and quit trying to make everyone else’s choices for them.  Here’s to living a mostly unedited life.

Trustfall

13 Wednesday Jan 2010

Posted by lbcarizona in Uncategorized

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camp, children, Christian, faith, fear, friends, games, God, Hiawatha, Hiawatha Youth Camp, Jesus, nuggets, One Time Blind, summer, trust, youth, youth camp

You learn a lot of really strange and unexpected lessons about life and godliness by working with kids. The least of which are not a series of games, skits, and riddles to pass the time in between. There’s a lot of “in between” with children and youth that needs to be filled with something semi-purposeful, at the very least, intentional, or else they fill it with something else.  I remember how, years ago, when I was a kid, and then again when I was around and among them, I learned to trustfall. 

Trustfall

 

I don’t know what it’s really called, but it’s a partner activity in trust. You’ve seen it done a thousand different ways, and so have I. When I was a kid, I refused to trustfall. I never went to church youth group or anything, like the kids I work with at summer camp, but a few summers I raced a wooden car that my dad helped me make in a Baptist church derby and they taught us this trustfall game.  The teacher expected me to turn away from her so that I couldn’t see her and let my weight fall fearlessly off of my own feet into her arms.  Her arms would be there, even though I couldn’t see and wasn’t sure.  I never played.  I just watched the teacher catch the other kids.  The kids laughed when she caught them, relieved to feel the gentle resistance and be put back on two feet again. 

It wasn’t until I was grown that I remembered trustfall again.  The counselor in my cabin played with our girls on the first day.  It served as something of an icebreaker, a get-to-know-you game.  I didn’t find it to be a game at all.  It was terrifying and made me anxious.  I avoided the activity at all costs and succeeded save for one camper who clung to me during most events.  She constantly asked me to catch her and I feared her trust.  Feared I may crush it if I slipped or she caught me off guard or I wasn’t standing close enough.  My heart raced when Sierra spun around to fall into the open space before me; that carefree fall would never be me. 

There was the question of willingness, sure.  Maybe the friend that had promised to catch you thought it the perfect time for a practical joke, a prank that would let you fall backwards for what felt like minutes until your bottom hit the sand unpleasantly while everyone laughed.  I wasn’t prepared to risk that kind of embarrassment or discomfort.  Once you throw your shoulders back, it’s too late to reestablish your feet beneath you.  If the catch isn’t there, the ground is the next stop on this flight.  Then there was the question of ability.  I’m not a kid anymore, I’m a bit bigger than a kid, in fact.  Even a friend with the best of intentions might love to catch me but be caught off guard at the velocity of my falling weight, and we’d both come tumbling to the ground in an awful heap.  I’d rather not take part in that situation, either.  I’m quite comfortable with both feet on the ground, falling nowhere. 

As safe as falling nowhere may be, it isn’t very adventurous.  As an easy and obvious metaphor to life, it doesn’t show much trust in my Savior and, frankly, it’s too safe to have any fun!  So, it’s a good thing that I had a persistent friend who showed me, once, what working with youth is all about.  She wouldn’t let me off the hook with my trustfall fear. 

Whitney all but marched around the campgrounds behind me with her arms out in front of her, repeating the word “Ready?” until I was.  I tried to get her off my case by breaking the rules: asking if I could look over my shoulder while I fell, step back with one foot instead of falling, fall sideways, have her step so close I could see her hands reaching forward.  But she wouldn’t budge.  I was going to trust her.  I was going to fall. 

And the feeling of finally falling back was, for a very short time, as terrifying as I had ever imagined it.  I think I held my breath.  To launch my body off the surety of the heels of my feet was almost a paralyzing feeling.  The moments after that, I felt in limbo.  I hadn’t been caught yet, so there was no relief, but I hadn’t hit the ground, so things weren’t a disaster yet, either.  I was curious and still scared.  But the moment I felt the springy feeling of Whitney’s arms like a hug, I knew why those children in my class laughed when the teacher caught them.  The relief that calms that momentary confusion and eases the tremble in my floating, falling body was overwhelming.  It kind of felt like a surge through my limbs.  I was tickled all over and thrilled that I had accomplished what I had so long thought foolish and silly. 

This is what it can feel like to trust.  We ultimately fear the crash.  We also fear the confusion that clouds our vision right before it’s clear what the result will be.  But we forget the promises we have in Christ.  Even for those of us who don’t care a lick about Him; His promise to us is love, unconditionally.  We can only ever know by letting the weight of ourselves fall back, and drink in those moments of suspended weightlessness when our feet have nothing to hold.  And prove to ourselves, or someone else, that there’s a sure thing back there in that unknown.  There’s someOne to trust.

Pen Pal II: a poem

03 Thursday Sep 2009

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change, communication, dialogue, letters, mail, pen pal, post-it notes, youth

She used to write letters,
draw pictures with crayon.
Her tongue would stick on glue
when she licked to close and send.

She wrote, what’s your name?
I don’t like math.
And then he, in crooked pencil, Troy
and a stick boy saying me, too.

Now she says, be my pen pal.
I’ll write you everyday.
She thinks this missing can be cured
with these words.

She writes, write by hand.
I’d know your script anywhere
.
She thinks he’ll sign I love you
because, it’s true, he still does.

Soon she won’t write anymore.
She’ll give her envelopes away,
and draw stick boys and thought clouds
on post-it notes to herself.

Critical Reactions*

24 Tuesday Mar 2009

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church, counseling, crisis, death, doubt, God, healing, love, ministry, mystery, suicide, trauma, youth

Bridget is concerned. She’s hurting hard for the family. The two girls crossed paths a time or two in life, and their families with them. There was grade school and junior high. High school started with the two girls from different worlds together among a mass of freshman, but soon Anna left to attend a behavioral school. Folks said it was better that way. Bridget wonders how to speak with Jeremy, the little brother. She doesn’t know how to say “sorry” or how to teach him about this God, as good as silent to his sister in these recent days. She’s aching for him, but sometimes kids can absorb these kinds of things. We don’t expect anything, then there they are, drawing their families with crayons when their families are falling apart in sorrow.

Ebony gets jittery when she doesn’t know how to handle a situation, when she has no outlet for the mess inside of her. She’ll calm as time goes on, reaching down into the splinters of her heart to speak of times she remembers. She’ll repeat and repeat that no one sits in Anna’s seat on the couch. Months later, she’ll marvel at how no one still sits there. Ebony has a maturing mind; in her carefree naivety I see sense and calm. Her family is her rock, her twin brother closer than their sarcastic banter shows. I watched him stand up in the back of the worship center, stepping over people crammed into the rows of chairs, all to come to the front row and squeeze his too-big body in next to her. So that he could touch her and love her and make sure she felt safe in this uncertainty.

Lizzy becomes quiet. When she gets really excited, she starts to open up vocally, but when she’s bothered, she doesn’t usually bother with words. I remember her how she closed and caved inward when her Grandma died. Clams up about the war inside of her, even though the hurt is crimson on her shirt. She doesn’t fight hands on her shoulders or the way others wipe her tears, and she loves to hang on to hugs. Anna’s hugs are what she longs for. She’ll let go a bit, crying hard and long, on and off. And I’ll want nothing more than for her to feel my arms, my tight hug, my hand combing her hair behind her ears, and for her to know perfection and see a plan in this deep mystery.

And Anna, well, Anna is gone. Will they call her selfish, stupid, sinful? She let the lies of Satan, the maybe-literal voices that haunted her, convince her of something she knew wasn’t true. We talked so much about the voice of truth. We sang it, studied it, socialized in the light of it, got tired of it over and over, gluing her together over dinner and coffee and truth. Over and over she said she couldn’t take it anymore. And over the months and years, hearing a chorus without a plan, it became stale. So, she did finally take her life to break our hearts, but not so that she’d break them, but so that she wouldn’t have to feel hers heal anymore. On a giant post-it note to Anna I said, These are your girls, Anna. Look at how brave they are. I want her to see, even though I don’t believe she can. I was proud of the girls, but broken like they were, crushed under the weight of “maybe” and “what if”. I’m sorry, my post-it note said, for your questions I couldn’t or didn’t or waited too long to answer.

*though non-fiction, due to the nature of the subject matter, the names in this post have been changed.

Youth: a poem

17 Tuesday Feb 2009

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age, love, relationship, train, travel, youth

There’s a thirty-eight year old woman, S,
sitting across the aisle from me.
It’s not her black and white checkered coat,
the cream pagmina around her neck.
It’s not her black tights and calf-covering boots
curled up on the seat where they’re not supposed to be.
Not long, layered, brunette bangs swept to the side
or her curiously innocent eyes and freckled skin.
It’s not, but she’s stunning.

Maybe she has her youth in a bottle, like B, thirty-six.

Maybe her youth is what makes her bold and friendly,
telling stories of Switzerland without being asked,
S leaning eagerly over the seat to the elderly woman she courts.

His youth makes him smile when he’d rather sigh.
Take risks and find adventure
instead of working through the night.
Play from the moment morning breaks,
behind hockey sticks and bladed skates.
When he holds the hand of his girl, B, time stands still and
the bottle pops its cork, but when time returns, she’s gone.

Maybe his youth seeks the same, like S, thirty-eight.

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