For 24 years, I’ve lived about a 7-iron shot from the local high school. (If I were a decent golfer, it might be a chip shot, but hey.) I hear the marching band practicing all summer; in the fall, I hear the announcer on the PA calling the football games. I watch the before and after-school traffic jams throughout the winter. Soon I feel a bittersweet pang as I hear names being read off in that same stadium during graduation.
I love high school kids, always have. There’s something so endearing and vulnerable about them, even when they’re posturing and trying to be cool. They’re all insecure, some just hide it better than others. I get that.
When I first moved here, I would get irritated when kids threw trash from their cars as they sped past my house; now, I’m alarmed to see them texting as they go by, still speeding (some things don’t change). And sadly, there’s a whole bullying drama unfolding in my neighborhood lately that has a dark edge to it. That makes me angry…and sad.
But seasons change. It’s spring now and I’m hearing the thwack of tennis balls and the crack of bats. And the track team is training in earnest – again. I regularly see packs of lanky boys running down my street, trash talking each other, practicing their profanity, and jostling for position.
The rhythm and predictability of it all is comforting to me (well, except for the profanity). There they are: the newest crop of rowdy, brash boys and there’ll be more next year. Isn’t that just the way? The ones that ran by that first year I lived here are going on 40 now and likely well into raising families of their own (no doubt teaching their kids not to use bad words, be a good sport, and DON’T TEXT AND DRIVE).
I see those fresh-faced teens coming and going season after season and I’m reminded that God replenishes our lives, too, with new seasons all the time. Seasons for doing good, for making things better, learning discipline, and building community.
There will always be bullies, swearing, and a whole lot of jostling for position. But leaders will emerge and significant things will be accomplished nonetheless.
God can be counted on to bring new opportunities around again for all of us.
He will make things new again tomorrow morning. And the next.
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Thanks for this! I had my first crack at teaching younger adults this year with our new BA program. I loved it. They are so curious, and their energy is infectious. Teaching older adults has its rewards too, but there is something about the sense of renewal that you name that I also experience with the late teen and early twenty crowd.
I never had the opportunity to teach them, per se, though I made plenty of presentations at various “career days” over the years. The ones who were interested were fully engaged; the ones who were ambivalent made no secret of it. Sometimes I just had to laugh at how unsubtle they were. That’s part of the honesty I enjoy about that age group. Thanks for your comment, Allen.