Wednesday night youth insanity

At 6 p.m. every Wednesday during the school year, the doors of the Methodist church are opened wide for the Wednesday Night Youth gathering, which the Methodist and Foursquare churches partner to provide.

From 6:30 until 8 p.m. each week, 50 to 70 local youth, who range from grades one through 12, are fed and led by volunteers. I am a volunteer with the fourth through sixth graders.

There are moments during the half hour dinner when I contemplate whether I’ve slipped into an alternate universe, so strange are the behaviors I witness. Children and food are a wondrous combination. They eat it, wear it, battle with it and play with it. They display it partially masticated in various revolting ways and are endlessly creative with it such as (and this is my favorite): sausage links suspended from nostrils. Of course, we put a stop to these creative practices immediately, but the memory haunts one.

Spectacles of etiquette horrors that could turn Miss Manners into a straight jacket clad, lip-diddling drooler are not uncommon. Note to parents: we volunteers are well aware that these are not the manners you have carefully taught them, and that when they are with their peers that part of the brain where manners lessons are stored can somehow become anesthetized.

They are also able to transform the Methodist Church fellowship hall into what resembles a stadium following a Grateful Dead concert held during a full moon. Wondrously, they accomplish that in 30 minutes or less.

In other words, they are normal kids.

By the end of the 30-45 minutes of dining, we adults display signs of fatigue and occasional fear. The children break into various groups (by age) and proceed, with their leaders, to the assigned classrooms where they have a 30 minute or so session on, in the case of the 4-6 graders, developing tools to help them deal with the challenges of youth today and play games that develop positive group behaviors. The lesson is always based on Scripture, although the children are a mix of everything from weekly-attendees-at-church to the never-attends.

Ten minutes before 8 p.m., we gather in the Sanctuary and sing a couple of kids songs and are led in a short prayer, all conducted by high schoolers. They are dismissed at 8.

They come from various socio-economic groups, various levels of functional family, some with siblings and some without. They have varied life experiences. No matter what their situation, they are each lovable and unique, and have in common the ability to escape the absolutes of the here and now and soar into the stratosphere of healthy childhood imaginations. They haven’t yet learned about constraints. They don’t know that their dreams may be silly or that perhaps they shouldn’t dream so big. They have lofty aspirations no matter what their lot in life, how they rate aesthetically or academically, or if their parents are able to offer them the extras that sometimes make a difference.

Never should we subdue those dreams with what we adults like to refer to as “reality.” Life teaches that brutal lesson early enough. I say, let them dream and soar, because we don’t know who among them may have magnificent dreams that transform beyond realistic expectations and become splendid successes upon which the next generation will launch their dreams.

Imagine if Michelangelo’s mother had been the kill-the-dream-for-reality type and visited the Sistine Chapel with him before he began painting its ceiling:

MA: See, Mom, I plan to paint the Last Supper fresco there, and over here the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve and the animals and Satan as the snake he is, slithering up a tree, and in each corner a cherub. God will appear here, depicting creation, with angels…

Mom: You’re kidding me, right Mikey? That sculpture of David is embarrassing no matter what the critics say. You couldn’t sculpt a fig leaf at least?

MA: Mom, that’s the style today: the natural man, the way God created him. That way my works are timeless.

Mom: You plan to paint “timeless” nude people on that ceiling? We can never go to church again. I shudder to think how you plan to depict Eve in the Garden. You must consider the family name and cover those people. It’s only decent. Do it for your mother. Why can’t you be a barber or a vintner like normal people?

It’s possible that the Sistine Chapel could today have popcorn ceilings, all because his mom drove his vision into the ground.

Did people tell Bill Gates’ not to dream? Dr. Christiaan Barnard? Rev. Dr. Billy Graham? Henry Ford? Beethoven? Thomas Jefferson? We may have creative geniuses in our Wednesday Night Youth group who will one day become legendary.

Despite the fact that their shoelaces are usually untied, they take their jackets off to go outside in the dead of winter, use their sleeves instead of napkins or Kleenexes, and interrupt a salient point during the classroom time with a story about their Aunt Nelly who slammed her finger in the car door and how cool it is that her finger nail turned black and fell off, we see special-ness in every one of them and encourage their dreams.

We celebrate our Wednesday evening group, and will welcome your children when school begins anew in September.

We have enjoyed this year with them, have many memories to keep us smiling through the summer, and will seek the smiling faces and entertaining stories from your wonderful young ones when we convene in the Fall.