Compassionate Change

All it took was one poem. One poem written by the quiet boy in my group. He let me read it. It was beautiful.

And it was what I needed to know that my hour with the youth was going to be good.

He wouldn't let me keep the poem yesterday, but he said he'd make a copy of it. He was proud of the poem he wrote, but not ready to read it aloud. That was okay, the fact he wrote it made my heart soar.

I won't lie and say that the hour went smoothly from the beginning, but I was able to roll with it better. Stevie gave me some ABAB dialogue work to do, but it tanked. The kids weren't into it. They are so worried about looking stupid. I'm trying to get them to realize when we do activities, when they don't participate they look stupid. To move forward, we played games. I lead them in boom chicka boom. Most played, some didn't. They we played Ha. I've never had so much resistance when playing games, but by the end of the game, everyone was laughing and having a good time. A step in the right direction.

For the last 30 minutes of our hour together, we talked about our project. We set up perimeters our story would take place in, at a high school. We brainstormed characters they could be; the jock, the nerd, the goth, the popular girl, the bully, etc. My goal for the project is for them to pick a character and an underlying issue that character is dealing with and for them to write that character's poem. I will take the poems, finesse them, clean them up, and piece them all together into one performance piece.

I let everyone talk, heard every one's ideas, shushed when necessary, but really tried to give each kid the focus and attention they deserved with the ideas they had. Some were great ideas, some were not. But nevertheless, they got to think for themselves. Next week will be writing days as I show them more examples of poetry performed and get them on their feet a little.

It was a really great time. I left with a smile and a light heart, which was opposite of the day before. God is good. Not only was I compassionate toward the kids, He was compassionate towards my attitude and poor attempts to be a leader.

And beyond that, I have written two movie scripts in the past two days, one a romantic comedy about Thomas Jefferson and the other a scifi sports movie about the extinction of dinosaurs. I have a great job.

To end, I want to share some of the things they kids think of compassion: love, generosity, kindness, family, preachers, friends, homeless shelters, foster homes. A good list from a group of junior high kids.

Until next time, show some compassion, receive some compassion. It's usually two-fold.