Coming of Age
I've written before about the Senior Blessing ritual that we do at First Parish as we send our high school seniors out into the world. That was last week. This week was our Coming of Age service, which is my other favorite service of the year. Our eighth graders spend their last semester of Religious Education working toward identifying what is important to them and then writing a credo, a statement about something they've learned, something they believe.
We welcome them into the service through an "Arch of Love," the entire congregation raising our arms over the center aisle as they process in. This year I happened to be sitting closest to the aisle and got to see the look of wonder on their faces as about three hundred of us greeted them with so much love you could feel it radiating through the room. The kids get to choose their own music and had picked 7 Years by Lukas Graham with its refrain:
Once I was seven years old, my mama told me,
"Go make yourself some friends or you'll be lonely."
Once I was seven years old...
It's a small class this year (11, compared with last year's 23 and next year's 22) and one of their mentors said that this group has bonded more tightly than many cohorts do. I appreciated her introduction, and the way she phrased the explanation of this process and ritual: we are meeting them where they are.
These kids are so smart! The things they know always surprise me and I end up thinking about their statements for a long time afterward. This year they are struggling with particularly thorny issues--or perhaps they just found the strength to open up further than in previous years.
One of the speakers has the summer to decide what he will request from the judge at the hearing to determine whether his biological mother has met the requirements DCF set in place after he and his younger sister were removed from her care six years ago. He must decide whether he wants to stay with his relatively affluent moms and their new baby in the school system with his friends, or to return to his working class, recovering alcoholic bio-mom with her new baby and boyfriend...I'm glad that the judge will take the kids' wishes into account, but what a hard choice to be making at 13.
Another speaker talked about her recovery from a suicide attempt last year, about facing her depression and finding her strength.
A third speaker talked about the death of their father last year and their intent to start high school in the fall as a girl. That last one moved me especially because it was not dropped as a bombshell. This kid thinks that they can stand in front of an enormous hall full of adults, most of whom they don't know, and come out as trans and it will be ok. And it is.
Raising our kids with this kind of radical trust feels like such a revolutionary act. Getting to see each of them as individuals, moving from childhood into youth is such a privilege. I've volunteered to be one of the COA mentors next spring and I'm really looking forward to getting to know the next cohort more closely. And I find myself beginning to wonder what the next four years hold for Alice, what transformative experiences she will have, what she will talk about when it's her turn to stand before the congregation and be seen.
At the end of the service members of the high school Youth Group line the center aisle and make a new arch, welcoming them into the next phase of their life within our congregation. They will move from this past semester of focusing on themselves to learning to look outward and to live our shared values, beginning to be the change they want to see in the world. I am so grateful to have the chance to witness their journey.
We welcome them into the service through an "Arch of Love," the entire congregation raising our arms over the center aisle as they process in. This year I happened to be sitting closest to the aisle and got to see the look of wonder on their faces as about three hundred of us greeted them with so much love you could feel it radiating through the room. The kids get to choose their own music and had picked 7 Years by Lukas Graham with its refrain:
Once I was seven years old, my mama told me,
"Go make yourself some friends or you'll be lonely."
Once I was seven years old...
It's a small class this year (11, compared with last year's 23 and next year's 22) and one of their mentors said that this group has bonded more tightly than many cohorts do. I appreciated her introduction, and the way she phrased the explanation of this process and ritual: we are meeting them where they are.
These kids are so smart! The things they know always surprise me and I end up thinking about their statements for a long time afterward. This year they are struggling with particularly thorny issues--or perhaps they just found the strength to open up further than in previous years.
One of the speakers has the summer to decide what he will request from the judge at the hearing to determine whether his biological mother has met the requirements DCF set in place after he and his younger sister were removed from her care six years ago. He must decide whether he wants to stay with his relatively affluent moms and their new baby in the school system with his friends, or to return to his working class, recovering alcoholic bio-mom with her new baby and boyfriend...I'm glad that the judge will take the kids' wishes into account, but what a hard choice to be making at 13.
Another speaker talked about her recovery from a suicide attempt last year, about facing her depression and finding her strength.
A third speaker talked about the death of their father last year and their intent to start high school in the fall as a girl. That last one moved me especially because it was not dropped as a bombshell. This kid thinks that they can stand in front of an enormous hall full of adults, most of whom they don't know, and come out as trans and it will be ok. And it is.
Raising our kids with this kind of radical trust feels like such a revolutionary act. Getting to see each of them as individuals, moving from childhood into youth is such a privilege. I've volunteered to be one of the COA mentors next spring and I'm really looking forward to getting to know the next cohort more closely. And I find myself beginning to wonder what the next four years hold for Alice, what transformative experiences she will have, what she will talk about when it's her turn to stand before the congregation and be seen.
At the end of the service members of the high school Youth Group line the center aisle and make a new arch, welcoming them into the next phase of their life within our congregation. They will move from this past semester of focusing on themselves to learning to look outward and to live our shared values, beginning to be the change they want to see in the world. I am so grateful to have the chance to witness their journey.