"Owned Faith" – Lacrosse and the Cosmos

Here's an LPC tradition that I'm sure to maintain:  every year as the confirmation class enters its homestretch, the students in the class schedule a half-hour appointment for an interview with the pastor at the same time that their parents will be talking with the youth director.  This past week Barb and I spent five wonderful hours in conversation with the ten students and sets of parents of this year's confirmation class.  I think I got the better half of the deal, but Barb might contest the point.

My time with the students usually began with my asking them about how their day had gone, and since most of them said that it had been a good day, I asked them what makes a day good.  I heard about friends at school, good teachers and after-school activities from organized sports and chorus to pick-up basketball games and just hanging out. 

Lacrosse and field hockey are not much played in Western PA or the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and our cable package has never included the Lacrosse Channel, so the students taught me something new.  Now I want to go watch some lacrosse or field hockey. 

It's no surprise that a 14 or 15 year old has some strong opinions about what makes for a good teacher and how much homework is too much homework.  Most of them have also seen and experienced enough of life to be able to distinguish a good friend from one who will, in the end, disappoint them. (This week's e-pistle special is a friendship sampler from the book of Proverbs.  The nature of friendship hasn't changed much in 3,000 years. Click here, here, here, here, here, and here.) 

But our confirmation teachers (thanks, Carol, Joe and Chet) have been challenging these young people to think about deeper things, as well, and the kids have been good learners.  They are thinking about life and its purpose and its goals. They are beginning, as one writer puts it, to own their faith. 

One of my interviews began with the student teaching me about the basic rules of lacrosse and ended with this same student telling me about how he's been thinking about Jesus being the First and the Last, the, and yet already present at the beginning.  The theologians call this the doctrine of the pre-existent Christ.  A 15-year old calls it something he knows he'll never quite understand but that he somehow knows is true.  He's beginning to own his faith.

During each interview I gave the kids a list of the seven great "I am" statements from John's gospel (the Bread of Life, the Light of the World, the Gate for the Sheep, the Good Shepherd, the Resurrection and the Life, the Way, the Truth and the Life, and the Vine ).  I asked them to pick one that expressed their understanding of who Jesus is to them.  To a person they responded quickly and none of them hesitated in giving a clear, from the heart and from the mind, answer as to how the image they picked spoke to them.  Which of the "I am" statements speaks to you and why?  There's a conversation starter for Friday dinner or Sunday brunch.

Say what you will about raging hormones and adolescent rebellion (but be careful when you say it; it may say more about your unwillingness to take a teen seriously than their unwillingness to talk to an adult), not all that far from the surface may be a conversation waiting to happen.  It may be about lacrosse, field hockey or what makes for a good teacher.  Or it may be about the cosmos itself.

To the members of the confirmation class of 2007-2008, thanks for the conversations. I learned some new things from you – about field hockey and lacrosse, and about thinking about the cosmos.