Taj Mahal Morgan

Last night we met at the church building for a small, informal, and topical Bible study. These nights (we call the meeting "Outcasts") have proven to be some of our greatest successes as a group in the past. One night we studied two chapters of Hosea for two hours. Another, we looked at 2 Kings and the group was laughing, wondering, suggesting, wrestling with the passage. They were interested and wanted to know what it means.

Last night was a minor success. I'll call it a moral victory, as we discussed deep questions of the ethics of being a Christian and in the military, then expanding that to all of us having the duty to love our enemies. But the true joy was at the beginning, when Kyle Morgan came up to me and informed me of his recent revelation.

"So, so, so, I found out that I'm like 55% Egyptian."

"What?"

"Yeah. Apparently, my great-great-grandfather's name was like Taj Mahal Morgan."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I looked at an Egyptian Horoscope and it said that my name Morgan was Egyptian."

"Doesn't it sound Irish?"

"Yeah, but they all came from Egypt."

He then proceeded to do the Egyptian walk around the kitchen, and I couldn't breathe.

Oh, Kyle.

My life.

God and Harmonicas

One of the youths under my charge this summer is a boy named Kyle.

Kyle was born "normal" (as people here explain it to me), but was injured when falling off of a truck at the age of 7. His brain was damaged in the accident and his physical development was stunted as well. Now he speaks with a severe stutter, although is able to carry on a conversation. He rides his bike with reckless abandon and attempts dangerous stunts daily, and is for all intents and purposes a child in a young man's body. Sometimes relating to him is like singing in different keys.

Lately he has been particularly challenging to connect with. When he is with church friends, he will speak Christian words and churchy language and talk of his struggles (always with mention of how he has overcome them). But when he is with non-church-friends or his parents, he is different.

And lately he has been pulling away from the church, so I try to involve him. He comes to the office, but all he wants to do is play video games (not one of my favorites, with the exception of DDR - and that is not much of an option with his bad leg). We go to lunch, but he just wants me to drive him places to cash his checks, spend his checks, and look at video games. I go to his house, and he wants to play video games or make me watch him jump over trash cans. What is more, lately he has been increasingly irritable and angry at church friends whenever we correct him on anything, however small it may be.

But a couple of weeks ago, we had a breakthrough.

I needed to pick up a P.A. system for camp, and Kyle had been over the day before showing me videos of people beatboxing with harmonicas on Youtube. He wanted to get one to put him on the track of becoming the next Rahzel, and so I called him and asked if he wanted to come with me to the guitar store.

There, he plinked on all of the keyboards and we marveled together at the odd sounds he would produce. He thumped the drums and thankfully did not bother the guitars. We looked at harmonicas together and each picked one out. I bought a cheap nine-buck harp in G, knowing that he would buy a nicer one, and he picked out one in D that costs thirty dollars. We left with our purchases and the P.A. system, both giddy to try them out.

We turned on the radio while I drove, rolled the windows down, and tried to play along. When we got notes right, we celebrated by nodding with the beat. We ate lunch and he played for the table next to ours, infuriating our waiter. After, we stopped at a video game store.

Taking him home, he told me of his hopes for camp and his desire to quit smoking and make serious changes from his bad habits. I told him we'd work on it together, and we played our harmonicas.

And even though we were playing in different keys, we were happy.

Love and Bible Class

Today (Saturday) was a full one.

The Thing That Scares Me that I did today happened twice. That is to say, I attended two weddings.

Being a non-married 22-year-old male who just graduated from a Christian college with a Youth Ministry degree alone is enough to mess with your head. But when you attend two weddings in one day where all four parties are younger than I am? Man. . .

The first one was on top of the Colorado National Monument, on top of mountains. It was sunny and lovely and I am a little burned as a result. The ceremony was no-frills, short, and intensely sweet. We ate food and I fought back memories of being in Colorado and being in love with women who don't care that I exist anymore.

I went on a bike ride afterwards to proactively avoid those same memories and worries. Came back just in time to wear the same clothes to the next ceremony, deciding that wearing anything else (only nicer options remain clean) would almost be akin to showing favoritism. And so I successfully avoided a tie and went.

During the second, I noticed that I was losing it when I began writing my own future vows in my head. I looked at older men who still sat with an arm around their woman and then to the young children who are oblivious to any concepts of love and low self-esteem and sighed. Amey's vows touched me when she told Shawn, "I praise God for you."

On Thursday, Harvest was something of a success. We had more people than I expected (about 20-25) and a sense of anxiety hung in the room. The teens did not know what to expect, and so we talked of what the world sees in Christians, and what we should strive to show them. So many people have such negative views of our faith and I encouraged the teens to dream of the day when their faith causes a reaction such as what Paul writes in Ephesians 1:

"Ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you."

I have a hard enough time thinking that anyone could ever love me. Can I really cause someone to thank God incessantly? Could my faith and love really turn a heart to take song?

Harvest received positive feedback, but I got little active participation and a lot of tired, empty eyes. I left exhausted from nerves and honest prayers and more than a little disheartened. The teens left the class thanking me and not God, and singing no songs.

It is still early, so please keep praying for a change. For a fire. For a harvest.

And I guess pray that someone will ever marry me.

Will I see you give more than I can take?

Last night we started our "Harvest" series here at the church, a class on learning how to evangelize.

This is kind of "my baby." This is the first brand new series that I've brought to the table in my three summers here, and I've been working on it and crafting a vision for it almost completely by myself. In it, I am hoping to break our youth group of comfort and complacency so that we get out and bring people in.

Last night at 6:30 I realized that I hadn't set up our area for the class and feverishly began to throw chairs around. No matter what, there still looked like too many around the tables so I stacked and got rid of many of them (having a whole lot of empty chairs just looks pathetic and often distracts). I looked at my watch and it was 6:35.

So I paced.

I have never been so nervous for any lesson that I've given, for any activity that we've done. I have never prayed so much before anything I've done. Earlier in the week, the teens had tried to hide their quasi-skepticism, but I could see that they didn't know what to expect from the class and were leery.

And I know that they need this! This is why I am so nervous about the whole thing! I don't want a success story. I don't want a personal victory. I don't want to save these kids my-stupid-self. I just don't want to mess up this opportunity. I don't want to get in God's way.

Argggh.

Why am I typing these things on here? Does anyone care?

(and the title of this post comes from Neil Young's song "Harvest")

Why I let a church pay me

I was talking to my friend Hannah the other night about how things are going with my youth group here in Colorado. She said something to the effect of not being totally sure of the point of youth groups, never having been in a real one herself. The closest thing she had been a part of was her siblings and then the children of another family.

This struck me as interesting, because I have always gone to a church with a youth group. But always having had something is no reason to have it. So why, then, do we have a youth group?

Truth to tell, that "closest thing" that Hannah was a part of is exactly what I hope for out of my kids here. Family. Intimacy. Relationships with deep roots.

And with those relationships, you can do some great things. This is my third summer out here and I am just now catching my stride. Now that I know these youths so well, we can get on with our real job together: forming a spiritual outlook and spiritual habits to build on for the rest of our lives. We read and wrestle with the Bible together. We pray together. We serve together, although not as much as I would like. And this summer we are learning to share our faith together.

Maybe none of this needed to be said. But it is on my mind and I own this blog, so deal with it. Haha.