Today our two seniors graduated from Boys Town High School. What a journey it’s been to get to this day! Some of the most challenging days of Sarah and my time at Boys Town happened in our time with them, so crossing the finish line today feels a bit extra special.
One of our seniors in particular challenged me in ways that really caused me to reevaluate a lot about how to best help teenagers, especially the ones who don’t truly want your help, who’d rather see you as an enemy despite your best efforts.
Here’s one of the lessons this particular senior taught me:
When there is strife, when there is conflict, when there is disrespect, everything in me wants to give a lecture. But after giving lecture after lecture, scolding after scolding, I realized if a kid is not responsive or interested in listening to me, I’m only continuing to give these TED talks for myself at that point.
I decided to take a different approach and put aside my own ego and desire to give yet another lecture on right and wrong and why it’s important to have integrity, and instead closed my mouth and asked her to tell me whatever she wanted me to know and explained that I would listen to whatever she wanted to tell me. I allowed her to give me her own lectures.
This was a test of my own faith and hope in the process of helping kids. I decided to trust this process and see where it would go. I didn’t realize I was stumbling onto something which I now consider the sacrament of listening.
Treat listening as an act of faith, as an act of worship, especially with those you have deep internal conflict with, and you’ll be met with a divine grace. I’m convinced of it. (I think it might be called love.)
Things weren’t perfect. There was still plenty of struggle and low points. This isn’t a success story that makes it on the Boys Town social media page, but she’s walking across that stage today and moving into her dorm later today. Things changed when I decided to simply honor her by listening to whatever she had to say. I’m proud of the work she’s done to get there and I’m proud of how through the wrestling of our human wills she humbled me to allow her to get to this point.
We human beings are complicated. That’s for sure. But if we truly embrace what that means, and we choose love, we discover a life filled with the richest sorts of personal achievements and moments — moments that perhaps only we understand the depths of, but that’s one of the greatest and most humbling parts of life.
“People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.”
Stepping Back 