Maybe it’s because I just watched The Dark Knight (newest Batman flick, good one) that I’m feeling a desire to fight injustice. Not organized crime, per se, but that of the broken homes and underage drinking persuasion. Like 13-year-olds ditching school, getting drunk and going to the hospital with alcohol poisoning kind of underage drinking. Last night I was talking to some great neighbors while waiting for Burly to do his business, when a car came screeching up next door to them and a girl ran out of the car and hopped through a bedroom window. Two minutes later her parents showed up to pick her up and were screaming at her in Spanish, b/c she wasn’t supposed to be at Kayla’s house. Little did they know she had been elsewhere. 3 minutes after that my 13-year old neighbor and a bunch of her miscreant posse showed up, open beers in hand (from the car!) This was at 11, the last I saw them was after 3am. No mom in sight.
My heart is sad for her, as she has little role model in her mom. A few months ago, her parents got divorced. A new man was in the house shortly thereafter. As a tight-knit community, our block took it pretty hard. That schism has changed the dynamics of our street some, turning their house into a dysfunctional place where teenagers can do whatever they want. It’s made me think a lot about community and how sad I am that none of us were allowed in to the couple’s lives to know that they were hurting. If we had been, I wonder if being loved from other couples and being given resources could have changed the dynamics or outcome of their situation. Maybe not, but maybe. What makes it so hard for us to tell people when we need help? If it ‘takes a village’ to raise kids, then we need community…
I want to tell Kayla, that at 13 she’s making decisions with boys and drugs that are setting her on a path that isn’t going to lead anywhere positive. She’s already been kicked out of a school, and the friends she’s surrounded herself with are not going to lift her up and inspire her to any kind of greatness in life. Watching her compared to her next door neighbor who’s only one year older is like watching the book of Proverbs’ concepts of wisdom and folly being fleshed out. Wisdom respects her involved parents, has chores, works hard, is honest, does well, and will have the world at her feet when she finishes school. Folly by contrast, does none of the above, and is blown with the winds of peer pressure and erroneous judgment.
We have the power of choice in life, we are not merely recipients of the cards we are dealt. I know a guy from Atlanta who just shared his amazing life story with me. He realized that education was the way out of his broken family, projects life. After high school, he got a full scholarship to Penn and then Harvard Business School, when his mom had just completed 7th grade. He retired at about 40, set for life.
It makes me sad that the path he took is more rare and the path people like Kayla are on is more common. But then again Scripture says ‘broad is the road that leads to destruction and narrow is the road that leads to life.’ I wish life for Kayla, and all her friends. I don’t necessarily know how to communicate this, but I think it starts with the stirring that I feel in my heart.
1 comment:
I believe that when we review our lives most of us wish people would have had the caring, sensitivity, respect and communication skills to reach out and share concern and suggested guidance. All of which is to encourage you to gently express concern to Kayla. She may look disdainful and say nothing, but someday she'll remember that someone cared. At the very least you'll feel like you did what you could.
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