Scratching the Paint

At a meeting addressing the issue of family violence attended by our County Commissioners, the State's Attorney, members of the clergy, counselors, and Social Services organizations, a group of high school teens known as Pandora's Box, sponsored by the Health Department, put on a series of skits which they had written portraying a young person's viewpoint on sexual, physical and mental abuse.  The three skits presented were powerful and brought up all sorts of emotional responses in the assembled group.  During a question and answer period following, the kids were asked if they had ever thought about bringing their message into the schools, because what they had done for us that day needed to be experienced by all young people.  Their response was shocking.  They had recently done a presentation on AIDS and the Board of Education would not let them perform in the schools because the subject matter was just "too controversial."  The Board might reconsider if the presentation were changed to make the subject matter more palatable, but the Board would have to pass on the content before any further consideration was given.

We have an ecumenical youth group here because my Catholic and Lutheran colleagues and I wanted to find a way to involve our kids in the community in something other than just another denomination-specific activity.  Serendipitously, the person we hired to coordinate the group was an English teacher who was a theatre major and a damn good hand with young people.  She got the kids interested in theatre some time ago and they have put on some major performances including "Godspell," "Oliver," "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," and more, playing to packed houses and standing ovations every show.  Because of their success and their popularity, the group was asked to perform during a week-long family violence awareness program sponsored by the Health Department and some of the Social Services agencies in town.  Wanting to do something really meaningful, the kids chose a Broadway musical entitled "Runaways," a show which brings the issue of family violence to the fore from a the viewpoint of kids who have run away from families where violence prevailed.  The show is made up of several vignettes in which the characters poignantly and graphically sing about and tell the stories of violence in their lives, what happened to them, and what life was like on the streets.  The tales were about some nasty stuff and no punches were pulled in describing them or the reactions of the characters to them.  It was and is a powerful show, played powerfully by our young people, many of whom were going through some of the things they were portraying on the stage.

As we got nearer to the performance dates, word got out about what we were up to, and the inevitable crap began.  I started getting anonymous phone calls at the church, as did my colleagues, telling us that "Christian" kids shouldn't be doing this sort of thing, shouldn't be exposed to the horrific things that the show portrayed, let alone act them out and speak the words.  "The show has to be changed," these callers said.  Take out the bad words - make the show more "acceptable."  To their credit, our kids, who were also taking hits from their own families, paid no attention to the critics and went on with the show with incredible energy, again to standing-room only audiences and invitations to take the show on the road to other towns around the state.

The issue of family violence cannot be made more palatable.  It is a nasty, painful blight pulsing beneath the comfortable, but thin, patina of life in our town and elsewhere.  Our kids live with it, directly or indirectly, everyday.  They talk about it.  They want to do something about it.  The problem is that we adults won't listen to them.  We don't listen to them because we don't like the way they dress, talk, or act.  Worse yet, we'd rather not know about what's going on, or find some simplistic, legalistic way to deal with the problem.  So we keep slapping on the paint every time there's a scratch, covering up the rust - but the rust under the fresh paint keeps eating away the supports.

Maybe we need to change the way we do things.  Maybe, when the kids scratch the paint, we ought to take a closer look, put down the brush, get out the sandpaper, strip off the rest of the paint and work on the rust.  It may take some time and sweat, but there's strength where the rust is now.  It's long past time when we should be paying more attention to what our kids are saying instead of how they're saying it.  The proclamation of gospel justice is never comfortable, nor is it pretty.  It is, however, life-changing and life-giving.  Our young people know how to do that in ways we never imagined possible.  We do have a choice.  We can stand with them with respect or we can stand against them with a brush.  I don't think there's enough paint in the world to do the latter for long.

9:32:06 PM
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