worki-worx

One of the kids was on a rampage at work today.  He was in a fighting mood, and at first I thought he was joking around...but it was lasting a little too long and getting more intense throughout the day.  Just little comments here and there
"say somethin!" and "bring it"
"was I talkin' to you?"
or "don't you give me that attiTUDE"

Eventually the attitude became a yelling craze from the sidelines while staff faced the teens for a Thanksgiving soccer game.  The kids won...it was intense.  I was sweating.  My feet hurt.  My pants were too tight.  I couldn't stop grinning.  I also am quite bad at soccer.  No one wants to tell me, but I can feel it.  hahaha.  Oh well.  :)

We ate a huuuuge Thanksgiving dinner for the kids and their families today, so we had alot of people in and out of the club and I wasn't keeping track of all the squabbles between the kids but about a half hour before we start sending people home I am at the front desk and can see a strange stand-off going on outside the club, riiiight in front of the club so I go to stand at the door to see what is up and don't hear anything.  It stops or had already stopped before I can find out what is going on...but there is that tense, heavy air so I ask,

"What's up?"

Both [sides] reactions are immediate and similar.  Nothing, don't worry about it...The boy standing at the doorway sighs loudly and rolls his eyes dramatically and walks away.  He is visibly annoyed.

"Better watch your back!" the other boy taunts.  The other kids are watching intensely.  Their eyes shifting from the opposing boy to me.

"What's going on here?" I inquire again, more commanding but I'm still totally at a loss.  Looking at each person.  "What was that about?"

"Nothing." and the crowd starts to break away.

I go inside and start asking the other kids what is going on (Maybe I'M out of the loop or something...) Apparently no one wants to tell me, so I leave it alone.  Then it's getting closer to closing time and the two haven't figured it out, now they are yelling from the parking lot into the building that "...better watch your BACK!"...and we decide it's not an option for the kid in the building to walk home, alone, in the black of a west coast evening, with a pack of fight-worthy peers of this dude's {our CLUBS} neighborhood...so we get everyone else out of the building, rides arrive, and the club officially closes...there are still about 12 kids on the very edge of the property standing around talking a little too loud, offering a little too friendly to walk home the other kid.  We politely help refuse the offers and the kid gets in a staff vehicle and starts to leave the parking lot.  One of the kids from the group stand in the middle of the exit while the other kids yell,

"Maybe we should all go down to his house!" the leading boy is yelling and the other kids are talking loudly in some sort of not total agreeing or allowance but blind following of initiative wasted on some ridiculous argument.  So what do you do?  Five of us stand at the doorway of the club looking out.

"Go home!" We say,  "Stop it."...but of course they don't and it's fifteen minutes later...so a co-worker and I go out into the parking lot and start herding them away but it was so crazy.  What do you say in a moment like that?  I said, "We don't need that here.  We can't have people feeling threatened when they're trying to leave the club...you have enough of that in your real lives."  but none of the kids are leaving and one kid says [in spanish] I imagine he is saying something about "...like she would know.." or something.  Downsizing my tiny piece of respect after a couple short months.

"Whatever, we're not in the club..." All of them with I-do-what-I-want attitudes and mouths to match...

"You guys need to make a decision, go.  or face the consequences.  You could be suspended."--a few kids start to shuffle, making the circle wider and less menacing in the dark.  Eye level with all of them as I announce I don't want to, but I will if they won't leave.  "We're waiting on you."

It's over enough to let it be and go on for the night.  What else can we do?  The most of it has passed and the threatened is safely behind locked doors...we've stalled at least.

I come home letting off the weight.  Thinking and re-thinking the looks in their eye.  Their assumed total knowledge.  How far would they go?  I see these kids on a human level every single day.  It's insane to see them claws exposed...for what?  Over something unknown to me even now.  But it defines their worlds.  The only control they have.  Constantly exposed to raw emotion, something that is supposed to be a release, but just a pin-prick and the tower comes tumbling down.  We're complex.  So many levels and layers...stories, experiences, causes and reactions...and there I stand.  Throbbing heart and temple, burning in their fire from a completely different level.

Tomorrow is a new day.  Again and again...and thinking of how God brings people hope.  The ripple of my actions brings me hope.  I hope someday I can truly say I've inspired...above and beyond the air I breathe each day.  Making my life worth the complexities it takes to keep me alive.

What would you say?  What is there to be learned from your life?  Tell me.  I seek the good word tonight.