Getting the Youth Out of the Basement

 

Opening Words:

It has been one of the greatest and most difficult years of my life. I learned everything is temporary. Moments. Feelings. People. Flowers. I learned love is about giving. Everything. And letting it hurt. I learned vulnerability is always the right choice because it is easy to be cold in a world that makes it so very difficult to remain soft. I learned all things come in twos. Life and death. Pain and joy. Salt and sugar. Me and you. It is the balance of the universe. It has been the year of hurting so bad but living so good. Making friends out of strangers. Making strangers out of friends. Learning mint chocolate chip ice cream will fix just about everything. And for the pains it can’t there will always be my mother’s arms. We must learn to focus on warm energy. Always. Soak our limbs in it and become better lovers to the world. For if we can’t learn to be kind to each other how will we ever learn to be kind to the most desperate parts of ourselves.

~Rupi Kaur

 

Sermon: Getting the Youth Out of the Basement

“Oh, you’re 23? Come back in 20 years!”

This was something I heard all too often going to divinity school at Iliff in Denver. Now, I’m certain that this experience was not exclusive to Iliff—I would have heard the same thing no matter where I had chosen to go to divinity school.

During high school, I played many large roles in the UU youth community—my crowning achievement being my two years as District Worship chair. I planned, facilitated, and led countless worships in this position. I had the goal of taking worship from a mundane practice at youth conferences, and instead making it into a central piece where youth could truly experience and practice their spirituality. I was wildly successful, hearing from youth and adults alike that worship was now their favorite part of cons. It was then that I knew I wanted to become a minister.

However, as I left the youth community and continued into college, I discovered that my passions and talents no longer had a place. While the youth and older adult communities in Unitarian Universalism are very strong, the young adult community is almost non-existent. Between that and some less good experiences I had within the UU community at that time, I began to seriously question my desire to become a minister. I went through my Undergrad degree studying philosophy and Eastern Religion, all the while searching for a new community that made me feel whole and heard as I had in the UU youth community. When every community I became a part of fell short for some reason or another, I got frustrated. I decided to get back into UUism because it seemed to be the only vehicle I could believably use to create the kind of community I was seeking. Quickly, I found out that the adult community was nothing like the youth community, and that my methods of worship were still opposed to the norm. However, instead of giving up, this just bolstered my desire to share my form of ministry with the community. Hence, I decided at the last minute after I graduated from Colorado State University to apply for Divinity School.

I had expected things to be difficult because of my ideologies and goals for my ministry, but what I did not expect was to be told I did not belong there at all, and that my 23 years experiencing this earth were not good enough for ministry. Because of this, I struggled intensely with making friends and enjoying my classes—eventually leading to my decision to drop out of Iliff and find something else to do with my life. At the end, I had decided that they were right to turn me away.

Many years went by with me carrying this mentality—that I was just “too young” to have anything valuable to say as a minister. However, a few years ago, I remembered something—the theme of my very first youth conference: “Bringing the Youth Out of the Basement”. This theme referred to the fact that most Unitarian Universalist churches have their youth programs in an entirely separate space from the rest of the community—and that that space transcended the physical and bled into the metaphorical as well. It’s a sad fact that, at many UU churches, there are members that don’t even know that there are youth in the community, let alone what they do or think. So, the goal of this discussion was to bring youth back into the picture as valued members of each UU community. I remember that we never really decided on the best way to do this, but more than anything it reminded me that the desperate need for younger voices to be heard in the church has been a problem for an indeterminably long time. So, my question became: why? Why do we shy away from the voices of the youth? Why do we lock them away in basements where the community can’t see them? Why did we decide that young people aren’t valuable as leaders or members just because they are young?

I am now ten years older than I was when I first decided to go to divinity school, and I do see some value in having more life experience and a more mature view on the world. However, my values and goals have remained the same. Instead, gaining more world experience has diminished some of the most important things I had as a youth: confidence, endless energy, and a genuine belief that I could change the world. It makes me wish I had not let such negative views get in my way as a young person, because these things are essentially important to creating a better world. Why would we see these traits as inconsequential when they can create such waves and revolutions? Especially when, in the UU community, youth are doing some of the most important work to create true change. Why are we not recognizing that and empowering it?

I am still young for a minister-- only 32 years old. But, I genuinely believe that the hope, energy, and ingenuity of our youth are absolutely essential to our movement. The youth are not the future, they are here NOW and they have much to say and contribute. So, I invite the adults in the community to do this: find and talk to the youth and young adults. Ask them questions. Be genuinely curious about what they have to say, because they are the ones who can truly change this world. And, to the youth, I invite you to the stage. Share your ideas and values. Be confident in who you are and what you have to offer. And, to our multigenerational community: stand proudly and recognize that the only way we can move forward in this moment is together, valuing each one of us and our gifts regardless of age or life stage.

 

Closing Words:

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.

~Louise Erdrich