High School Kids and Me

I went to a square dance last night. Well, not a real square dance...kind of. The high school youth group had a square dance and chili cook-off. It was so interesting to me. First, at least a dozen high school kids made chili. That said to me, that this is a group of kids that has a leader they believe in, agree with and want to follow. Somehow, their youth leader, made cooking chili seem cool. This is a very mold-able people group.

The second interesting thing was the dance itself. 90% of the kids participated in the dancing. How cool! Some kids were dressed up, some kids were dressed normal. The more they danced, the more comfortable they got, the more their real selves came out. I didn't have any epiphanies about the students really...they were just fun to watch. But I did have a realization about myself. I was asked to jump in and be some one's partner on 3 different occasions and I was okay with that. Two years ago, I would probably not have even gone much less jumped in to dance with a bunch of high school kids. That would be way out of my comfort zone, high schoolers intimidate me and I am scared to dance. But I did...well, I didn't actually dance, but I did get in the circle with the intention to dance. Hooray, I've grown! =)

The third interesting thing was just watching them. High school kids are different than the rest of the population. They are almost adults, but most of them don't yet have adult responsibilities. They are still kind of kids and have kid energy. A lot of the kids I watched last night are really cool kids. They have life and energy and ideas. They want to change the world. They have grand plans. They have all these ideas and all this energy and it is so fun to be in the same room.