When I ask you to have a heart, I mean heart in a biblical sense. According to the Bible, the heart represents the core of our being. It encompasses our thoughts, emotions, desires, and intentions. The heart is the seat of our spiritual life and plays a crucial role in our relationship with God and others.
This is a plea asking you to have a heart for the young people in your lives.
This plea comes from a mother, a former teacher, and a retired pastor who worked with youth throughout nearly 40 years of ministry. This plea comes from someone who is still working with youth in retirement. I have good reasons for asking this of you. Let me explain.
In my own youth I worried about very little. Growing up on an apple farm, we did worry about the remnants of hurricanes that often came this time of year, just as the apple crop was close to harvest. One storm could wipe out a crop and a year’s salary. Even then, I am pretty sure that I didn’t fully appreciate what that meant for my parents, with five of us to raise.
There has always been trouble for young people to get into. In my own youth the worst trouble available was to get caught smoking in the girl’s room. We had a black and white TV that we never were allowed to watch if the sun was out. We had a party line. We freely roamed the neighborhood without a care.
So, it is true. In my own youth I worried about very little. Heck, I even believed that politicians were honest and worthy of our respect. Imagine!
Here is a partial list of what I did NOT have to worry about. No doubt some of these existed but I was blissfully unaware of them:
Global warming. Terrorist attacks. Social media cyber-bullying. Pandemics. Twenty-four hour news. Stranger danger. Changing family structures. School shootings. An epidemic of drug-related deaths.
I write this next paragraph knowing I may well stir up the haters. But stay with me. Imagine that same-sex attraction is innate. and imagine the confusion of teens whose gender identity does not match the one assigned at birth and who they know themselves to be. Especially in this political environment where over 120 laws have been enacted against the LGBTQUIA community, who would choose the challenges of this life? Whether you know it or not you have someone in your family who is on this journey. And, no, teachers are NOT recruiting or brainwashing kids in these ways. For God’s sake — truly — have a heart!
Is it any wonder at all that a Pew Research Center poll reports that 70% of our youth experience anxiety or depression? Anecdotally my experience as a pastor bears this out. I visited many kids who were hospitalized for depression and anxiety. Self-harming was also not uncommon.
On the heels of the latest school shooting in Georgia, my own heart is broken. and this has prompted me to make this plea. Have a heart.
Have a heart for the young people in your life, be they in your own home or in your neighborhood. In all my experience working with youth I have never met one that was not open to relating to a kind-hearted adult. Never. Even as someone staring down 70 years!
I have had so much fun working with youth. They can be hilarious. I had a habit of bowing my head and raising my hands when I prayed during worship. One Sunday I looked up to see that the youth group were all raising their hands during the prayer! Wise guys!
Kids are full of energy. During scavenger hunts, water balloon fights, and playing sardines, they raced around. Kids are compassionate. Many times, I would witness kids caring for our elderly church members. We visited senior members and brought valentines and other gifts.
Kids want to learn about others and to work for justice. I have taken kids on mission trips to rural Maine, to West Virginia and to downtown Boston to support a ministry to the homeless. We went to the Heifer Project to take part in a program designed to have us experience how the poorest of the poor live day to day.
Youth might sometimes seem standoffish, maybe even anti-social. Learn to look beneath all of that. Persist. Underneath the wild hair, ear piercings or clothing that might shock you is a young person attempting to navigate a troubled world.
Reach out. Send a note. Find a way to let the youth in your lives know that you see them and that you are there for them. They need us. They need you.
Have a heart.
The Rev. Valerie M. Roberts-Toler is a retired United Methodist pastor who worships at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Gloucester.