Even Jesus Loves a Pizza

LAST YEAR'S FUN

Here it is Tuesday night and I’m STILL not back to normal after the big retreat weekend, a dirty-sock, shower-free sleepover extravaganza that’s not normally held right in church. Last year it took place at the Marotta’s summer house and here on the left is an example of the fun we adults had sealing the faces of the kids up in cement to keep them off their cell phones (kidding!) Masks and Why We Wear Them" was the theme of that particular weekend. The part here pictured was just the making of the masks which the kids then decorated and talked about on a metaphorical level as they say, then later spilled ketchup on or else wore as crash helmets or codpieces or who knows what when the old folks were out of sight.

All that was last year though…THIS year we had the big retreat weekend really late, and we had it right at church and here’s how the whole thing went down as best as I can recall:

On Friday at 6pm: 15 teenagers and four adults gather in the designated Youth Room, a basement ‘bunker’ redolent for as long as I can remember of that chicken soup-smelling-kind of human sweat.

At 7 we begin tackling the retreat’s theme, Making Time for God When You’re Almost Too Busy to Shower and at 7:30 curl up to watch The Golden Compass , which the religious right thinks exalts Satan though these kids don’t see it that way. They see a strong girl-child who does not wish to become a lady, and the search for a father, they see the quest for meaning, yadda yadda and so forth. In other words what they see mostly is a craftily concocted and slightly cynical amalgam of a half dozen other blockbuster films from Star Wars to The Mummy to Harry Potter and his many his cinematic offspring. Kids are sharp: they don’t just understand movies; they ingest them, like food pellets.

Then at 11 Judy tells her little flock that it’s time for Taps and they can sleep anywhere on this level or else one flight up in the cozy pinkness of tiny Ripley Chapel. If they don’t want to sleep but talk instead that’s fine too only no going up into the sanctuary and no going outside.

On Saturday it becomes clear that they have NOT slept that much but they are young and clear-eyed still and begin the day by going outside to look for God in a blade of grass so to speak. Then they return to talk about what they saw, then we eat lunch and do some physical stuff, then talk about forgiveness: when do you let a thing go and when do you not? Some kids counsel others that it is never worth it to carry a grudge, even against that lazy and unkind teacher who doesn’t even read what he makes you write but glances at it and gives you the check-plus or the check or the check-minus strictly on the basis of length.

At 4 I do a little journaling seminar with an assignment attached and off they go to write for 40 minutes the darlings, each one finding a place alone to scribble for 40 minutes, later sharing what it felt like do this but not necessarily sharing what was written, because that is personal.

For supper Judy announces that she has bought steak tips of all things plus a big green salad plus some lovely hot rolls and they all smile at her because they love her so much but she knows what it means and says “OK how many would eat pizza if we got pizza?” and 15 hands go up so we order four giant pizzas and they eat them all and the steak tips too and the salad and everything from last night along with six or eight bags of cookies and chips.

Then a stab at meditation as a way to call God closer. Then the drawing of names as we use tissue paper and cardboard and glue and bits of Scripture to make something for our person and that’s it for Saturday. The grownups all sleep and the kids just keep on talkin’ - all night long I suppose - and darned of they STILL don’t look great Sunday morning. And Judy has on her clerical garb and looks super-great. And even the two guy chaperones look good if slightly more bearded than they did Friday night whereas I myself look like some deranged old dust mop if a dust mop can be said to look deranged and I realize that I am in fact deranged when, having nipped home to shower and dress in Sunday-Go-to-Meetin’ clothes I return to church and am just ascending the big stone steps TO SEE MY WHOLE SKIRT FALL TO MY ANKLES BECAUSE IN MY EXHAUSTED STATE I NEVER EVEN ZIPPED IT NEVER MIND BUTTONED IT.

But so what? I was pretty much alone out there and in any case as my 11-year-old once said to me “Nobody’s looking at YOU Mom!” - but how about we all look at the kids now in these two imperfect snapshots and you try telling me they don’t look ecstatically happy, even three-quarters of the way into the comfort of the slow-moving Sunday morning service!