Taking it to the Streets

The other night I was invited to go into Worcester with a friend to a youth group in a small Lutheran Church. It was a couple miles away from Holy Cross, but we got lost twice anyway. All jokes aside it was a great time. Going to this thing I thought I was doing something really good, I thought I was helping these kids out. Once I arrived though I realized something. This is much more for my benefit than for these kids. Sure they get the benefit of seeing a college kid who worked hard and got really far. But by meeting these kids I learned a lot. The single greatest moment I had was at the end when we waited for dinner. One of the kids sitting across from me had an AP U.S. History book and was doing his homework. I recognized it as the same book I used two years ago, and said that I took the same class. A huge smile lit up on his face as we talked about how difficult the class was for the both of us. A girl overhearing our conversation brought over an essay for the same class and asked me to read it over, and I did. It was this connection that was established between the three of us that made the night. I came from an entirely different background than these kids, and we both know it. Yet when that connection was forged—the pains of taking a difficult class—we were on the same level, we both realized there was very little in between us. That’s the thing I love about God, He teaches me so many amazing things. He shows me that my neighbor isn’t just the kid living down the hall from me, my neighbor is also a kid who’s had an entirely different life than mine. No matter how different we all may be, whether we be separated by income, race, religion, etc., we are all the same in God’s eyes. It’s not so much me trying to “get on their level” as much as it is me just talking to these kids that I meet, because we really aren’t that much different.