We are the beautiful promise.

Building a weekly restorative circle with high schoolers.

Dear reader,

So, Tana and I are now less than 4 weeks from our due date. Baby is almost here. There’s so much to say, but also a good bit to do in preparation, so I’m not sure how much “saying” I’ll be able to offer here in the Courtyard in the coming weeks and months, like, hot-off-the-press type stuff. I’m expecting that I won’t be writing much at all in the postpartum period, and instead, concentrating my time and energy with our new little family.

I have a bunch of pieces stored up, however, so I will continue to post here twice monthly. If it seems odd that I’m sharing essays that have nothing to do with the most important thing that’s actually happening in my life right now, please know that it’s because I’m attending to Tana and baby. Eventually, I’m sure, I will get around to writing about our kiddo, and maybe the birth, and fatherhood. It just might take some time before we get there.

Who knows, maybe I’ll manage to sneak in a post here and there from the heart of the real-time journey. But in case that’s not possible, please enjoy these essays I’ve been crafting over the past months and years: stories about my restorative work in schools, excerpts from Oh, Man, little sermons. And I’ll see you again soon enough.

As always, thanks so much for reading. And please keep us in your prayers as we approach this sacred threshold.

Take care,

Andrew

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A colleague and I are launching a restorative community-building circle at a local high school. We meet weekly. Same time, same place.

The idea is to co-create a space where students can go to be heard, and to hear each other: the stories of their lives, their thoughts about various topics of concern, their feelings. Their truth.

The idea is that if they know one another in a deeper way, they will, we will, deepen in our respect for one another, our care for each other.

The idea is to learn how to listen, really listen. And to risk sharing candidly, honestly, vulnerably.

The idea is to cultivate a culture of kindness, trust, integrity, courage, et cetera, et cetera, you know the list.

The idea is that the students will eventually facilitate the circle themselves.

So, that’s the idea.

The reality is…different. Or, just, catching up to the idea. Slowly. Like, real slow.

But they, the students, are fast. Way faster than me. They are brilliant. Powerful. “Defiant” is the wrong word, but some would use it. Mostly freshman. Mostly boys. Mostly BIPOC. The circle is opt-in, during a study hall period, which means that no one is obligated to be there. They are there because they want to be, at least to some degree. Some want to be there because it’s better than doing their homework. Some are there because their friends are there. And some are there because they feel what I feel, perhaps: the promise of something beautiful. Maybe they all feel that, at some level. As one kid put it yesterday, “I just like being here.”

We are getting there, here, to the beautiful promise. There are glimpses each week, when the promise feels real, possible, not just a pipe dream, a fool’s delusion. Like that moment when one young man’s turn to share came around and he wasn’t sure what to say but he didn’t say “pass,” just held the silence, searching for an answer to the question, “What is it that brings you hope?” and the whole room somehow was able to get still for him and we all just listened for him, to his silence, waiting for his words like a prophecy.

It was a glimpse.

Or, that moment when another boy finished sharing and the whole room spontaneously burst into applause.

And those moments, maybe half a dozen at this point into the school year, when one of them speaks from their heart and the room resounds with the power of their honesty and somehow the others don’t laugh in knee-jerk reaction to the sudden presence of vulnerability in the room.

More often, though, they do laugh. They tease. They run amok, powerfully. And not without consequence. Surely little harms have happened in our circle. It hurts, doesn’t it, to share and be laughed at, even if you’ve gotten used to the shit-talking, even if you’re a shit-talker yourself. Little hurts. Big learnings. They are, we are, learning.

I am learning, certainly. Apparently I am too kind. Don’t know what to make of that feedback just yet, but I’m chewing on it. Yesterday, right after we closed the circle, I made a beeline for one of the girls, a junior, because she is a leader and I need her help and I could tell that she was maybe on the fence about coming back. She withdrew over the course of that day’s circle, away from the sound and fury of it all. Put in her earbuds. Tuned out.

“So how do you think it’s going?” I asked her.

“They make me mad,” she said, shaking her head.

“What do you mean?”

“Because they don’t listen.” This from the girl who had earbuds in the whole time.

“Yeah,” I said. “I know. It’s hard, right? What do you think we should do to help them listen to each other?”

“They need to understand what our expectations are, and they need to know what will happen if they don’t follow those expectations.”

That is, indeed, what we’ve been focusing on in our circles. We’ve been sharing on the prompt, Who’s someone in your life who taught you something important about how to be, how to live? What value did they teach you? How can we bring that value into our circle? We’ve heard about many mothers. Grandmothers. Some fathers. An uncle who passed on. Former teachers. We’ve talked about listening to others. About being yourself, being real, not being afraid of (or actually, “not giving a fuck about”) what others think. Respect. Paying attention. They’ve been naming what they want this circle to be. They already know.

But it’s one thing to know it and name it, and another thing to live it. Living it is difficult, even more difficult when your buddies aren’t living it and the room’s popping off and someone just punched you in the shoulder and your reputation is at stake.

Some of them are living it, though. One of them in particular. A freshman. He keeps coming back. I love watching him hold his own in the fray. It’s so subtle, his power, but when he speaks his power is made known, made manifest, always without pretense, an innocent, unself-conscious sincerity that the others do not dare to touch, so his words just sit there, stand there, untouched, shining.

The others are, well…they’re on their way. Like I said, we’re getting there.

I ask the girl if she would be willing to help facilitate next time. Help us clarify those expectations, help us understand how we hold ourselves accountable, just help us, please! I think she appreciates my recognition of her influence, her leadership. She agrees to co-facilitate the next circle.

“And, can I ask you one more thing?” I say.

“Sure,” she says.

“Do you have any feedback for me personally?”

She doesn’t miss a beat.

“You’re too kind. You can’t be so kind. You’re like Winnie the Pooh!” and we both start laughing, my colleague, too.

“Yeah,” I say, “and Winnie the Pooh needs you!”

I think that does it. I think she’ll come back. I hope so. It won’t work without her. It won’t work without any of them.

I don’t know if we’ll get there, to the beautiful promise. But my job, I have to keep remembering, is to believe that we will. To believe in the promise to begin with, which is to believe in them, to believe beyond believing, to know, to know them, who they really are, who they are here to become.

Or maybe that’s backward. Maybe my job is simply to know who I am in the midst of it all. To be who I am, who I really am, and to stay who I am, with them.

Who am I?

I’m Winnie the Pooh, y’all.

Who are they?

I pray to find out, every week, for as long as they keep showing up.

Who are we?

We are the beautiful promise.