I was a part of two reunions in recent days. One I attended, and the other I was involved with online. The one I could not physically attend was my 40th high school reunion in St. Paul. Our class has a Facebook page, so I was in on the pre-reunion stuff, the planning and the efforts to find our classmates. The one I attended was a gathering of the people who were our neighbors and friends when we started the ministry: the Bulacao crowd. These were our first friends, the people we helped when we arrived in Cebu in 1979. Together we formed what later became the Bulacao Evangelical Free Church.
Both reunions were enjoyable and, at the same time, somewhat haunting. The Murray High School class of 72 is a great bunch of people. It was interesting to see, through Facebook posts, where people ended up, how they have or have not stayed connected, and what their memories of our high school years are. These are people that spent years together in school and there is a bond that exists that is hard to explain. Reports from the affair talk about a great time, where people stayed on and didn't want to go home. Some stayed until 3:00 am.
The haunting part came when somebody posted a list of our classmates who have died since 1972. The list was longer than I expected. Since I live on the other side of the world from St. Paul, I hadn't heard about many of these passings, so there were several surprises. One name leapt off the page at me, and left me feeling sad and ashamed. This guy had only gone to our school for a couple years, as I remember. He had a major speech impediment. He was a nice guy but he could not talk. I don't remember that he had any friends at Murray. I don't know if we made fun of him - probably, knowing how mean young people can be and how peer pressure and personal insecurities can combine in awful ways. To be sure, he wasn't a part of any group. Maybe we just didn't feel that he was as cool as we were. (We weren't all that cool but we thought we were!) For whatever reason, he was shut out. I've been thinking about him for the past few days since the reunion. Why couldn't I have stepped out of the crowd and been a friend to him? What effects did the things we said and did have on him? How would his life have been different if high school had been a positive experience for him, with friends and activities and inclusion. Maybe even one person (Paul Healy) could have made a difference. Now that I'm older I wonder about his parents, and how they must have felt, longing that he could have had friends or some kind of normal experiences. I can imagine how they felt if they knew kids were mean to their son. Haunting.
At the Bulacao reunion there was also a time for reflection. Some of the people in our initial group have died or moved away. I wonder if there was more that we could have done to help some of these people, either in meeting their physical needs or in letting them know better the love of God in Jesus. Were we too busy to recognize their needs? How did those years impact their lives and where do they stand with God? Questions.
I am aware that, for some people, high school was the worst time in their lives. That wasn't true for me, but I am sure that some stay away from reunions because of those negative memories. We had an evening to honor one of our basketball coaches a few years ago and I was shocked by the number of guys who would not come because they held 30 year grudges against the coach for not playing them enough. Maybe that's just the nature of reunions; some will show up and have a good time, others will stay away.
For me, I am acutely aware that I cannot change the things that I did or didn't do in the past to classmates, churchmates or others I came in contact with. The best I can do is to try my best to be aware of needs around me today, to treat people with dignity and love, and to encourage others to do the same. In an age when being like the crowd and being cool is as strong or stronger than when I was young, that is a difficult task, but I believe it is what Jesus would have us do: Love the unlovely; reach out to the lonely, and be a friend to the friendless.
2 comments:
Thanks for sharing about your classmate w/the speech problem. Not much connection, but it reminds me of the Thai video making the rounds, with the deaf dad and the daughter bullied in school because of it. I find myself wondering how "different" kids do in PI schools or culture at large. Does CSC have a history of placing these kids in families? R (formerly in SL, now) in Kanagawa-ken
Teasing is a difficult obstacle to overcome. Yes, one can forgive, and years later one can understand the peer pressures that encouraged the childlike behavior. Yet, self doubt and lack of acceptance is still embedded in the psyche.
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