Kid Prophet

I have a student at my high school who periodically stops by Period 6 (Club Period) and hangs out. He is not the best academic student...but that hardly means he ain't smart.

There is a rhythm to his visitation schedule...although I have no clue what it is. He might not show for a week, then I will see him two days in a row. Sometimes I have to tell him that I don't have the time to hang-out...something I am afraid he has heard too much of his life.

The boy has taught me more about the band Nirvana and Rock and Roll in general than any one else alive. He is a savant about anything head-banging. It is crazy how much the kid knows about music. Encyclopedic...even though that term is losing its meaning in the Age of Wiki.

Today, for the lack of a better word, our discussion became existential. His dad called him the other day and told him to stop by for some boxes of stuff from his (the kid's) past that dad would leave out on the porch for pick-up. The dad had previously booted the boy out; dad's girlfriend didn't want him living in the house. Sometimes...sometimes...I just get so mad. Music is one bond Father and Son share.

The kid was telling me how he went back and read his journal he found in one of the boxes that he wrote in for school while in the first grade. He spoke how he missed that Age of Naiveness & Innocence...where playing with a truck or pretending to play a guitar to a KISS song could make him happy all day. Ten or so years later, he plays a real guitar. Although, he is not refined yet, I see in the kid a talent. He is a great soul.

As I sat and listened to him today, I marveled at his wisdom. Me, the guidance counselor, getting schooled on life by a teenager. Wish I could have taped what he said...there was so much thought and intelligence in his words, all I could think was "Damn, this shit should be recorded and archived for the ages." His soliloquy, although not Shakespearean, was a solo riff of transcendental proportion. One kid, one counselor, at a high school in Pennsylvania, pondering the profundity and pathos of life...and me, just listening and learning. Listening intently is hardly passive...but doing so gives people the opportunity to tell their story. How often are we guilty of just not listening? Before people will listen to us, we must demonstrate that we have listened to them. Really listened.

James 1:19

My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen...