On the longterm...

So, it occurs to me now that I've never been a youth minister before. It also occurs to me that even thought I've done most of what I"m going to be doing, that I've never been the one in charge before. It's kind of weird.

Today I'm working on developing my longterm plan for the St. Paul Youth Group. And I must say, I am quite excited about the year. When thinking through all my ideas of all the things I want to implement this next year, I was getting kind of nervous that perhaps I had bitten off more than I can chew. So I got to work developing this schedule of when I will implement what, and what I've come up with is a slowly but steadily growing series of activities that are fun but also geared toward developing leadership and spirituality.

I feel so professional.

On an only somewhat related note, last night I went to a mass/dinner/meeting for the National Catholic Youth Convention. There were teens and adults there from all the parishes in Chicago that are sending anyone. It was kind of a fun meeting, with prayer and food and games and all the stuff that goes along with youth ministry. And I met some people from other parishes.

As a sidenote, I read this book last year called How To Be A Chicana Role Model. The lady who wrote it, and I forget her name currently, but she talks about how, if you are a person of color and do, well, anything, you suddenly become a role model for all people of your color. She'd published a couple of poetry books, and even though she considered herself to be a fairly normal person, she found herself flung into some sort of spotlight because she's latina.

One of the stories she tells is about attending this Women's Convention, and how she found herself seated at the front center table with world famous women who were way out of her league. She had nothing in common with any of the hugely successful women around her, but had long ago learned that when you're in an unfamiliar setting, you should look for similarities between yourself and those around you. And she found out that the waitress was from a neighborhood she used to live in. The bartender's grandmother used the same recipe for carnitas that her grandmother used. The bus boy listened to all the same music she did. Basically, the only other latinos there were the people serving her. But those were her people, so those were the people she migrated to.

So, back to the NCYC meeting last night, in a room full of white middle class people, I found myself going straight for the one other group of latinos present. And rather than making small talk with the type of people I grew up with, I struggled through Spanish conversations with the type of people I've been with the last two years. I suppose this means that who 'my people' are has changed recently. But then again, when one of the guys started a game where we went around the circle saying, "Yo soy..." whatever, I said, "Yo soy una gringa." Which got a lot of laughs. But then he said, "Una gringa que..."

It was a lot of fun.