Why I Work With Students

Today I am sitting in my favourite coffee shop doing some much needed reflection on some difficult scripture studies I’ve been in lately (don’t worry, there will be a big post on them later). Sometimes when I’m here I can’t help but overhear conversations that are taking place around, and today is no exception. There are two young women sitting ridiculously close to me (their table is mere inches form me) talking about relationships, morality, and lifestyle decisions.

Here are some of the gems I’ve overheard (not exactly verbatim, but the gist):

-I don’t want to get married. The notion of commitment is ridiculous. Perhaps I would consider an open marriage, or common law, but I would never commit myself to someone. I want to be open to find someone better when they come around.

-There is no such thing as right and wrong. There’s good and bad, but no right and wrong. People have such deluded understandings of morality. People need to think more like me.

-I want to live the life that I want until I’m 37, and then I want to adopt a teenager, because they are the ones that need stable environments. I could definitely offer that. I would never adopt a newborn because it’s way too much responsibility.

-You know what I miss? Breakfast keggers.

-The only things guys our age want are people to eat food with, watch TV with, and have the occasional intellectual conversation with. That’s why I’m not into relationships.

There have been so many points in time when I’ve wanted to jump in and say “Wow, you are selling yourself short of so much,” or “Sorry to interrupt, but I completely disagree with so much of what you’re saying.” But I can’t now because they just got up and left.

These are the dreams of so many students, and many of them are self-interested. Comments like the adoption one wear the guise of caring and selflessness, but lets be honest, it’s playing up the desire to nurture but only if its convenient. I don’t think the notion of unconditional love exists in this world.

This is the world I feel called to, because I have partaken in these dreams, and have seen the shallow underbelly of it all. I don’t do it from a place of complete understanding, but from one of wrestling with two very different dreams each day: the Kingdom of God dream and the dreams of the kingdoms of this culture. I don’t always choose into the Kingdom of God, but when I do it is transformative and beautiful, and compels me to strive for it more and more. And as I strive, I long to invite more and more people into discovering it for themselves.