Back in Mid-January, two of my seniors, R (male) and J (Female) were talking. They are close friends. J is a very sweet, but somewhat disconnected girl. The conversation went along these lines:
R: Ok, J, what was the name of my last crush?
J: Uhhhhh...
R: Oh Jesus...
J: You had a crush on Jesus??!!??!?!
After everyone in the class, including, I confess, myself, recovered from laughing uncontrollably, N, another senior, asked, "What would it be like to have a crush on Jesus?" and a discussion started from there.
This is one of my favorite examples of great stories from imperfection. This one was funny, tied my class together even more, and we made some connections.
As I think about it more, it is impossible to be perfect when everything is so disconnected. (It is impossible to be "perfect" anyway, but we knew that.) Pulling it all together and making connections builds community and makes improvements, conversations, discussions, and brings us "Closer to Fine," as the Indigo Girls once so memorably put it. The mistakes we make, if we choose to learn from them, accept them, both as individuals and communities, make us better--not perfect, but better.
So I think, once again, about the Quest metaphor. We're all on quests, right? Has any hero or heroine ever been able to do this alone? No. Quests are about making connections and building a community out of disparate questers. No quest has ever been perfect. There are always setbacks, there are always mistakes, there are always rough parts. But at the end, the questers come through, working together even if they don't always agree. But it's all about the connections, the community...the Quest.
How do we help build the connections and the community? How do we make it more about the Quest?
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