Thoughts on a Saturday

Just trying to prove you never can tell when I'll show up around here.

Also, wanted to talk about the book I finished.

For the last couple weeks, I've been reading Hurt: Inside the World of Today's Teenagers. My roommate was given the book a couple months ago, and I thought it would be interesting reading given my work with youth at church.

The book focuses most on high schoolers. The basic premise is that adults have systematically abandonded youth, and that leads to pain and the behavior we see around us today. Most of the book is trying to prove this premise by talking about how that plays out in various aspects of teen's lives. There were chapters that were obvious, like family. But some of the chapters seemed to go too far. The chapter on morals doesn't place any of the blame on youth. This to me makes it feel too much like the rest of the world today. Sorry, but we are responsible for our own actions. Especially interested is that he doesn't even address the need for moral training. It's more cut and dry, but almost too far in defending bad behavior, even when saying it's bad. Does that make any sense?

The last couple chapters are proposed solutions. They are far too short and unreasonable. Make sure every teen has 3 or 4 adults who care about him/her? Right. In a town of almost 200,000, that's really going to happen. And everyone involved in young people's lives meeting regularly to make sure that happesn. Again, right....

Having said that, the book had lots of food for thought. And I'm going to loan it to the youth pastor at church tomorrow. I'll be interested to get his take on it since I still don't know where I stand on it myself.