If you don’t know the kind of person I am
and I don’t know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
William Stafford, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other”
Sometimes it’s good to be reminded that our world is more than the whole of its troubles. Black Students at East High School have been such a reminder for me.
At a recent Natural Circles circle at East High School, held with students no stranger to trouble, one young man shared that what keeps him coming back and connected is that he likes to see the smiles of other students—just that simple. Sometimes we make things harder than they need to be. As other students got comfortable in the space, more of them spoke with affection, empathy, and love about why they come and why they stay connected to each other and to their mentor.
Many of these are students we have abandoned—“let their hands go” as some described it last year in our summer Pathfinders program. These students represent an inconvenient truth that we try to ignore, silence, or control when they express their frustration with understandable anger that is a cry to “Look at me! Listen to me! Help me!”
On this day, the students filled our circle with love. We sat in the small amphitheater on the first floor of East—an open and public space with other students and adults in the hallways and public spaces around us. Some began to listen in—a bit of the love rippling into the broader community.
Our mentoring circles exist to hold the love and stories of Black students, where they can express their passions and affirm their dreams. In a world filled with troubles, these young black people at East High School are one more reason to hope.
