bubbles and hymns

I have stored a way a lot of wonderful memories from Chaney's senior year, but few can surpass last night.

I started hosting a Bible study for my son and a few of his friends from church during his sophomore year. This year the group burgeoned to nine regulars with a couple of other seniors who dropped in from time to time as their schedules permitted. Each week we've been studying a different spiritual discipline, so we've covered a range of topics, including: lectio divina, Bible study, meditation, prayer, almsgiving, singing from the heart, forgiveness, spiritual friendship, and discernment. To prepare for the lessons, I have used a great resource from The Upper Room - Soul Tending: Life Forming Practices for Older Youth and Young Adults.

Last week we had our last official Monday Bible study, since AP exams and graduation ceremonies were looming. Last night, Lauryn Moody (a true spiritual friend who teaches Sunday School with me and who has been a regular at our Bible studies) invited the seniors over for a celebratory dinner. Joe Fitzpatrick, our church's new worship and music pastor, was our special guest.

As we sat around Lauryn's dining room table, I asked the seniors to tell Joe about the various spiritual disciplines we had studied over the past few months. One of the students even had her notebook from the Bible study with her (no surprise that she is the valedictorian of John Overton High School), so she let him take a look. As the students shared, it occurred to me that this was a fairly rare sight - a group of high school seniors excitedly discussing spiritual disciplines around the dinner table.

Afterwards, the students opened the festively wrapped graduation gifts that the mom of one of the seniors had sent for them. One student remarked that this seemed like Christmas, so as they tore into their gifts, Lauryn played "White Christmas" on the piano and we all sang along. The girls were thrilled with their bubble machines, but for lack of a screwdriver, it took a half hour for them to get one up and running. But once the bubbles finally took flight, spirits soared even higher. 

The best part of the night, though, was when we all gathered around the piano and sang hymns together with Lauryn serving as our accompanist. Many people argue that teenagers don't like the old hymns of our faith - and many don't - but this group of seniors has a fondness for the Baptist Hymnal. A girl requested that we sing her favorite hymn, "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing," and we sang in four-part harmony with gusto. Chaney then requested "My Lord is Near Me All The Time." We closed out the hymn sing with a rousing rendition of "Wonderful Grace of Jesus."

Bubbles and hymns are hard to beat. Thanks be to God.