2003-06-24 - 10:35 a.m.

I hadn�t realized how much I�d forgotten about the life and style of a teenager. I�ve only been out of my teens for 7 years, so while I�m certainly not one anymore, I thought I could still grasp the concept.

I did everything I could to avoid being the teen leader this year at Ghost Ranch�s annual Unitarian Universalist conference. The women who were going to lead the group dropped out at the last minute, and my mother, being on the board for the conference, was desperate for a replacement. She knew I still wouldn�t do it. I don�t go to Ghost Ranch to work, I go there to get away from it. I help out here and there with things, but I wouldn�t ever run a program there, it�s just not worth it.

So my mother did the only thing she could to get me to do it, she got my friends to do it. Adrian had at least been there once before, but the only experience he had with teenagers was threatening them with needles. Celeste had never even been there, and the only experience she has with kids is teaching them how to ride a horse. Neither of them had been to Ghost Ranch as a teenager and had no clue what the teen program was supposed to be run like. But they didn�t even know what they were getting into, so they gave a tentative yes because my mother is a hard woman to say no to when she�s begging (at least, she is if you don�t know her like I do).

Once I found out, I called my mother and got in a huge argument with her. I knew exactly what she was doing. She was threatening me with throwing my friends to the wolves if I didn�t go in there and save them. When they called Celeste they even told her that her theory was that if she and Adrian agreed, they would get me, who was really the person they were after. And it really pissed me off. She could have just called me and requested it from me personally. She could have just explained the situation to me and how desperate she was for a teen leader, knowing that I was the only one remotely (very remotely) qualified to lead the group.

And it wouldn�t have worked. I would have said no, but she at least would have asked me directly. Instead, knowing I would say no, she manipulated me into it.

I�m not sure what pisses me off more, the fact that my mother took advantage of my friends to get at me, or the fact that it worked and I finally agreed to it.

I thought for a little while about just not giving in. Leaving Adrian and Celeste to fend for themselves. The teen group would have at least not gotten into much trouble with those two, but overall it wouldn�t have been very good. And maybe the bad reviews all week of the teen group would have taught my mother not to try to manipulate me into things. And if it were anyone else, I would have done it and my mother may have learned how shitty what she did was.

But the problem was, my mother wouldn�t have been the only victim of my stubbornness in refusing. The real victims would have been my two friends there, and the teens themselves.

Going to Ghost Ranch every year as a child is one of the few things that really saved me from myself. It was an annual island of safety. For one week a year, I knew I was in a place where I was safe.

Explorers once called an island off of Scotland a �thin place�. A place where the boundary between heaven and earth was thinner than the rest of the world. Ghost Ranch, New Mexico is another one of the thin places in the world. It�s a magical little corner of the desert where the inhabitants and visitors relish in the power of life and the joy of community. Some of the best friends I�ve ever had in life, I met there.

Ghost Ranch is also directly responsible for me becoming the cynic I am today. I look at the world around me, people begging in the streets, children forgotten in the shadows, emergency rooms filling with drunks and druggies, pushers advertising on street posts, gangs marking their territory with the fear of others. I see it everywhere and I think of places like Ghost Ranch, and sometimes I just want to scream, �IT DOESN�T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY!!!�

And it doesn�t.

Ghost Ranch is extremely important to me, and it should be just as important for the teens going there now as it was for me.

So if I left my friends to fend for themselves, trusting them to be the resourceful people they are, they would do OK. But the teens wouldn�t have come together like they could have. Who am I to not help bring that feeling of community to them? I�ve taken part in this community for 15 years now, having gone to this conference 12 times. Maybe it was time for me to start giving back to part of it, so that other teens can feel the same way about it as I do.

So I agreed. And having done so, I met the teens, 15 in total, who I was going to be responsible for.

From the ages of 12 to 17 there is a vast difference in maturity and interests. And it was my job to find a way for each of them to relate to each other and be a part of one group. Not all of them got along with each other, and I occasionally would stop fights before they would happen.

My first impressions of each of them were wrong. By the end of the week, there were some I expected more from, and most others I had expected far less from. A couple I don�t think I got included into the group until the last day, some I had to force to partake in any of the activities, one or two I had to talk D&D with so they had someone to relate to, a couple I had to put up with their annoying prattling and childish lies all week, and if one of them gave me that bored and whining glare of hers one more time I swear I would have snapped. But I couldn�t have asked for a better group of kids.

I really think the only thing that saved the group this year is that there wasn�t one kid who was a real pain in the ass. Teenagers are all about pushing limits, testing the boundaries and seeing what rules can and cannot be broken. I was no different. But these teens at least seemed to respect me, even if it was only because I wasn�t an old man in my 40�s like most of the teen leaders have been in the past. While there were a couple instances I had to be the disciplinarian rather than their friend, there wasn�t ever a time where I had to bring in anyone�s parents or really chastise someone.

Thank God.

I don�t know what I would have done if there was a kid who really was the rebel and refused to admit my authority over the group. Because the authority is really an illusion. I was responsible for the group�s well being and safety, I had no real authority to discipline anyone. If one of them had ignored me and broken a rule anyway, right in front of me, there wasn�t really anything I could do. Physically stop them? I�d get nailed for abuse in an instant. Yell at them? I�d lose the respect of the whole group and they�d all start ignoring me. Try to rationalize with them? They�d see me as the full of shit adult I am and ignore me. Guilt trip them? I�d automatically be filed in the same category as their parents. Threaten them with punishment? What punishment did I have available to me?

So having no real backup to my authority, I was lucky to have a wonderful group of kids.

We played games, hiked, scrambled, rafted, drew Mandelas, did ropes courses, sang songs, talked philosophy and Dungeons and Dragons, told stories, made jokes, played Ultimate Frisbee, read Harry Potter etc. And in the end, I think the teens had a good time, and for the most part came together as a team.

But I�m still hard on myself. I was given absolutely no time to prepare for this responsibility. When I was a teen there, there was a certain curriculum set up by the Hunts every year. It was awesome, and I learned a lot. The focus of the Hunts every year was to make that week a meaningful experience for us.

Being thrown into this at the last moment, on my way to New Mexico from California, my focus wasn�t to make it meaningful. My focus was to keep them occupied. Keep them busy and maybe they won�t get into trouble. If I can, draw them together as a group, but just as long as they are busy it�ll be OK.

I received nothing but compliments from all the parents, board, and even all the teens. Everyone was happy with my performance, as well as that of Celeste and Adrian. But I think I could have done better. I can recognize when I do a good job, and when I�m happy with the job I�ve done. This is not one of those cases.

So even though I�m still pissed at my mother for manipulating me into this position, I�m going to do it next year. And this time I�ll be prepared, and can give the teens the focus they really deserve.

I learned a lot this week. I don�t know what happened in the last 7 years. I must have gotten old. But now I think I understand teens a bit more again. The group I worked with was wonderful. If I can judge the entire age group on these kids, then teenagers are all incredibly intelligent, vivacious, thoughtful, creative, witty and full of life. Working with them, my impression is one of incredible potential. Potential that is bursting forth from them like a balloon about to burst. I hope I can help them see that potential and go forth into the world with it.

In the end, it was a pleasure to be manipulated into working with them. They made this last week one of the most frustrating and rewarding weeks I�ve had in a long time.

I feel honored to know each of them.

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