The kids listened politely. And then it hit me: God loves those kids more dearly than you or I could ever imagine. They are all so incredibly young, and beautiful, and privileged, and he loves them so much it hurts. I was in awe. I am still in awe. I am stunned.Afterwards I was talking with one of the faculty, and I asked him what the biggest challenge facing these kids was. His answer astounded me. He said that there was so much pressure on them to get into the right university that they had to have the best marks possible, and that put a tremendous amount of pressure on those kids to conform. That just blew me away. I’ve been thinking about that for three days now. You see, I always knew that poverty, injustice and oppression could stifle the voice of the poet and the artist within, could silence one’s true voice from being heard in society, in the world. But I never imagined that wealth and privilege could stifle one’s true voice from being heard, either. Poverty exacts a toll, but so does wealth, it seems. The pressure on these kids to meet an increasingly difficult standard, year after year, is enormous… and they’re just kids. Conformity or Catastrophic Failure - that’s their choice in life. And yet the whole time I was there I felt like I was immersed in God’s amazing love for them; I don’t know how to describe it - like it was a prophetic or ecstatic experience, like it was another reality I had somehow drifted into. God was there, and he loves them with his fierce and wonderful love. He loves them too.

Today at the Mission