The Oatmeal Gospel

We had our annual MuckFest for Young Life tonight and it remains in my Top 5 favorite ways to spend 45 minutes. It's awesome and encapsulates so much of what I love about high schoolers and the "me" I want to be. I know when we started doing the event a few years ago that we had a purpose/strategy. It was a means to an end. I think it had something to do with a fall kickoff and spreading the word about starting up our weekly club meetings. I'm sure it still does this, but even if it didn't I think we should still keep doing it. I'd be perfectly happy if it were the end in and of itself. And that end being a night to just play.

The night is basically a giant food fight. The second portion consists of the 4 teams attacking each other first with flour bombs, then shaving cream, and finally oatmeal. Like I said it's awesome. When's the last time in your adult life that you've cupped your hands together in an attempt to hold as much oatmeal as you can before smashing it into your friends face, hair, nose, ears, and anywhere else you please (for the record I learned tonight that down the pants is a fun option). When's the last time you had a rubbermaid tub of gluey, heavy, slimy oatmeal dumped on top of you to the chorus of shrieking freshmen girls? Have you thrown an onion at your husband recently? Have you whipped noodles of spaghetti at the back of someone's head in the past few months? I think there's something very magical about this kind of "letting loose". I think I will remain a YL leader because nights like this are a spiritual experience for me. I know I'm not the only one, but if I told many people this they would think I'm crazy because I think oatmeal and shaving cream in your ear are a thing of beauty.

I think we'd all be better off if we played like kids every once in awhile. (And not relied on alcohol as an excuse to act silly. I think we can play without it too.) I was talking to a friend this weekend and commenting about how as I get older I am drawn to people who are 1. laid back and 2. positive. I wish I were more laid back and I wish I were more positive, so I love being around people like that as they bring it out more in me. My peers can be so negative. A casual hang out with my friends can turn into a b@*#% fest within the first 5 minutes. (If you're my friend and you're reading this I'm not talking about you. My blog readers are only the most lovely of company to keep. wink, wink) I leaned over to Daniel tonight and said, "I think one of the reasons I like hanging out with high school kids so much is because they're so positive." He remarked, "Oh yeah, they're just excited about life." Yes they are. Everything is new and exciting. They're not cynical or jaded yet. One of their biggest concerns is having fun. They don't look at a tub of oatmeal and cringe with disgust, but instead see the possibilities and potential for fun and dive right in. I want to hang out with oatmeal people. I want to be an oatmeal person. I don't want to sit on the sidelines and watch because it would be too much trouble to wash the oatmeal out of my hair. I want to be an oatmeal person.