The Art of Apologies

I arrived home after 10pm ast night to find two kids from my neighborhood being sternly reprimanded by my neighbors on the sidewalk in front of my house.  My neighbors are great people, and they are often very gracious with us in their patience for the constant flow of kids from Homewood who are in and out of our house.  Last night, apparently, two kids that Julie and I know very well decided to visit us around 9:45pm, but instead of walking up to our front door to ring our doorbell they thought it would be funny to sneak up on our house and surprise us.  They crept around my neighbors yard, hopped his fence and I guess they tried to throw stuff at our house to get our attention.  My neighbor caught them in the midst of their actions, which were admittedly not very well thought out by my 14 year old friends.  They were receiving an earful when I arrived on the scene.  I did my best to calm everyone down.  I walked the kids most of the way back to where they lived and we talked about how it was probably not a good idea to be creeping around peoples' houses at night anymore, even if they were just trying to play a joke on us.  When I walked back to my house, my neighbors were still out on the sidewalk talking to my wife.  I apologized as best as I could for the whole situation, and I thanked them for being such great neighbors and for being so patient with us in our work in trying to impact young people in Homewood.  I intentionally try to reach kids that are at risk... the ones that society would describe at "bad."  For some reason God has gifted me with the ability and desire to build relationships with troubled youth.  I've been working with kids like that for the past fifteen years.  Over the course of that amount of time, I've had to deliver countless difficult apologies while standing next to kids who made bad decisions or caused some type of trouble. 

I think I'm starting to get good at the art of apologizing in strange situtations.  Apologizing is never fun to do, and I think most people stop working with troubled youth after they've been embarrassed once or twice.  But for me, the embarrassing moments serve as a starting point of sorts in the relationships that I try to develop with tough kids.  They are teachable moments.  I am thankful for teachable moments because they generate tremendous growth in the relationships I have with kids.  Also, often people only see the negative things that at-risk youth do.  I have the great privelege to be able to see all of the positive things that the kids do as well.  I've been able to be a part of amazing breakthroughs and kids being able to courageously overcome life circumstances that might stand to take out any young person.  In my experience, the moments of breakthrough far outweigh the number of embarrassing apologies that I have to deliver.  And so I keep on doing what I do, and I keep practicing the fine art of apologies.