Understanding Youth Animation: Reflections

‘Youth’ is categorized as a particular developmental stage in the process of growth. So the youth has to be addressed as always ‘on the way to’. Having this in mind, if we look at certain aspects of the youth animation, it is in a way is handicapped. The handicap is often caused by several forces – an attitude of ‘anything will do’ (the animators may be well qualified and they may have many things to talk on, just consider the young and old confreres having plenty of resources saved in the hard disk and when the occasion comes, take a topic and fire without considering the psyche and the spirit and the mentality of the young at target). Suppose you take a session on the topic ‘spiritual quotient’, the young people may not be aware of their own inner dimensions of growth to understand the reality of the spiritual quotient. They may not understand with the limited vocabularies they have in the built in language they acquired (I don’t mean to say the language as a whole but the knowledge of the language of the young). Language is a real barrier in getting across the message we want to convey.

Language: in the Indian scenario, where most speak their own dialects, it would be slightly defeating that we animate them in English. The vernacular vocabularies are rich in symbolism. Hence, capturing their minds with the lived context and the symbolized and signified vocabularies would evoke feelings and greater depth in understanding.

Yet another handicap is our understanding of the young as someone who needs to be kept busy all the time. Look at the way we animate them through power points, jokes, animated videos, party songs and party games (some do consider them as playing the role of breaking the monotony or creating in them interest. I do not intend to mean that these are not necessary but I am questioning its failure to get across the intended message)

What do we need to do? Start from where they are – psychologically from the stage of growth and address the issues of life and growth. Start from the SENSES, taking the cue from St. Thomas Aquinas: there is nothing in the intellect, which has not been first in the senses. Body and its related issues need to be addressed to the young. These days there are many groups conducting awareness programmes especially in the area of body awareness. Why is it all? It is then indicative that we can reach the truth. We can reach God as He reached us through Jesus Christ concretely manifesting Himself as a Fully Alive Human Being – Spiritual and Embodied. We are bodily beings and we are always in touch with our body. There is a great and an unmatched truth in the whole story of incarnation – God has skin after all. We can touch him, feel him and He is historically grounded in the person of Jesus Christ. We who partake in the mystery of Christ need to feel the death of Christ in our bodies (as St. Paul would say). But it is good to question how comfortable we are with our bodies? Do we feel the weight of our bodies? Our body is a locus of the ‘spiritual’ as well as all sorts of clinging. Just imagine a person dying, and notice his body movements, just notice his hands, the hands that did many things is unable to move, finally one has to leave. Now suppose that a dying man is holding your hand at his moment of death, his clinging hands begin to give up the hold on you….. What do you feel? The treasure is hidden in the field; can this field be our bodies? In Bhagavad Gita our body is compared to a battle field, a field where in we fight the forces of evil. Just think of the ancient asceticism the saints of ages practiced in the ancient ages. 

Why did Don Bosco insist his boys on the mortification of senses? The body discipline? Is there some truth? Definitely there is. Now coming to the point Sexuality is a key area to address to the young. Sexuality and its related issues like sexual orientation – homosexuality, lesbianism, heterosexual, etc.. need to be understood. The psycho-sexual problems like masturbation, pornography, etc. need to be addressed to the young. In India the young feel shameful to tell their problems to someone. So there is a lot of hiding taking place in this regard (I do not say all the young people, but majority need to understand their sexuality). One of my students was confused. He asked me – brother, is it all right to have sex before marriage? He thinks that it is not o.k, but influenced by the peers and their generally held consensus agree that they should have an experience of sex before marriage. What does it say? Uncertainty and confusion in the area of sex and sexuality!!

Address the young on ‘relationship, responsibility and love.’ Relationship and love need a true understanding. Lead the young to a true understanding of it through true life stories, make them aware of the manipulations (emotional) involved in it. Lead them to seek sincerity and genuinety.

Make the young productive consumers. We cannot deny the fact that we are consumers. We cannot merely remain as consumers but we need to be productive. We are in a global locality and our needs and wants are many. Being productive consumers requires responsibility.

Create an attitudinal check. Lead them to the awareness of “we need each other.” Tell them that independence is only a myth and interdependence is a reality. Though our starting point is the young person, we need to lead the young from the world of self to the other (cue from the maxim “Love your neighbor as you love yourself”). Lead them to appreciation for self and others (language, culture, faith, etc.)

These days, especially in India, the internet culture is booming. The young learn a lot by seeing and hearing and not much from reading. I would advocate a culture of reading (even in the net). Man needs visions to live by. If there is a created vision, convictions are built by reading. We form questions only when we know that there have been experiences which we do not understand and we feel the necessity of an expression. Questions emerge as one meets the demands of each day. These questions get clarified through reading.

Address the current issues of violence (not directly because they may not be interested in the details). What we need to do is to make them aware that violence erupts first from within. Give them examples from history and lead them to an understanding of ‘violence to self’ (it could be a good theme). Connected with this is the point of “Hyper-reflection”. This reflects the tendency of excessive attention to self. For the animators I recommend the reading of “The Wounded Healer” by Henry J. M. Nouwen.

In the beginning youth ministry in the catholic tradition had a thrust on giving solutions and giving a definitive answer in the person of Jesus Christ without understanding what was the real question of the young. I do not deny Jesus Christ but leading from the Question to the Answer is a process and we need to accompany the young. How?  First, address one’s own problems and seek clarity and integration for oneself. When you have something only you can give. When you have understood only you can present the young with clarity and conviction.

Emphasize on the need for guidance. They look to us. Today most young people look for answers (often a definitive and convincing one. They want mathematical certainty. If they do not get it, they look deep within. If it is not directed appropriately excessive reflection on the self can be hampering.

Do they seek God? Definitely yes; but what they need is personalization – a two-fold movement of upward down and a downward up (upward down is what we get from life as we grow up, from traditions, history, faith, etc. and the downward up is what we appropriate).

The topics for youth animation can never be exhausted if we cater to the spirit of the young….. The above ones are only my reflections….