Chaotic Denouement

Dearest Rachel –

Those two words in the title, while not directly contradictory or outright oxymoronic, don’t seem to go together, do they? After all, the denouement of a story is when things wind down; we’re within sight of ‘the end,’ and all those deserving of it begin living their own little “happily ever afters.” There’s no place for chaos at this point, because the story is just about over. For any to erupt now would require the story to continue for a few more chapters while the heroes and their faithful companions sort things out.

But life doesn’t work like that; there is no narrative pattern to our lives, no moment of complete resolution where everything comes together in complete fulfillment of a storyline. There is no twelve-step hero’s journey for each of us to follow through our days that allows us to point at a moment in time, saying “this is when everything was solved, this is when everything was made whole.” And even if there was, the idea that a room full of people could reach that moment simultaneously? Preposterous.

Although… I suppose it could be argued that leaving an open end is the perfect hook for a sequel…

And so it was last night, as we closed out the year for Awana, and Sparks in particular. It’s perhaps a cliché to say so (not unlike the meteorologist who, every summer, without fail, comments on how hot it is, despite theoretically knowing full well that it’s always hot in August), but the crowd of kids in the sanctuary was such that I have to admit that I can’t remember it being so crowded and noisy (then again, given my memory, perhaps it shouldn’t be as surprising as all that). Perhaps it was the frantic search to ensure that everyone who had finished their book – and was thus supposed to get an award for doing so – would be getting their appropriate award; this was made problematic by the torrent of kids completing everything in the last week, giving very little time to order a sufficient quantity for everybody. Thankfully, we had some left over from previous years, but I don’t think we have that kind of cushion going forward.

It’s a nice problem to have, I suppose – to have more kids attending, and enthusiastic about learning scripture – but it’s still a problem, especially when we want to give everyone their due. It’s also unfortunate that it isn’t entirely organic, especially when some of the new kids this year are here because their home churches no longer have Awana clubs; the loss of functionality created by the pandemic – and the shutdowns that resulted from it – crushed so many of these places. We were blessed to survive, and even thrive (you’ll recall some of this, having lived through 2020 yourself), but it seems a shame that some of our growth comes at others’ expense.

And it’s not like everyone new is here because another place or another either closes or drops their program, leaving us to pick up the slack. There are always new invites, new kids who’ve never heard the things we have to tell them in any previous setting. We’re drawing them in, along with their families, at a tremendous clip, and the madness of awards night is just one more proof of that. You would have loved to have seen it – and you would have been a great help in keeping things under control, either settling kids down, or helping out us adults as we struggled to get everything together and make sure everything ran smoothly.

As it was, I think things ultimately ran reasonably well. The kids were brought up in their eight separate half-teams, and their awards were distributed by their individual leaders, rather than everyone all at once, so that was one significant bit of chaos reduced. I will say that certain teams seemed to have a lot more awards than others; up until now, I had been preparing some of the minor, progressive awards on an incremental basis throughout the year, and hadn’t noticed a pattern of which teams and leaders each child belonged to, but it was rather clear last night that some groups did well, with nearly all of the kids earning something, while others barely managed half that. I don’t know if it was just that some groups happened to get all of the smart kids, if certain leaders pushed their kids to memorize more, or if some of those same leaders were just lax in deciding “ahh, that’s close enough; you pass,” or if there was a combination of each of these factors (and which was more heavily weighted in that case).

It’s traditional that, after the award ceremony, we invite the parents and the kids downstairs for an ice cream party. This involves our second bit of chaos for the evening; that of getting everything dished up before everybody arrives downstairs. Since I’m not part of any specific team (and you’d remember why), I was able to get downstairs to help deal with the situation. Daniel was already there, waiting for instructions, and we got everything out, with the help of first one other person, and then, after scooping out about a gallon’s worth of ice cream and placing the bowls on one of several tables, a half dozen or so others.

I’d like to say that everything was done with military precision, with a couple people dealing out bowls, a couple others wheeling everything out into the main hall downstairs, and the rest scooping up ice cream to be delivered out to the impending crowd. And while that about sums up the division of labor, ‘precision,’ military or otherwise, hardly describes the scene. As things were upstairs, it was organized chaos, with people trying to do their job (or at least fill in where it seemed to be necessary) and trying not to run into each other in the limited space we had. The thing was, despite that, we had plenty out for when everyone got down there, and it wasn’t too long before we were told to stop, lest we contribute our own form of chaos by dishing up too much, like the brooms lugging water for the sorcerer’s apprentice.

Still, it’s always preferable to have too much, rather than too little.

And so the year comes to a close, at least with regard to the Awana club. It’s not really anything one can hang “the end” on; even the kids who finished their books will for the most part be back and looking to work on their next ones. It’s the sort of conclusion that is asking for a sequel, which we’ll begin production on some time in September.

Until then, though, keep an eye on all of us (especially the kids) and wish us luck. We’re going to need it.