On Stewardship by Rev. Anthony Creeden
Part One: WHO AM I I need mental help. And before you laugh, so do you and everyone else. And teenagers? Well, I suppose that goes without saying. The reason we all need mental help is because we all suffer from the same crippling ailment that robs us of our mental faculties and greatly impairs our better judgment. It is known in certain circles as Willful Habitual Ongoing Alternate Multiple Identities, or WHO AM I. What circles you ask? That’s not important! What is important is recognizing the symptoms of WHO AM I, which include: • Sudden rapid loss of common sense • The inability to distinguish between “appropriate” and “inappropriate” • Rapid changing of identity amongst certain peer groups or social networks Research shows that every human is prone to WHO AM I with special attention given to its dramatic effects during the teenage years. What research? I SAID IT’S NOT IMPORTANT! What we have seen is an incredible ability for young people to rapidly shift their identity when faced with social challenges.
For instance, student “A” may be an active member of your youth group who attends regularly, answers questions with a fair amount of competency (even though it frequently sounds as if she is asking you the question) and has been involved in several mission projects. From all outward appearances student “A” seems to be the ideal member of your youth group. However, on Friday student “A” goes to the high school football game where her friends use what would be classified as “unsavory” language and have a propensity for crude remarks toward other students. Student “A,” suffering from WHO AM I, then proceeds to instantaneously lose her ability to decipher what is appropriate and promptly changes her identity to match the identity of her peers. Following the football game, student “A” then suffers another episode of WHO AM I as she returns home, hops on Facebook and posts for the whole world to see, “Jamming to [insert pop artist here]! I ABSOLUTELY LOVE [insert title of pop song riddled with sexual innuendo here] <3<3<3” What we can see here is that something is very wrong—aside from her emphatic insistence that every-
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