Non-Violent Violence

“We are a non-violent youth group.”

These were my words of warning to one of the guys at youth group last night. He was considering “pelting” another youth in the hackeysack circle. The funny thing is, we really are a violent youth group. Well, in a rough-and-tumble kind of way. We try not to knowingly inflict pain on one another, but the guys like to wrestle around. So I pretty much let them tumble, as long as they leave the girls alone and as long as they’re not being unsafe.

Five minutes after refereeing the almost-pelting incident, I had a brilliant idea! I picked up the bag of marshmallows from the snack table (we had s’mores for snack) and quietly handed a couple marshmallows to one of the guys standing beside me. I informed him that he could “pelt” anyone who dropped the hackeysack…. and of course, it only took one pelting and the marshmallow fight began! Marshmallows flew back and forth across the room. People took cover behind each other, trash cans... one girl even hid under the table!! When a marshmallow hit somebody (most of the time, it just hit the wall behind them), the looks on their faces were priceless--this strange mixture of shock and surprise! LOL Awesome. Of course, I was only watching... and giving ammo to the ones who couldn't find marshallows. :) Evil, aren't I? There was one marshmallow that just stuck to the wall until somebody took it down and threw it again, and then it stuck to another wall. I just watched and laughed, and laughed some more!! :)

After awhile, the chaos subsided... but the laughter continued. Nothing like a little "good, clean violence" to break the ice.



Disclaimer #1: Nobody was harmed in the making of this blog entry.
Disclaimer #2: Yes, we did clean up the mess.