Malcolm Clemens Young                                             Joel 2:1-2,12-17 Grace Cathedral, San Francisco 2C8 (Q6)                Psalm 103:8-14 Ash Wednesday (Year C) 6:00 p.m.                 Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 Wednesday 2 March 2022

Burning Out

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Mt. 6).

 

In front of my high school there was a twenty-foot square of asphalt with a few concrete benches that was reserved as the smoking section. Kids there wore black rock and roll concert t-shirts, the boys had long hair and the girls wore shorter skirts with leather jackets. Kids called the students who hung out there burnouts. For many people, the whole identity of this group was simply reduced to their reputation for using drugs.

 

The kids called burnouts didn’t seem to care very much about grades or college or sports or clubs or being popular or pretty much anything else that mattered to other people. Perhaps this is part of what made them so attractive to me.

My burnout friends were also more sensitive to other people’s feelings. Oddly enough they seemed less self-absorbed. I knew that some of them had pretty hard lives at home, others had a difficult time academically. Because of this they knew what it felt like to suffer and to be misunderstood. This gave them a greater insight into other people’s feelings and shortcomings.