Following Christmas most from the Midwest turn their attention to the Super Bowl or the Annual Auto Show. The Auto Show is intended to do one thing—sell cars. This year the focus has shifted from the muscle cars and glitz to ‘The Green Thing’—i.e., making a greenback while saving the environment and being socially responsible.

It is a matter of supply and demand and values. Each person spends their time and money on what is important to them. What are we willing to pay for the lives of our youth today?

Teens today are at greater risk than ever before: experimenting with drugs, alcohol, sex, and gangs—just to belong. How do we decrease the demands of society upon them to perform consistent with parental and peer expectations, and help them find themselves in the midst of so many choices that put their lives at risk?

Meet the Wilderness is a program based in Colorado that addresses these issues. I have been involved with this program for thirty years. It began in 1974 with a couple of priests, a lay friend who wanted to introduce inner city teens to see and experience nature firsthand and to be challenged by their experiences to make healthy life choices.

I have personally led nine groups of eleven teens, another adult chaperone, and two guides into this wilderness experience. Each time I learn more about myself, life, and the challenges of being a teen in today’s society.

Our young people are the most precious resource we have. They are the future leaders who will inherit the world we pass on to them. They will also vote and make life decisions for us when we, the current adults, are old and dependent upon their care. How will they value life, as well as us? We must set the example.

The most precious gift we can share with them is our time. When we spend our time with them they learn from shared experiences, and we do as well. They learn our values and they learn the value of their life too.

When teens are taken out of their normal environment and given a set of challenges without preset conclusions, they will learn about themselves through the experience. Mistakes will be made, the sense of failure is real, but the support of the team, without artificial goals, allows each teen to grow in awareness. Learning through experience teaches lessons about life that are not contained in any book, but it is the cement that binds knowledge to wisdom, and produces actions and leadership.

If we want a better world, not only free from pollution, but one with a social conscience that embodies the best values of our varied faiths and cultures, then we have to plant these ideas in the fertile minds and experiences of our youth today.

Programs like Meet the Wilderness offer teens such opportunities. They explore not only the wilderness of nature in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, but also the wilderness within.

If you would like more information about this program you can explore the website.

Pope John XXIII said “If you want peace work for justice.” At this point in history we are at a turning point of creating a world peace through communication of ideas. The internet is the highway that connects different cultures and worlds. It can be the pathway to peace, or an expensive toy that wastes the minds and opportunity for a better world.

The choice is ours. We can opt for glitz, glamour, and muscle, or we can spend the most precious commodity we have, our time, to make our world a better place by investing in our young people.

Meet the Wilderness is one of many programs. The youth ministry programs in our parishes and local communities cannot thrive without the support of parents and adults who care enough to get involved.

When we show young people that we care enough to spend quality time with them, and develop programs that develop their social awareness, they will become responsible leaders. We are building the future together.