I’ve been twenty-five for a week now, and I must say that it hasn’t been too bad. Yeah, besides the random aches in my back that my mom says I’d better get used to, 25 has treated me well thus far. But what I’ve really decided I need for my birthday (which continues until I finish eating the birthday cake in my fridge) is black trouser socks. The fashion world dictates that we can’t wear white athletic socks with our black slacks. But why not?! It isn’t like black and white are horrendously clashing colors. And lamentably for someone who has to dress professionally for work every day, I have far more pairs of white socks than I do black trouser socks.

Because I ran out of black socks a couple of days ago, I had to wear my dress boots to work this morning to cover up my athletic socks. Of course, these boots have a three-inch heel, which makes me about six inches taller than everyone else. A colleague at the Presbyterian Women Racial Ethnic Dialogue today said, “I didn’t know you were so tall!” And of course, I’m not.

I spent about three hours at said dialogue, sharing how NNPCW’s work relates to women of color and listening to their comments about how racial ethnic concerns could be more fully integrated into our work. What interested me, though, was the group’s level of concern about young women in the church. Everywhere I go, Presbyterians seem united in their desire to incorporate young people into their work. Yet we somehow seem elusive.

Ageism is an often-neglected but powerful force at work in our church. Even in an incredibly diverse room of women today, women from a spectrum of cultural backgrounds in the church (including African American, Brazilian, Hispanic, Latina, African, Asian American, Middle Eastern, and European American), I only saw one member of the dialogue who looked under age 30. In fact, I would be willing to put down money that I was the youngest person in the room. But especially since I became an associate, I’ve become used to being a youngling.

And I’ll confess that it has impacted me, perhaps more than I even realize. I’ve always been a very confident public speaker—since high school, when I competed in oratory competitions, I’ve never run into problems finding words to express my ideas. Yet sitting in that room today, with all these older folks around me, I felt almost downright nervous (although that also had to do with the fact that I’d walked into the meeting two minutes late and had to crawl under the table in front of everyone to get to my seat).

Even in the supportive environment of staff meetings, though, surrounded by the wisdom and experience of some of the most amazing women in the church, I sometimes find it difficult to add anything. In a way I hadn’t known until I came here, I’ve almost become pigeonholed into the “young adult box.” I can speak authoritatively on what it means to be a young adult, since I am one, but I hesitate a bit when speaking about anything else. It’s not that others are silencing me… it’s just that realization of my own ignorance about so many things.

Really, it boils down to a confidence issue for me, a need to reclaim my own voice. At the same time, perhaps it is a confidence issue that many of us face throughout the church. We’d like to get more involved in the larger arena, but there’s that persistent feeling that we just don’t know enough to contribute. So we segregate ourselves into young adult groups or we drop the church altogether.

I’m excited about the Leadership Event this summer because we’re proposing a dialogue across those age lines. Perhaps then we can really shed some light on one of those major issues in our church that everyone is hinting at but no one is talking about—ageism.

“Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.” --1 Timothy 4:12

Kelsey