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WE ARE: Marion Athearn, Buddy Baker-Smith, Gretchen Baker-Smith, Katey Baker-Smith, Dave Baxter, Kevin Lee, Wendyl Ross, Martha Schwope, Karin Sprague.

JOINING US are somewhere close to 22 wonderful JH’ers – fabulous, though small crew, with 5 first timers. HONESTLY. We are SO blessed.

The JHYM Retreat program’s goal is to provide a safe and trusting community in which we seek to find that of God in ourselves and in each other. Our charge, as ministers of the Spirit, is to help our young people create a sanctuary. What I appreciate more as the years go on, is just how rare and astounding a “safe and trusting spiritual community” truly is for young teens. What we “do”, with the Grace of God, is provide them with an experience in building a spiritually grounded community that they then take with them, and hopefully build on, for years and decades and a lifetime to come.

The Theme

This is the fourth year that we have offered a music retreat in JHYM. Why? Because it really resonates with our junior highers. Music is one of the most powerful mediums for expressing what is almost beyond words. It is one of humanity’s most effective bridges between our reaching hearts and the Holy that we yearn towards. It truly is a powerful and universal language, especially for young teens who feel so much but struggle for the words and the courage to speak them.

Consider all the ways that Sound “sends us” towards the Spirit! Cloistered monks and nuns sing from the Psalter; Buddhists listen for the last moment of a bell’s ringing before the ensuing silence; Gospel trombone choirs wail while listeners are struck by the Spirit and faint; Muslims chant towards the East from wherever they are in the world; Hindi worshippers dance themselves into centered raptures; native people beat drums for healing and for worship….. There is so much sacred music in the world. (And that’s just a quick dusting of human beings – ponder birds, whales, and all other creatures’ responses to the new day and to one another!)

Like Dim Sum, we will spend this retreat weekend sampling from an overwhelmingly rich and varied ‘cart’ of music. Most especially, we will hear each other’s music, and in that giving and receiving, be moved and strengthened. Please bring the music that rocks your soul, dear staffers, and we will see just how much we can share in 42 hours!

Timelines

Arrival: I will be arriving by 5pm, and I would welcome you anytime after that (but it’s not all all necessary). It’s really helpful if several of you can be there by 6:30. A lot of JH’ers arrive before or right at 7 when registration officially starts. Please let me know if you will be arriving later – Buddy, I already know you’ll be late!

Wrap-up: Worship at Westport Meeting is at 10AM. We ask parents to pick-up all JH’ers by 12:30; I aim to have all of my staffers on the road by 1pm – 1:30 at the latest. Again, please let me know if you cannot be with us until then!

SMALL GROUPS

Small Groups will meet 3 times over the course of the weekend: Friday evening, Saturday morning, and Saturday evening. We will be divided into 3 small groups – with 7-9 JH’ers and 2-3 staffers for each group. You’ll be in the same small group for the weekend, hopefully providing an opportunity for community within community. The feedback about our small groups continues to be overwhelmingly positive, which is a huge affirmation to you, dear staffers.

*Suggestions and notes for these small groups are at the end of these staff notes.*

We’ll once again turn JHYM Retreats into a veritable Berkley School of Music. JH’ers will have the opportunity to attend two 45-minute workshops. Staffers who aren’t leading a workshop will be essential in helping with them. If any of you have a strong preference for assisting in one (that you aren’t leading at that time) let me know ASAP and I’ll do my best to accommodate you. And if any of you have a late-breaking idea, you can let me know that, too, and we’ll see if there’s a way to make it work. If no one has another leading, my plan is to offer some sort of singing workshop in the first session – Singing Our Way to Peace, maybe? – if someone is willing to facilitate that.

Tentative Workshop Lineup

Coffeehouse Saturday Night

After our 3^rd small group we’ll hold a Coffee House in the Community House and share music, stories, skits, dance routines and more! I would like to encourage staffers to consider sharing something as well (we usually remain in the background for these things, but I’d like it to be a community-wide event this time, given the theme). This year, I was thinking that we could also hold an Air Guitar competition……

The Quiet Room

For over a year now, JHYM Retreats has had a Quiet Room available throughout the retreat for JH’er who need a break. It’s become a lovely haven – and, no, staffers, you can’t all be people of presence there all weekend J but I do encourage all of us to stop by and help to nurture and preserve the space. The 2^nd floor of the Community House will be the designated Quite Room for this retreat weekend.

“FREE TIME”

Junior Highers want free time, but most of them want it with structure so that they can be in community. This is my mantra: “free time” is not staff free time. All of us on staff need to initiate group games (Apples to Apples, Egyptian War, JYM Ball, Graveyard Tag), inspire craft projects, encourage the creation of new Who’s Who Book pages, and engage stragglers into the mix in any ways we feel led – or the young people themselves lead. With JH’ers, it can be especially important to gently, continually nurture inclusivity. Please consider your gifts and leadings – and go for it!

Staff Assignments, Please

Do know, dear dear Friends, my gratitude and love for each of you. I am really looking forward to our weekend together in community and ministry. Travel safely and be well. I love you.

Small Group Notes

Start by making sure everyone who should be in your group is there! Do whatever you need to do to make the room work better for you – shut doors, fix lights, move stuff, whatever.

Share names (add some other tidbit to it – like, say your name and your favorite dessert, or what animal you’d be, or what music you listened to on the way to the retreat, etc).

Explain that the first goal of small groups at JHYM is to provide a safe community within community. Explain what a check-in is, and that every small group during the retreat will start with a round of them.….Like, how are you? Are you okay being here? Anything we need to know right away? Anything we can help with by listening or adjusting? Take whatever amount of time you need for this.

Then, put your (supplied) oatmeal box full of questions into the middle of the circle. Tell JH’ers that there are a bunch of questions in the box. Each person takes a turn picking a question and then answering it. If they don’t like the first question, they can choose one more, but they have to answer one of those two. (Whichever one they don’t answer, they put back in the box.) Everyone should try and speak for a full minute or so when they answer. Don’t get hung up on the time – just encourage them to talk more about their initial answer if they’re trying to give a 10 word answer and be done with it! There are no right and wrong answers. It’s more just to get them to talk. Everyone who talks gets to pick a kazoo as a reward.

Now, don’t tell them ahead of time that this is the other part of the game: After everyone has answered a question, ask the group if they can remember the most important part of what the first person said. Let the group try and pull their answer together, and then check in with the first speaker and see if it was accurate. Go on to the next person, asking the group to recap, and then checking in with the speaker to see if they were accurate.

At the end of this, do a quick check in on how that felt to everyone…..Are there things that you can agree on in your group that are good to remember to do with each other throughout the weekend? This is also a good time to review the “what gets said here stays here” agreement in our small groups.

Note: For many of us, the kind of music we like is a statement of who we are. This is especially true for young people. What we are trying to do in this small group is ask retreaters to hear beyond the identity, and to try to experience the music as a tool into a deeper place precisely because the chosen music has been that for someone else in our community. Thus, it is essential that each person feel safe and honored to share in a way that is heard via hearts rather than opinions or critique.

Do start with a round of check-ins, not only to see how each one is individually, but to also make sure you don’t have stumbling blocks to take care of before everyone can be in Worship together. Take whatever time you need with this piece.

Then explain the format: Each person (JH’ers and staffers) has about 10 minutes to play their piece of music and to share something about why they chose the selection they did – why it qualifies as their “soul music.” Encourage everyone to be in a centered place for this time – begin with some Silence and use the Silence between for savoring and re-centering. Please allow/encourage some time for reflections and/or questions before going on to the next person’s turn. It may be important to have a gentle but mindful staff-timekeeper so that everyone is assured of time to share. I will provide some clay for the tactile listeners amongst us.

Snacks will be provided for each group to share during this time (you’ll have to come to agreement on the noise/format, etc for this – good Quaker group process)! J

At the end, I would ask that you have a bit of Silence in gratitude for what was shared, affirming the group’s presence one to another. These small groups always run over an hour – often closer to an hour and a half. Take whatever time you need. The schedule is open until lunch prep at 11:45 and lunch at noon!

Prep: CHOOSE 2 or 3 PIECES OF RECORDED MUSIC THAT HELP TO CENTER AND DEEPEN THE CIRCLE. (You are encouraged to use different genres!) WORK THIS OUT WITH THE OTHER STAFFERS IN YOUR SMALL GROUP (SHOULD TAKE SOME OF YOU ABOUT A YEAR TO DISCERN…. I CAN HEAR THE WHINING ALREADY)! J

This is mostly a time to check in with everyone, to share experiences of the day, and to affirm everyone in the group. I trust you to use the time as Way Opens. (For instance, if they really want to play a game and so do you, feel free. If someone really wants to share another piece of music, and you’re open to that, do it……..) Thank you, dear hearts.

After Silence, that which comes nearest to expressing