JHYM Retreat Staff Notes
The ♥ of Community
September 30 – October 2, 2011 * Portland Friends Meeting
JHYM Retreats provide a safe and trusting community in which
we seek to find that of God in ourselves and in each other. There are so many
developmental, social, and spiritual aspects of life changing between 6th and
9th grade. Giving young people a place to be able to be present to those
lightening speed changes within themselves, and one to another -- while still
having fun – and learning that they can build their own beautiful, loving
community of peers is incredibly rare and powerful. Our charge, as ministers of
the Spirit, is to help our young people create a sanctuary in grace and joy.
WE ARE: Anne Anderson, Carol Baker (our Exalted Food Wizard), Buddy Baker-Smith,
Dave Baxter, Jim Campbell, Adam Kohrman, Dimity Peters (so delighted to have her
back!!), and moi.
JOINING US are about 27 JH’ers (10 girls and 17 boys). While nine are coming to
JHYM for the first time, only 3 have never attended an NEYM retreat.
Timelines
PLEASE NOTE! WE WILL BE PROVIDING A SIMPLE SUPPER FRIDAY EVENING at 7:15. Last
year’s experiment with not providing supper was great on time lines but hardest
on staff – so we’ll try doing this and see how it goes! I do hope we can still
begin our evening program no later than 8:00.
Arrival: I will be arriving at 4:30 with 1 JH’er. Registration is at 7pm.
Please let me know your e.t.a. – anytime between 5 and 7 will be fine!
Wrap-up: Sunday Morning Worship is at 10:30, followed by lunch, cleanup and
goodbyes. If everyone on staff can stay until 1:00, we will all be able to get
on the road before 1:30. If you need to leave earlier than this for any reason,
please let me know.
DIRECTIONS TO Portland Meeting ARE ON OUR WEBSITE.
The address is 1837 Forest Ave, Portland, ME
The Theme: The ♥ of Community
The title of this theme, with its symbol (which I understand has had all sorts
of issues with firewalls, software programs, and emails!) gives honor to how
difficult it is to put words to that which ties us, as Friends, one to another
when we are truly in community. It’s easy to say that the ♥ we are referring to
here isn’t cute, always pink, or for sale, and its infinitely more beautiful,
amazing, and powerful than Hallmark Cards’ version of Valentine’s Day…. It’s
harder to say what it IS – but we know it when we’re in it.
And it’s impossible to predict just where all it will take us….in our life time,
or just on our retreat weekend!
It is at the heart of the joy, power, and grace of our worship, the wellspring
of the mercy and love in our community that gives us room and courage to change,
and our eternal source of hope in that of God in every one. It is what makes our
community different from other groups, clubs and teams that do not have it at
its center.
You might find the accompanying quotes and bits of wisdom on the theme helpful
to consider in the coming days.
We will talk about it some, acknowledging the limitations of speech while
honoring the blessings of sharing in words what we can with each other. As
always, our goal as staff is to nurture the group’s experience of it. I am
gratefully mindful that we lost a particularly grounded group of Friends this
fall – now joyously part of Young Friends – and that we are starting again –
with no certainty on where we end up! Every year is different – I look forward
to where that ♥ takes us this coming year.
SMALL GROUPS
Small Groups will meet 3 times over the course of the weekend. We will be
divided into 3 small groups – with 8-9 JH’ers and 2-3 staffers for each group.
More information and activities for each of the small groups will be in your
staff notebooks, (you might find the collection of quotes and references on the
theme helpful, too).but here is where I think we’ll head.
Friday night: Hellos and check-ins; confidentiality agreement; and then
some get to know you questions to share (in the take-out boxes, of course).
Saturday morning: Check-ins; and then a discussion – using this retreat’s
door prizes! (They’re a surprise.) As always, I trust that you and the Spirit
will take your groups wherever they need to go……However, the questions will
include:
• Can you think of a time when you were in a group (Quaker or not), when you
started out thinking there was no way you could be friends with someone, and
then you came to a different understanding and did become friends with them?
• Has JYM and/or JHYM ever made you feel like a more courageous person?
• Do you ever leave retreats or Meeting for Worship feeling re-charged to live a
“Quaker Life?” (When? How? Why?)
• Does feeling that you have friends who really understand you in JYM and/or
JHYM help you out in the rest of the world? (If so, how?)
• Do you ever say that you have your school friends and your Quaker friends? (If
so, what’s the difference?)
• What words do you use for the Inner Light and/or God? It is hard to talk
about, but what can you say about your experience or understanding of it?
Saturday evening: Check-ins and
Then…………..
Take turns being in the Hot Seat. (I will supply you with the now infamous JHYM
fabric for the ‘seats.’) Each person has the opportunity to be in the Hot Seat
for 3 minutes. (I will have nifty new JHYM egg timers for you!) Everyone else in
the group gets to ask them questions. The person in the Hot Seat can answer or
pass on any questions. It is really important that no one else in the group
comment on their answers – they get to listen and receive them! It is fine to
ask the same questions to different people – they will likely have different
answers. Having a staffer go first is helpful, as is having a timekeeper to keep
things moving. Although this exercise often has a wide-open array of questions,
for this small group I ask that you try and have them revolve around their
relationship to Friends. Sample question, but please make up your own, too!
What is most important, meaningful, or interesting to you about being a Friend?
Are there aspects of Friends that you really don’t identify with? What are they?
If you don’t call yourself a Quaker, what do you feel your connection is to
Friends?
What are your biggest “disconnects” with Friends?
Do you go to a Monthly Meeting?
Do you feel connected or disconnected to people there?
* Close with an affirmation of everyone’s participation and sharing.
Saturday Afternoon WORKSHOPS
Gretchen & Dimity (Carol, you are free to join us if you want/can): Knitting for
the Mother Bear Project
Buddy & Jim: Theater Games
Anne & Dave: A Tromp through the Woods
Adam – can I ask you to be the flexible ‘swing’ guy – depending on where you are
most needed?
“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!
Other info on the rhythm of JHYM Retreats can be found in a separate note
written especially for First-Time Staffers available in your staff notebooks and
on our website.
Staff Assignments
Registrar: Dave
Retreat Nurse: Dimity
Craft Table Elder: Anne & Jim (you two don’t need to hover – just help get it
set up, monitored, etc.)
Name Tag Czar: Adam
Photographer: Buddy
Saturday Night Storyteller: Anne, as Way Opens
Exalted Food Wizard: Carol Baker ♥
Final note
Do know, dear Friends, my gratitude and love for each of you. Get lots of sleep
between now and then.♥
Gretchen Baker-Smith, JHYM Retreat leader
508-997-0940 (h) * hellogretchen@gmail.com * 508-287-6441 (cell)
The ♥ of Community
We love, because <God> first loved us. 1 John 4:19
In true community we will not choose our companions, for our choices are so
often limited by self-serving motives. Instead, our companions will be given to
us by grace. Often they will be persons who will upset our settled view of self
and world. In fact, we might define true community as that place where the
person you least want to live with lives! Parker Palmer
A friend is the person who knows all about you and still loves you. Elbert
Hubbert
The final grounds of holy Fellowship are in God. Lives immersed and drowned in
God are drowned in love, and know one another in Him, and know one another in
love. God is the medium, the matrix, the focus, the solvent. Thomas Kelly
There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each
other. Eric Hoffer
Mind that which is eternal, which gathers your hearts together up to the Lord,
and lets you see that ye are written in one another’s heart. George Fox
We admit that our community life has included pettiness, insensitivity, harsh
judgments, and irresponsibility. We have spoken when we might better have been
silent, and we have been silent when we might better have spoken. We left things
to God when we could have helped, and we have tried to do it all ourselves when
we could have turned to God. We acknowledge that at times even our weaknesses
have been used to God’s purposes. Portland Friends Meeting State of Society
Report, 1999
Community happens as that of God in you responds to that of God in me. And the
affirmation that there is that of God in every person must mean more than “I’m
OK, you’re OK.” Parker Palmer
Keep in mind that our community is not composed of those who are already saints,
but of those who are trying to become saints. Therefore let us be extremely
patient with each other’s faults and failures.
Mother Teresa
I would never belong to a group that would accept someone like me as a member.
Groucho Marx
The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say,
“What are you going through?” Simone Weil
We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution
is love and that love comes with community. Dorothy Day
Our life is love, and peace, and tenderness; and bearing one with another, and
forgiving one another, and not laying accusations one against another; but
praying one for another, and helping one another up with a tender hand. Isaac
Penington
There’s the people you’ve known forever. Who like…know you..in this way, that
other people can’t. Because they’ve seen you change; they’ve let you change. My
So Called Life
Safety in a community gets defined by how the most marginal person in the
community is treated. We all believe that if people could see into our hearts
and know who we really are, we too might be rejected, so we notice how those at
the margins are welcomed. Emily Sander
I will love you no matter what. I will love you if you are stupid, if you slip
and fall on your face, if you do the wrong thing, if you make mistakes, if you
behave like a human being, I will love you no matter what.
Leo Buscaglia
Compassion is a verb. Thich Nhat Hanh
When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce.
You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more
water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with
our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take
care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive
effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and argument. That is my
experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you
understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation
will change.” Thich Nhat Hanh
Gretchen Baker-Smith, 2011