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Some music gives us energy and some gives us peace. Come prepared to experience and share music of all kinds. This will be our 5th annual music fest. Everyone brings one piece of music (live or recorded) that expresses that of God for them and shares it within their small groups. The wide range of music workshops Saturday afternoon and the spectacular coffeehouse Saturday evening make this a retreat not to miss!

(Don’t you just love that word “riffle?” That is what retreats are for me!)

WE ARE: Kara Price Bachand, Carol Baker (as our Exalted Food Wizard), Buddy Baker-Smith, Gretchen Baker-Smith, Will Jennings, Eileen Johnson, Adam Korman, Christy Little, Dimity Peter, and Paula Rossval. I want to especially welcome Christy, Will, and Paula who are new staffers to JHYM Retreats (though Paula has been part of JYM for as long as me, which is a long, long time). Thank you for joining us!

WE MAY YET INCLUDE a couple more staffers (hoping so).

AND AS OF TODAY, WE HAVE 32+ JH’ers, including several first-timers to NEYM’s Youth Retreat programs, registered to join us

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.

Timelines

Arrival: I will be arriving around 4:30pm with one very helpful JH’er. Registration is at 7pm, and the JH’ers arrive en masse at that time. If one or two of you could join me by 6:30, and most of the rest of you by 7:00, we will be in fine shape. (I know Paula may be later than this.) We share a light supper and then aim to start the evening’s program around 8:30/8:45.

Wrap-up: Sunday Morning Worship will be 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.

**IF YOU HAVE A SET OF IPOD SPEAKERS OR ANY PERCUSSION INSTRUMENTS YOU DON’T MIND SHARING, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. **

I am very much looking forward to having our retreat community “back together.” As most of you know, a small number of our JH’ers were not permitted to attend the November retreat due to some breaches of trust and community at the September Retreat. I believe that we have done very good work to this point, and I am deeply grateful to parents, staffers, the Holy Spirit and the JH’ers themselves. The lessons learned will roll on through this retreat year, and I want us to be attentive and mindful of them, especially about what it means to be honest and in community with each other. But I feel we have done a lot of our work, and that this weekend is a time for all of us in the JHYM Community to join hands and truly embody love and gratitude in both the riffles and the pools. ©

Also, as I hope all of you have heard by this time, I have officially expressed my intention to step down as coordinator of JHYM Retreats at the end of this program year. I expect that there will be some tenderness around this within both the JH’ers and myself. As I wrote to parents and staffers, I believe that one of the most powerful gifts we can give the beloved JH’ers in this program is the truth that they themselves, along with all of you on staff (including myself), are the community covered in Grace and fed by the Holy Spirit that is JHYM Retreats. I believe this extraordinary, Light-filled community is truly held in God’s hands.

Our Theme: Riffles and Pools (with apologies to the biologists for my definitions)

Riffles are rocky shoals or sandbars just below the surface of a waterway, or the stretch of choppy water (small rapid) caused by that shoal or sandbar. Riffles are essential to all that live in the water because of the replenishing, life-giving oxygen scooped up in each wave. To some of us, those stretches of water give delight because of their energy and movement. We are exhilarated by the thrill of the ride, the wind in our face, and the challenge to stay upright -- so much so that we may actually have a hard time being in Stillness. To others of us, riffles instill fear (sometimes panic) and bring up strong, instinctual reactions to clutch and hold on tightly, looking and praying only for the next sanctuary of pooled stillness. We struggle with the fact that while calm, picturesque pools are beautiful to behold and vital havens for rest, reflection, and renewal, too much of them become just a lot of stagnant water.

One of the gifts of music is the power it has to cause immediate and profound moments of riffles and pools within our hearts and spirits. Drumming circles, Sufi chanters, the “Alleluia Chorus” of Handel’s Messiah, and even the sight and sound of Meryl Streep dancing down a Greek path to Abba’s music, can bring instantaneous joy and movement to our bodies. Trombone Gospel Choirs in Baptist churches set hearts on fire and initiate slayings by the Spirit – tremendous riffles! But other music can plop us into coves of Still Waters. Tibetan gong sound baths, for instance (like we experienced at last year’s JHYM Music Retreat), re-tune all of our bodies’ cells, bringing us to a place of peace and tranquility, simply by listening.

As a youth minister, I am particularly aware of the potential music has to help young people be more mindfully present to the holy waters their boats are on, to help them both sail into side channels for respite and renewal, and to “ride the currents” through the rapids – gathering joy, grace, wisdom and mercy -- while holding on and praying. We cannot sail their voyages for them, but we can help them find ways to stay upright and in control of the jib sail. That is what the central piece of programming for this retreat -- sharing their personally chosen soul music with each other -- aims to provide. I love that we all share what works for us, and in the process, strengthen our little boats and our mindfulness to our own journeys along the way.

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 or 4 small groups – with 8-12 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.

Info on the Friday and Saturday night small groups will be in your staff notebooks, but I wanted to get the Saturday morning info to you asap, especially to those of you new to the JHYM Music Retreat, so that you have a feel for where we “go” with this retreat. I’ve included those notes at the end of this epistle!

I’m hoping that we will be able to, once again, turn JHYM Retreats into a veritable Berkley School of Music. In the past we have been able to give JH’ers the opportunity to attend two 45-minute workshops on Saturday afternoon. Over the years we have offered a wide variety of workshops, including singing rounds, singing peace songs, writing songs, live improvisation, painting to music, dance, jazz, hip-hop, Bob Dylan, and Stomp. At different times we have had Shape Note Singers, folk singers, songwriters, and a healer using Tibetan gongs come. The workshops are lots of fun and great for deepening our community and joy. I know that Buddy is willing to lead the always hugely popular STOMP workshop again, and that Kara is willing to lead “something,” but that is all I’ve heard. PLEASE BE IN TOUCH WTH ME ABOUT WHAT YOU FEEL LED AND ABLE TO OFFER. Staffers who aren’t leading a workshop are essential in helping with them – so all of you will be involved and appreciated! Do be in touch with me.

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!

Use of Woolman Hill

At this time, my thought is to use the Main House and the Meeting House as the two sleeping areas, and to use the Woodhouse Cabin only if we need it for a small group or workshop space. As always, we will need staffers in every sleeping area – so part of the decision as to what areas we offer will depend on our final staffing numbers. Do know that Margaret Cooley, co-director of Woolman Hill, says it was 2 degrees up on the Hill earlier this week – bring lots of warm clothes!

The Quiet Room

For several years now, JHYM Retreats has had a Quiet Room available throughout the retreat for JH’ers who need a break. It’s become a lovely haven – and, no, staffers, you can’t all be people of presence there all weekend, but I do encourage you to stop by and help to nurture and preserve the space. I think we’ll use “the bunk room that used to have a loft in it”

“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

Free Time Staff Elder: Paula (make sure all of the staff aren’t huddled in the kitchen)

Riffles & Pools

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 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 pick out, 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.

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 JH’ers 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 exactly that for someone else. 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 person 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 8 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 throughout 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. This small group always runs 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!

Start with a quick round of check-ins. Friends may have some things to share about the afternoon workshops, especially…

Who thinks they thrive on doing new things, getting through slightly hard times (maybe a minor crisis) or having really full schedules? Encourage those Friends to sit together.

Who is totally happy with mostly nothing new going on in their life, and who would be perfectly happy paddling around in a very quiet pond for weeks and months on end?

Encourage those Friends to sit together across the circle from the Riffle Lovers (above).

Ask those who are left to place themselves between these two “extremes” and describe a bit about where they are in the spectrum and why.

* Are Friends happy with where they tend to be in life? Or do they wish they were somewhere else?

* For those who want to be more “balanced” – i.e., not either extreme – what would help them stay in the middle? Do they use music, art, sports, sleep, their parents or friends, hobbies, prayer, bubble baths…to help them?

* Do they tend to feel closer to God at either extreme or in the balance in the middle?

* How does feeling confident and good about themselves help them ride the riffles better?

* Are there specific people in their lives whom they admire for how they go through their days? (Riffles and pools?)

As always, dear staffers, if this doesn’t work for you and your group in the moment, I trust that you will do what you need to – from chatting about something else, to playing a game, reading a story, whatever…The goal of our small groups is always to nurture community.