JHYM Retreat Staff Notes
Creativity and Prayer
JHYM Retreats * November 3-5, 2006 * Hartford Meeting
Dearest Fellow Staffers and Artisans,
We are a small but mighty crew: Marion Athearn, Jerry Carson, Sara Hubner, Wendyl Ross, Scotty (Harry) Scott, Scott Sprague, and me. In addition, Kara Price will be joining us just for Saturday afternoon, which is a most wonderful thing. She is swamped in school, but she offered to come for 3 hours, and I didn’t even say, “Are you SURE????” I just signed her up!
At this point, I have 23 JH’ers registered for the retreat. I am going to “close it” at 25 max, given our staffing numbers, which I think will be okay. For those of you who weren’t with us in September, (it was a grand and glorious retreat), all indications point to this being a pretty extraordinary JHYM year. Awesome JH’ers!
The website blurb on this retreat’s theme says: Artistic creation is a powerful way of centering and being in holy imagination – in fact, some people say it is where the Holy Spirit resides. This will be an experiential time, using sculpey as the main art medium, to explore being centered in prayer and body in a way that I believe is as important as eating and sleeping for all of us. In between, we will have the usual games, silliness, music, and community play time that is just as essential!
This retreat takes all of you on my favorite river into the Living Waters, especially when I’m in ministry with young people. As most of you know, a lot of what I do with children and teens uses some sort of art form as a medium and as an avenue for getting us to that of God. The annual Sculpey Retreat in JYM has been one of my main experimenting labs. What I’ve come to firmly believe is human beings need to be creative. Teens especially need to hear over and over again the affirmation that this is important and worthy work and play – not for the quality of the results, but for the process, the river, that it puts them into simply by being human.
A number of years ago, Kevin Lee lent me a book called Teaching and the Religious Imagination by Maria Harris (Harper, 1987) that rattled my heart and soul. It was tremendously exciting to read the essence of my gut instincts to doing youth ministry work in well-respected, beautiful print. Encountering Maria was almost like finding a sister I didn’t know I had! The essence of her writings was that anything and everything is capable of being flooded with the presence of the divinity and that, therefore, cultivating openness to the unexpected, to what is beyond our imagination, to continuing revelation, involves nurturing imagination. It has been my experience, all of my life, that the joys and insights that come from stories, music, art and theater – whether creating or experiencing the performance of it – are akin to moments of holiness. At my most desperate moments, prayer may be nothing short of pleading demands to God. But at its best, there is at least an element, if not preponderance, of mystical reaching towards communion with God, that takes me into indescribable places of buoyancy, light, and energy. That, I believe, is the same river of imagination onto which creating art and music take me.
So, here is my disclaimer! I am always mindful that early Friends, who felt that all forms of art were merely distractions to God, would not at all approve of this retreat theme, or of my specifically nurturing it in our young people. It is not something you’ll find in our Faith & Practice. This is something that works for me, in addition to Unprogrammed Worship, Worship Sharing, and all other forms of Friends Process and Testimonies. Clay, music, and bread-baking are not my God – but they do get me there. And my experience in sharing this with others is that it is something that truly helps others “get there,” too. And for that, I remain awestruck and thankful.
Timelines
Arrival: I will be arriving between 4:30 and 5pm with Marion and Anneke, and I would welcome you anytime after that! JH’ers tend to arrive en masse right at 7pm, if not a little before (unless they’re all stuck on the freeway in downtown Hartford). Given how few we are, it’d be helpful to know your estimated arrival time. Dear Sara Hubner is picking up the entire crew from Maine, so we will rejoice whenever she arrives!! Thanks!
Wrap-up: Worship is at 10AM, followed by lunch and cleanup. I hope to have us out completely by 1:00. Again, given our size, I’m going to need all of you to help clean up – though we usually get a few local Hartford Friends chipping in, too, after lunch (and I’ll invite them all again!). DO let me know if you’ll need to leave early.
Program Details
Small Groups will meet 3 times over the course of the weekend: Friday evening, Saturday morning, and Saturday evening. You will find suggestions for discussion topics as well as games/activities in your staff notebooks when you arrive on Friday night. We will be divided into only 3 small groups – with 8 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!
Friday Evening’s Program:
After some Opening Worship, we’ll do the usual names, program overview and theme introductions. I’m hopeful that this group will jump into the kind of sharing that unfolded so quickly and beautifully at the September Retreat. After some time in small groups, we’ll come back together for a raucous round of paper bag skits – surely a creative medium, though I admit not always “centered” -- followed by dessert, free time and sleep oh sleep.
Saturday Morning Opening worship and witnessing by 2 or 3 amongst us. (Sara Hubner and Becky Sprague have both agreed to share, and I am pursuing one more.)
Saturday Morning Small Group: What’s Prayer?
After doing check-ins, I’m hoping you’ll be able to open a centered discussion about prayer. What is it, really? What do Friends say it is – and say it’s not!? Do we really know what someone means when they say “holding in the Light?” This could degenerate into a critique of all of the contradictions and difficulties Friends have with the word “prayer,” but I’d rather you didn’t dwell there! Instead, head towards everyone in your group sharing what prayer is to them personally. How do we pray – or do we? Why? Do specific words work for some of us some of the time? Is it a feeling? Is it different from meditation or worship?
I’ll have some quotes and cartoons for you to consider sharing with your group, including Mary Oliver’s Summer Day (yep, that same poem again!) with the line, “I’m not sure exactly what a prayer is/but I do know how to pay attention…….”
If there is any prep work for you to do between now and the weekend, this small group topic is probably where you’ll want to pray into, dear Friends! I’m not as interested in being theologically accurate as I am in you being honest and willing to truly be there with them in the questions and searching. I trust you will – otherwise you wouldn’t be my beloved staffers.
The Sculpey Program:
After a short break and quick snack, we will move into our guided meditation clay project the second half of the morning. Some of you have been with us for the annual sculpey retreats in JYM, so you’ll have some idea of where this is going. I am really excited that, because of the size of the group, we will all be able to experience this at the same time. I will start with some basic information about using sculpey, and then invite everyone into a more centered place of quiet. From there, we will move to tables to begin working with the clay. I am hopeful that this will be a meditative time; you will all be instrumental in helping to ground the group. Sculpey is a particularly accessible and satisfying art form – it’s hard to make something truly ugly! Fueled by imaginations, unique perspectives and plain old silliness, it’s truly amazing what can come forth. I am hopeful that JH’ers will find words to name their pieces, as we have been doing in JYM, thereby stretching the meaning of their work for themselves as much as for us.
We’ll bake the pieces throughout the day and then share them with each other during our closing circle Saturday night.
It will require some significant set-up work, so be prepared to jump in! I will do absolutely as much as possible ahead of time.
Saturday Afternoon Workshop Choices: More Creativity! More Mediums!
This retreat, we’ll return to our “afternoon choice” workshop format. I envision smaller groups (especially the baking crew), which should promote wonderful energy and sharing. We’ll have 1-2 staffers in each group. Hopefully we can accommodate everyone’s first and/or second choice. Please let me know which ones you would feel most comfortable AND fulfilled being in! I especially want to accommodate YOU.
Sculpey: For those who want to continue in this medium!
Painting: I will bring bold paints, big paper and lots of brushes and painting shirts.
I don’t remember the last time we used more than watercolors in a JYM or JHYM Retreat. Could be really fun!
Singing: Rounds, especially, but other centering, group-building music, too.
Baking: If Wendyl’s able…..is Bread possible somehow or cut cookies?
***I’m open to offering one more! If you have an idea and/or leading please be in touch!
Saturday Evening Small Group:
After check ins, I am hoping that you will have tender and honest conversations about what it requires and generally “causes” to be a creative JH’er in our culture.
Last retreat we had a phenomenal conversation about our culture’s different perceptions and “rules” around clothing for males and females. (Scotty’s T-Shirt story became JHYM folklore – if you missed it, you’ll have to ask him about it!.) One of the things we ended up agreeing on is that it’s unfair, but really true, that girls and women have a lot more to deal with than boys and men in that area of life. My bias, which I admit to upfront, is that the reverse is true around both creativity (and prayer). It is much easier for teen girls to be tender, thoughtful, creative and at all public about prayer, too, than it is for teen boys.
My hunch is that you will hardly have to work at all for this conversation to take off – the hard part will be keeping it on track. I’ve drawn up a few additional questions, though, should you want some suggestions.
* Are there art forms that are more acceptable than others for each gender? (ie, compare spray paint graffiti and classical ballet; tattooing and poetry writing; horticulture and Japanese cartooning…..)
* How are creative people treated in your schools and towns?
* How are gentle, thoughtful people treated?
* How are prayerful people treated? (what might it even mean to be prayerful??? Does it help to use the word “centered?”)
* How about within JHYM Retreats? Are some of these biases/prejudices evident here?
* Are you someone whose creativity is a big part of who you are – and is that an “issue” or a benefit based on your gender?
* Are there art forms that you have never considered for yourself because of our cultures’ perceptions of them, especially because of your gender? (be honest)
Any rate…..you get the idea. I am looking forward to where the groups go with this. I’d like us to be able to huddle up and share a bit as a staff after closing circle. If your group has major insights, things we should be holding up for each other in our community, I invite you to bring those prayers to our Closing Circle and voice them aloud.
Saturday Evening Closing Circle:
We’ll come back together to share all of our creations of the day – sculpey, prayers, paintings, music, whatever – in a spirit of worship sharing. At this writing, I have 7th grader Leah Selker lined up to play some guitar music for us as we settle into worship – pieces that put her in a place of quiet, creative joy and centeredness. We’ll end with some worship that affirms the Spirit, and the religious imagination, in all of us.
JHYM Retreats’ Party Line on Free Time:
Junior Higher’s want free time, but most of them want it with structure so that they can be in community! “Free time” is not staff “free time.” In order to nurture the group, all of us on staff need to initiate group games (Apples to Apples, Egyptian War, other card games, soccer or JYM Ball), inspire craft projects, encourage the creation of new Who’s Who Book pages (it’s a new year, so everyone can make a new one), and engage stragglers into the mix in any ways we feel led – or the young people themselves lead! Spontaneous conversations are a great way to get JH’ers to discover where the similarities and connections are between them and others in our community. A LOT OF THIS RETREAT’S PROGRAM TIME IS CENTERED AND FOCUSED – THEY ARE GOING TO NEED TIME AND ROOM TO ROMP AND MOVE. PLEASE HELP TO OVER SEE THIS – ESPECIALLY OUTSIDE IF POSSIBLE -- DURING FREE TIME.
Staff Assignments, Please!
Registrar: Gretchen (just for old time’s sake!)
Retreat Nurse: Scotty (had to give Jerry a break from the breaks!)
Name Tag Czar: Sara
Who’s Who Book Elder: Marion
Group Game Elder: Jerry
Outside Presence Organizer: Scott (make sure we all take turns being outside)
Supreme Kitchen Goddess: Wendyl (with buckets of thanks, dear one)
Final note:
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. Feel free to bring whatever most inspires you creatively and share it with the group. And be in touch as you feel led in the coming week. Travel safely and be well.
With love,
Gretchen Baker-Smith
JHYM Retreat leader
508-997-0940 (home) * Gretchen@jymretreats.org * 508-287-6441 (cell)