Reflections from Kody and Greg, the 2011-2012 ELSPers!

Greg's reflection:

I had a great time at the October Middle School Friends gathering, held at the Downingtown Friends Meeting. There were many highlights from the weekend, like:

• Watching the Friends who took Kari Collins' workshop on The Book of Ruth act out the story of Ruth
• Seeing the pumpkins Friends carved
• Dancing in a cow costume with others in costumes on Saturday night
• Learning how to play Frenzy Ram
• Leading a workshop on Improv Games

            The ultimate highlight of the weekend for me was the time I spent with my worship sharing group. Each Friendly Adult Presence (FAP) led a worship sharing group comprised of four or five Friends and the groups met several times throughout the weekend. The worship sharing group gave me a chance to get to know four Middle School Friends better through reflecting on queries about families and ancestors. Within the group we shared both the joys and the hard times we have had with our families.

            With my involvement in the Middle School Friends program, I hope to bring a grounding presence to the gathering, while having a fun and playful attitude at appropriate times. As an Emerging Leader Scholar, I want to help increase Friends' knowledge of Quaker history and help the Middle School Friends find their own identities as Friends. I think these two goals are worthwhile because, in my travels among Friends, I have observed that Friends do not know Quaker history and do not know how to explain what it means to be Quaker.  At the next gathering, I will lead a workshop that will explore the Friends Testimonies through making collages.

            I look forward to working more with Stephen Dotson, Middle School Friends Coordinator, and Matt Sanderson, Stephen's assistant, and the other FAPs. Stephen has set up a wonderful program with meaningful activities. He has a great sense in how to balance fun and serious activities to allow Middle School Friends to learn and grow while strengthening their friendships with their peers and the FAPs. I am glad to be part of this program.

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Kody's reflection:

Report on the October 2011 MSF Retreat

            I arrived early for the October retreat of PYM’s Middle School Friends, in a carload of young adults who would be serving as Friendly Presences for the event. It was my first retreat as an ELSP participant, but I had been to one MSF weekend before. I was late for that one, falling head-on into the momentum of the gathering. This time I watched the kids arrive, watched confident parents and tentative ones trying to help their kids transition, watched a community grow out from our little knot of adults to a swirl of four-square, board games, name-tag decoration, and enthusiastic hugs.

            I was greeted exuberantly by kids who remembered me from the last retreat, and as I set up an art table against one wall and sat down to doodle on a scrap of construction paper, I noticed that the wholehearted greetings were extended over and over as new people arrived. I couldn’t tell, in most cases, who had been in the Middle School Friends program for years and who was new-- people were welcomed. They were made to feel that their presence was important to other people’s experiences.

            The spiritual strength of the Middle School Friends community, as I have seen it so far, is exactly that: these Friends approach their time together as a gift, one that is co-created by each of the participants, and for which every person is crucial. There was silliness, like an extended drama about the paternity of a group of jack-’o-lanterns. There was earnestness, in worship sharing and group discussion. Most of all, there were moments that straddled both: like a list of group guidelines which included things like, “Be respectful,” “Don’t get into other people’s stuff,” and “BE AWESOME,” and a dance party where we all-- adults included-- wrestled through self-consciousness and image-concern to figure out how to play and be authentic with each other.

            In a functional group of warm, welcoming, and community-minded kids, nurtured by competent adult leaders, I wasn’t always clear that I was needed or helpful, but a couple of experiences near the end of the weekend helped me see my role a little more clearly. The first was meeting with the sixth graders for a grade-level check-in on Saturday afternoon, helping to hold a space for their reflections, thoughts, and emerging sense of themselves in the MSF community. They were confident, thoughtful, ready to share their gifts-- and I got to listen, affirm, and give suggestions for how Quaker discernment process could shape and enrich their decision-making. The second experience was on the last night of the gathering. I decided to take some time to worship and sing hymns before going to bed, after the kids were asleep, and I let some of the other FPs know that they would be welcome to join me. Folks were tired, so I wasn’t surprised when I sang alone for twenty minutes or so. I picked out a last hymn to sing before going to sleep-- but as I sang, another FP came quietly into the room and joined in. We chose another hymn, began, and were joined again, until we had a small group singing hymns framed by deep, centered silence. I finally headed for bed that night joyful, peaceful, and reluctant to stop.

            It would be easy to assume that this experience, after lights out for the middle schoolers and without any of them present, was just an auxiliary adult experience, not directly connected to the events or intentions of the Middle School Friends Program. I assumed that myself, until the next morning, when a middle school Friend approached me at breakfast to say she had heard us singing when she called her mother before bed. She said how beautiful it was to hear, how much she appreciated it. This affirmation sparked a slow realization for me: that the quiet embodiment of faith shines. It is beautiful, and that beauty is nourishing and important. When we, the adult presences, took time to drink from the living water ourselves, we were better able to do our work with the middle schoolers. And they noticed-- not just our ability to serve them, but the fact that we prioritized a time of collective prayer.

            What I hope to bring in my continued interaction with the Middle School Friends Program, first and foremost, is my love of God, framed in a deep respect for who each of the participants is and the community they create together. I hope to bring, without reluctance or shame, all of the pieces of how my desire to be faithful to God moves in my life: through ways of being, and work undertaken, and times of worship. There will be times, I imagine, when I have particular information to share or support to give. There will be other times when accompaniment is the only thing required. Not only do I hope and trust that God will help me to offer what is needed-- I also understand that part of my work is letting people see me asking God what my work is, listening carefully, and doing my imperfect best.