A Guest Piece from ‘Quakerspeak’ C. Reddy.
On April 23 I flew to Oregon to serve on an editorial board for a book that QUIP is putting together of young Friends’ experiences of Quakerism. After arriving in Oregon but before I met with the editorial board for this, I served on a panel with the other young Friends on the editorial board in a QUIP meeting (as we had arrived at the end of a QUIP conference for our meeting) about how media, printed or otherwise, inspired us spiritually. As we related our experiences as young Friends (and growing up as Quakers), a number of issues surfaced rather quickly.
As young Friends move through high school and enter the [young] adult world, there is often a general lack of communication between young Friends and adults in Meetings, as if there’s some tension about it. Personally, as a young Friend in Durham Friends Meeting (NCYM(Cons.)), I’ve found that I know certain adults — ones with whom I have interacted more specifically over the years as I have grown up. Often these are parents of other young Friends in the Meeting or people who have been involved in youth group events. What’s missing is the connection to the rest of the adults in Meeting; I’ve been attending Durham Friends Meeting since I was born (with a period during middle school where I was mostly absent, but for the last few years I’ve been quite regular in attendance) and I feel like most of the meeting has no idea who I am. In addition to that, I’ve not known how to communicate my involvement and dedication in various national Quaker communities, such as being chosen as one of six co-clerks of the HS program at FGC Gathering this summer, my participation in Young Quakes, my attendance at a Pendle Hill Clerking workshop last fall, my involvement in this QUIP book, or how I have been reading many Quaker books over the last few months, all of which have been VERY integral in my spiritual development. Even Friends in Durham Friends Meeting with whom I do converse sometimes after Meeting do not know of all these things with which I am involved.
Also, when I stopped attending First Day school in January of my junior year in high school (a little over a year ago) and began attending the full hour of Worship, I spoke to two youth leaders about it briefly so they would understand, and then there was no further response. Looking back on this, I feel that the Meeting should be more involved in such a transition for all young Friends — not just those adults directly involved in the youth group/First Day school, but everyone should be more aware and attentive of the young Friends in Meeting and their involvement in Quaker communities outside of Meeting.
One thing that each of us felt is very important yet very lacking is mentorship within Meeting for Worship. There need to be adults who are not necessarily First Day school teachers, youth group leaders, or parents who are willing to have a relationship with a young Friend as someone who has had more experience with Quakerism and can nurture a young Friend’s spiritual development. A young Friend who was in Oregon with me related her experiences with a mentor she has at Earlham (she is a second-year there, currently), and how she sees him about once a week; often she even receives books to read from him.
As the only active young Friend at my school (I’m sort of the ‘token’ Quaker around), I usually do not have anyone to talk to about my spiritual findings and leadings. As I have continued to develop spiritually, I find more and more I need other Friends to talk who are familiar with my struggles.
These are issues not only within Durham Friends Meeting, but in Meetings across the country. I recognize that there are efforts to improve youth programs everywhere, but it never hurts to start locally.
As a graduating senior this year, and as an involved Friend, I would like to improve my relationship with the Meeting as a whole and make way for better relationships between members and young Friends in the future. This, however, needs to be fully a double-sided effort.
Claire, thank you for articulating the specifics of your experience so well: the need to be respected as a Friend rather than treated like a child; the hunger for meaningful relationships with a Friend who simply has walked the path a bit farther than ourselves; the power that the simple act of being known by one other person carries.
I am one of those older Friends who is at a loss when it comes to connecting with younger Friends. Picture a party with two or three dozen of your friends and classmates, and I’m the one standing in the corner, looking at her shoes.
Thankfully, the Gathering has been a place for me to improve (or discard) some of my inept social skills, since spiritually rich conversations are practically the norm there, rather than the exception. At the Gathering, anything is possible it seems.
Blessings,
Liz, The Good Raised Up
Just a thought, but one of the problems with finding mentors (at least in my Meeting) who have had more experience is that many of the adult Friends haven’t had 17 years of Quaker experience either.
Have you started to think about how you will mentor younger Friends? What do you think would be useful for middle school Friends? My ulterior motive in asking is that in my Meeting we have a number of young people approaching that age, and they don’t know what to ask for yet, so maybe you could help me and others to be better able to be here for them.
I think the first step in this whole process is healthy dialogue. I know that many young Friends don’t think much about this issue because it’s just been this way ever since they can remember — I didn’t really realize this problem until less than a year ago, eventhough it has affected me for much longer.
I think both young Friends and adult Friends need to overcome whatever it is that prevents dialogue and just start conversations. Young Friends often don’t realize that they can, indeed, have good friends who are adults, probably because their only experience of adults are of those in charge of them. I think adults tend to miss that as young Friends approach the end of high school, many do have an understanding of Quakerism and have seriously and consciously embarked on a spiritual journey.
It is true that a great many Friends are convinced and haven’t been Quaker their whole lives, but just because I have 18 years of identifying as a Quaker, I only just began to understand Quakerism and what it means to me about 4 years ago. Before then my understanding was very limited.
Perhaps many aren’t ready to be mentors, per se, but I’m sure that everyone could use a healthy relationship; young Friends have a lot to learn from adult Friends (convinced or otherwise), and adult Friends have a lot to learn from young Friends.
As for myself mentoring younger Friends, that’s something I hadn’t quite thought about before, but it is a good point. Age divides everywhere need to be bridged and blurred, everyone has something to learn from everyone else.
So, I don’t want to excuse your local Friends from not noticing or knowing more about you.
Here is part of my perspective on mentoring, an example that is relevant for me (if it doesn’t speak to you, either ignore it or tell me and I’ll look for another metaphor): this is like learning to be a parent. For those who grew up with parents who were basically good enough, we sort of muddle through assuming that we will make good enough choices and most of the time we do. But for new parents who very clearly know that they want to be different from their own parents, it takes a lot of reading and observing other people and thinking to figure out how to do it differently.
Many Friends, including me, have come to Friends unhappy with the religious education we received. Some because there was too much pressure and some, like me, because there wasn’t enough. So we don’t really know how to mentor a person into adult religious life, we only know what we don’t want. It’s hard work to figure out what to do. Unlike a newborn, young adults will go away quietly and it’s easier to avoid this work. But that doesn’t mean it’s not important for you or for me. It’s all part of growing into the next stage of life.
One more question or six, what have Friends done right by you? How did you get hooked up with the national groups? How do you get to those meetings? Where are you finding the Quaker books that you are reading?
This may all be more fodder for your blog than Martin’s but he put you here, so here are my questions.
Thanks for helping me sharpen my thinking on this.
Warning: this is a bit long.
Your analogy does make sense, and it seems to fit with my own experiences as well: “it takes a lot of reading and observing other people and thinking to figure out how to do it differently.” It takes a lot of reading and observing, as well as experience, to figure out how to do it in the first place (or rather, how to do it that feels right to me).
I have been thinking about what things would be good in a First Day School program for high schoolers that is currently missing (at least from DFM). I feel like I’ve taken charge of my own religious education, and I now want to incorporate many important things I’ve learned on my own into a First Day school program (in my own meeting, we never learned all the schisms in Quaker history, we didn’t hear much about John Woolman or Lucretia Mott, I didn’t feel like I learned much about Meeting for Worship or much about Quakerism in general, aside from the basics and a little bit about George Fox. We seemed to focus mainly on the various Bible passages (which I don’t think really sunk in with anyone very much), and things were quite disorganized.)
As for your questions, I’ll start with the easier ones:
How did I get hooked up with the national groups? The first national Quaker gathering I ever went to (of any sort) was an FGC organized annual high school gathering called Young Quakes, back in 2001. I almost didn’t go, but at the very last minute one of the youth leaders (now a ‘retired’ youth leader) encouraged me to go, and I went. At that point, I barely distinguished it from any of the other youth events on the local level because I knew very little about it.
Young Quakes in 2001 was a turning point for me — it was the first time I had ever experienced a larger community of Quaker peers; the love and support I found there was beyond anything I’d ever thought to imagine. (I can’t really describe it.) Naturally, I wanted to go to more national gatherings.
The following summer I attended FGC Gathering for the first time as part of the High School program — also an indescribable experience.
I have since Attended YQ and Gathering every year (YQ in 2001 – 2004 (I’ve now outgrown it), and Gathering from 2002, until, well, I’ll be there this summer..).
I attended the Pendle Hill Clerking workshop because traditionally the six co-clerks of the HS program at Gathering go the fall before they clerk, and am involved in the QUIP book of young Friends’ experiences of Quakerism because I was recommended by Michael Gibson who is in charge of organizing Young Quakes, among other things.
How did I get to these gatherings/meetings/events?
My transport and attendance at these gatherings have been paid for by a) parental money, b) an accumulation of my own money from allowance and gift money (Christmas/birthday) held by my dad, or c) the organizer of the event (QUIP paid for my trip to Oregon, FGC paid for the Pendle Hill registration). I’ve mostly flown, but once or twice there was a carpool from Meeting.
There was one Young Quakes gathering that I almost couldn’t pay for. My mom didn’t want to pay because she’d paid for FGC Gathering, and my dad didn’t want to pay, and I didn’t have any gift $ to spend at this point in time. My step-mom offered to pay only if I joined the school swim team that year; this involved getting up for 6:30am practice every weekday for about 2 months. I’m fond of neither getting up early nor swimming, but I did it for two months so that she would pay for it. I also went to my Meeting for a little bit of financial help as the plane tickets ended up being a little higher than my step-mom thought they would be, and I received a decent sum from the Meeting which solved this problem.
Where am I finding the Quaker books that I’m reading?
The first Quaker book I read (aside from Lighting Candles in the Dark which I read when I was much younger and actually happens to be sitting on my bedside table right now anyway) was The Amazing Fact of Quaker Worship (George H. Gorman). I picked it up at FGC Gathering from the Gathering Bookstore a couple years ago, but never got around to reading it. I don’t think I was quite ready to read it. Then, after the Clerking workshop last November, I picked it up and devoured it – I discovered the world of Quaker books.
Before I thought about reading Quaker books, I would often go to a gathering of some sort and find a great deal of spiritual nourishment and return home feeling very focused and spiritual. Then, after a few days, this would go away and I’d return to my mundane and stressful life without much thought about Quakerism between First days. Last November I did not want this to happen again, and I found that reading a Quaker book kept me focused on my spirituality in a way that I wasn’t before.
After I finished The Amazing Fact of Quaker Worship, I searched Amazon.com (as I had online gift money to spend there) and looked up some Quaker books that caught my attention. I may have also searched google and some other online Quaker places for ideas (I’m pretty sure I came across the FGC Bookstore site). Then I ordered a couple and read them, too (including Let Your Life Speak, Parker J. Palmer and An Encounter with Silence, John Punshon). I also received The Quakers in America (Thomas Hamm) as a gift, and recently at the QUIP conference received A Certain Kind of Perfection (Margery Post Abbott) from Marge herself.
Currently, my mom has told me that my graduation present (as I graduate in three weeks) will be $200 worth of Quaker books (and I now must go about choosing which books to spend this on, and though I have a ton of books in mind, am open for suggestions).
Unfortunately, many young Friends don’t have the same kind of resources I do for books and gathering trips. I am the only young Friend (that I’m aware of, and I’m aware of many young Friends) who has attended four Young Quakes gatherings in a row. It’s quite a feat, especially while going to FGC Gathering each year. Also, not everyone has gets amazon.com gift money or graduation presents to cover the cost of books. I am very lucky in many financial respects. Many young Friends would need financial help to do as much.
How have Friends done right by me?
In first looking at this question, I don’t really have an idea of what to say. In thinking about it, I have a lot. All the Friends who have organized these national gatherings – Young Quakes, FGC Gathering (especially the HS program) – have most certainly impacted my life greatly! All those Friends actively involved with high school programs everywhere, trying to do what’s best (even if they haven’t figured it out yet), looking for help, those Friends involved in the youth program at my own Meeting for trying to revamp things and make them better, looking for input; these Friends are doing right by being involved!
It’s not that I’ve been wronged by anyone in particular for something specific. I see that there are many adults trying very hard to improve religious education for young Friends and get more young Friends involved. I see that there are adult Friends listening and trying to help, and it’s time (and it has been time) to reach out to the adult Friends who are not already involved. This process includes ALL Friends. Also, I hope to learn from my own experience as a young Friend how to help adults come up with better ways to teach First Day School or ways to improve youth programs so that future generations will have a very different experience than I.
I apologize, for it seems I’ve written a book trying to answer your questions; I hope this has been helpful– I’m glad we have a bit of a dialogue going here.
Maybe I should think longer before commenting, then I could put it all in one post. But I was thinking more about the lack of mentoring. it’s not just avoiding hard work, it’s not wanting to do it wrong — not wanting to offend, not wanting to be laughed at, not wanting to be thought condescending or pushy, it’s not feeling ready, as one in authority, even among 60-something people. It’s that some older folks still wish that they had a mentor.
I understand. Perhaps in many cases the word ‘mentor’ itself brings too many connotations.
I think if one sets out to consciously mentor someone, that’s where they run into trouble. If you start out consciously thinking about it as ‘mentor’, then you run into all the expectations you have of someone who is a mentor, like trying to do it the ‘right’ way, trying not to be offensive, etc.
It starts out with a friendship. I think some people probably aren’t in a position to mentor certain other people, and that’s ok — forcing it will just make things worse. Even so, having a friendship with another (such as a young Friend) can help both people involved, whether one is more like a mentor or not.
I think a ‘mentor’ is someone who enters this friendship and after establishing that friendship, s/he finds that s/he has more experience than the other, and then finds ways to nurture and nourish the younger or less experienced spirit. Either way, in friendship, both spirits can be nourished, regardless if one is a ‘mentor’ or not.
For instance, perhaps I don’t feel that I have enough experience to mentor a younger high school Friend. I can still enter into a friendship (Friendship?) with him/her. If I discover that I’ve read a lot of books that s/he hasn’t, I can suggest them or lend them out, and we can both engage in conversation about spirituality and our findings. Both of us can learn from the other’s experience. Perhaps in the end I’d come out as a mentor figure, perhaps not. The same can happen with adults and young Friends in general.
Putting all of this together, I’m suggesting that the first step is to seek friendships; young Friends should seek friendship in adults, and adults should seek friendship in young Friends — both must engage in this process. We’re all on a spiritual journey, and we all have a lot to learn from each other.
Friendships… My newest effort is making friends with the middle school aged Friends at Quarterly Meeting. Technically I’m in charge of the program this weekend. Practically, I know I’m not really in charge of them, or I couldn’t be if they didn’t want me to be. For one thing, they’re all taller than me! So I hope we’re going to start by becoming better friends. It’s more like clerking, I guess. I get to set the agenda (I’m still looking for content on the theme of the interconnectedness of life), but I don’t get to control the discussion.
And then, maybe, just maybe, these young people will be my Friends for the next fifty years.
[Am I entirely off topic? Like a Friend of mine says, it doesn’t really matter what the worship sharing query (or blog topic) is, people will still talk about how the Spirit is moving in their lives.]
Further off-topic report back: Middle school program was awesome, as we would have said when I was in 7th grade. Fun, deep, spiritual and physical, for me and them! Just in case anyone wondered.
I’m glad that it went well. It’s ok to be joyously off topic!