Friends and Clerking: FGConnections, Spring 2004
Youth Quake: Broadening my Quaker Horizons
By Casey Kashnig
FGC encourages the participation of young Friends on our governing body. Young Friends attending the 2001 Central Committee sessions included (from left to right): Rebecca Haines-Rosenberg, Seth Barch,Gabriel Gosselin, Kri Anderson, Catherine Bell Wetteroth and Eric Snare.
Twenty plus hours in the car over the Christmas break was completely worth it because it got me to Youth Quake 2003. I traveled with two other Illinois Yearly Meeting Friends, who had both been to Youth Quake in 2000. They told me to expect some intense interactions with programmed Friends. I knew that coming to Youth Quake meant that I would need to be especially open and respectful to others with different beliefs. With almost no exposure to programmed Quakers I was eager to learn. Upon arrival I saw plenty of familiar faces from the Annual FGC Gathering and other Quaker gatherings. My cohorts and I briefly associated with others, registered, received our bibles, and went to our rooms to unpack.
The basic structure of the week reminded me of the Gathering’s high school program structure, but with a few changes. Initially, I saw what looked to be a lot of worship. It was scheduled twice a day, but then I figured both branches would have chances to lead worship. Every worship began with singing a half dozen songs, or so, and ended with an adult leader telling a story which had a lesson to be learned, most of them were bible influenced. At first I was excited about the thought of all this singing, I had always loved singing selections from Rise Up Singing at various Quaker events, but then something seemed to go wrong, “The George Fox Song” was sung to a different tune, a verse was left out, and another one was changed! I thought, “What tragedy!” and then things got even fishier; I was no longer recognizing songs, and they sounded like Christian songs, I was not used to this.
Instead of a workshop we had bible study. We were taught a lesson and then in family groups (a small group with about eight youth and two adults that were meant, as much as possible, to have equal representation of programmed and unprogrammed Friends) we reflected on the lesson. Family groups also met in the evening, each time the scheduled activities were more personal. I liked family groups much more than meeting in the large group of almost 200 people; in family groups I felt we discussed ideas and beliefs rather than being told ideas and beliefs.
Yearly meeting (YM) groups were similar to family groups but likely to have only one type of Friends. My yearly meeting group was composed of four smaller YMs that were, for the most part, all unprogrammed Friends. Part of the first YM group time we did a little ranting about the singing, being told “You are going to Hell” [because you do not accept Jesus as your savior] and the (more) conservative views of the programmed Friends. During the week we became more centered and voiced our joys and concerns in a more civil manner. The YM group was a safe place to talk about problems we experienced at Youth Quake.
Youth Quake was a very emotional place to be, and being an unprogrammed Friend, I felt like a minority. Unprogrammed Friends that I have talked to also remember that programmed Friends were the larger group. The main reason I felt like a minority is that as an unprogrammed Quaker I try to respect all others’ religious beliefs, while even some of the nicest programmed Friends said, “I wish someday you will be able to accept Christ as your savior, because I want to see you in Heaven.”
As one of the oldest of the unprogrammed youth, I felt that I did not get the same shabby treatment as some of the younger unprogrammed Friends did. A good friend of mine told me he felt attacked in his family group by other youth and the programmed leader. Later in the week his leader did apologize about the way he treated unprogrammed Friends. Also, there were numerous times that I comforted other unprogrammed Friends who were greatly upset by programmed youth. At times I just wanted to stand up and yell, “I came here to learn about your ways, not to be saved and converted!”
At Youth Quake, I wanted to learn about the programmed branch, but I also wanted to be able to teach about my experiences as an unprogrammed Quaker. I did have a few very good conversations with a few programmed Friends. Near the end of the week, at least with programmed Friends I got to know (especially in my family group), I felt that they began to open up and truly hear my point of view, rather than just listening to come up with a rebuttal. After what seemed like a failed attempt at unprogrammed worship a decision was made to have a facing bench. I was selected by my YM group to sit on the facing bench during unprogrammed worship. At the start of the next unprogrammed worship a Friend gave a brief description of what was expected, and we had much better worship. The third and final unprogrammed worship was even better than the second. I do not remember many specific meetings for worships but I will remember that one forever. Youth Quake was a great learning experience, and despite and because of the difficult times, I learned a lot, and I am better person for attending it.
