Youth Retreat: St. Michael's Conference for Youth Reunion

I spent the past weekend at a Reunion for the St. Michael's Midwest Conference for Youth.  It was the second such event at which I have helped out and stayed overnight.  This time, I stayed over both Friday night and Saturday night.

I experienced an interesting change in attitude over the weekend.  On the way to the Reunion, which was held at St. Bartholomew's Anglican Church, I was thinking to myself, "What did I do to deserve this?"  On the way home, I was also thinking, "What did I do to deserve that?"   But I meant the opposite thing by it.  On the way, I had in mind the things I would be giving up by going.  Chiefly I was giving up an evening and a full day of working on my oil paintings.  But by the end of the retreat, my attitude had completely reversed.  Now what I meant by the question was:  "Because of what meritorious act on my part did God count me worthy to have spent my weekend in that way?"

If you have never been involved with the St. Michael's Conference(s), it is hard to explain this radical reversal.  But let me attempt it.  The group of kids was very diverse.  There were over 20 teens, geographically and racially diverse.  We had folks from as far north as Ontario, Canada, and as far south as southern Kentucky.  The differences in the accents of their speech did not go unnoticed among the youth at the retreat.  But all the teasing about this was in a very good-natured way.

The "reunion" aspect of this weekend retreat must not be underestimated.  For most if not all of these kids, the week of the St. Michael's Conference in July is the highlight of the entire year, eclipsing even such noteworthy contenders as Christmas and Spring Break.  There is a rich and shared history among these teens from having spent (in most cases) multiple weeks together at the actual Conferences.  And it colors everything they do in a positive way.  Joking comments among the Michaelites seem never to be a cause for offense, because they rest on the presupposition of a mutual and unconditional love, as well as an earnest sense of common purpose.

There was, as with any group this size, a large diversity in physical appearance among the kids, and probably an even larger diversity of personality types.  But they got along better than most similarly sized groups of adults would.  What can explain this?  Is it that they are having so much fun that they don't bother with arguing and wrangling and petty jealousies?  Well, maybe, but not such "fun" as you may have come to expect from a church youth event.  The "fun" involved six hour-long educational sessions, all around a common theme, and multiple worship services throughout the weekend.  Perhaps more than anything else I witnessed throughout the weekend, the single glaring, shining, written-in-large-and-startling-figures lesson for me was:  The church does not have to dumb down worship nor replace it with entertainment to engage today's young people!  (Seeker sensitive churches, take note!)  Beautiful worship (and here I will show my prejudice by saying "beautiful Anglican worship") is more than enough to engage the minds and hearts of these kids in a full and holistic way.

I noted something else about the Michaelites, and that was how quickly they volunteered to do non-fun jobs such as mopping floors, emptying garbage, etc.  It is simply the accepted norm, and I failed to notice any one of them veering from it.  Frankly, it was like two days of heaven, or two days of the world turned upside down:  teenagers acting in a completely civilized manner, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.  There are so many examples.  After Compline each evening, the Great Silence begins, which means that there is to be no talking among those at the retreat.  This was kept without the slightest breach in the boys' "dormitory" where I slept.  Not a single whisper, giggle, word, joke, or sound effect among two rooms full of teenage boys, all night long.  How many of you have ever witnessed such a thing?

It was my privilege to teach (or rather, "moderate") a few of the class sessions.  My favorite part of these sessions was the questions and comments from the Michaelites, which indicated that they had been listening throughout the hour, and were now struggling with how to integrate the imparted knowledge into their daily lives.

I guess the last thing I will mention is that I benefited by (essentially) becoming a Michaelite and folllowing their schedule for the weekend.  It forced me, much against my natural inclination, to be silent, be still, and turn my thoughts to God.  There was nothing "to do" ... so a lot of important work got done in my soul.

I left the retreat full of more hope for the world our children will shape than I have had in a very long time.

Some of the Michaelites

Oksana Grishina

At the intersection of bodybuilding and dance, at the exact point of confluence of form and function, lies NPC and IFBB Fitness Competition.  No one does it more beautifully than Oksana Grishina!  I've seen her perform on stage three times, and each time was in awe of her artistry!  I would love to do a painting of her someday.

The Two Paths (or How My Long Lost Friends Turned Out)

There is a lot you can learn from facebook.  Partly, this is because people will write things on there that they would never say to you in public (or in private, for that matter).  facebook has enabled me to re-connect with many friends, some of whom I had not heard from in over 30 years.  It is interesting to see what has become of them.

Some of them have become successful and even famous.  Some of them seem to be changing the world.  Others appear to have been changed by the world.  Some of them state that they are thrilled to have finally found me again ... then don't post anything on facebook for years in a row.  It is as if they wanted to confirm some suspicion about how I would turn out, and once it was confirmed, they had no need of further contact.

The Great Divide

I do see one great division among my friends, and that is between those who are busy doing things and those whose business is to try to get me to do or believe certain things.  The first group has many subcategories, from those whose lives center around their children, to those trying to create cutting-edge art, to those who seem shell-shocked by the world and seem as if they are just trying to survive it all.

The people in the second group, for the most part, have attached themselves to a cause.  The are activists.  In the saddest of cases (and there are many I can think of) they have become totally lost in the cause, so that the person I thought I knew is no longer visible at all.  They have become flattened out, one-dimensional.

Various causes have been embraced:  socialism, environmentalism, diet supplements, Ron Paul.  But in each case, the person's presence on facebook is only a mask.  You rarely (if ever) get to see behind the mask.  They are not on facebook to interact with me person-to-person; they are their to sell me something:  a product, a theology, a service, a worldview.

Every so often, one of these "hollow men" forgets himself, and posts a status update which shows a piece of his life, in which his old personality shines through, however briefly.  I typically cannot help responding to these, thinking:  "My old friend is back, and in his right mind!"  But I am nearly always fooled.  The scrap of real humanity was just bait.  The reply to my comment usually goes back to the sales pitch:  Try this supplement, Come to this workshop, Watch this brand new Ron Paul video.

Some of the most creative people I've ever known have become no more than propagandists, and uncreative ones at that.  It is a real pity.  We shall end by having no real shared lives, talking to each other merely by posting antagonistic "Shared" quasi-humorous images on each other's facebook walls.

Introspection

Of course, it is a good thing to turn this around and ask myself:  What kind of facebook friend am I to other people?  How often am I just parading my worldview across the width of the status update bar, like some strutting peacock, or like a dog marking his territory?  And how often do I invite real dialogue?  I believe that I have a lot of room for improvement.

Afraid and Ashamed - A Poem for my Wife

This is a small poetic offering to my wife.

Those of you readers who are long-time Anglicans should easily recognize the source and inspiration for this poem.



              Afraid and Ashamed

But, O my love, who all my weakness knows,
And my corruption, how it overflows;
How comes it that you daily send me out,
To meet with temptings manifold and stout?

Whence comes such holy strength and bravery?
(In view of my historic knavery!)
God's Spirit gives continuous assistance,
To make you brave and end all my resistance,
That I may be effectually restrained
From sin, and to my duty be inclined.

I dread your holy judgments, gentle lover,
In case my pondered misdeeds you discover.
But, too, with grateful sense I shall endeavor
To recollect your goodness to me ever.

Feeling thus, I craft this verse to send you,
Both afraid and ashamed to offend you.

© 2012, Paul Erlandson

Okay, okay. So maybe form DOES follow function!

 The beautiful Erin Stern:

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Mocking the Hippies

One of my nephews was kind enough to send me a copy of this DVD, Free Spirits:

It is the story of the Brotherhood of the Spirit, which later became the Renaissance Community.  That story is also told in compelling manner by Daniel A. Brown, here.  Brown was one of the commune members interviewed for the documentary.

Since my nephew had given me the gist of the story over the phone, I had prepared myself for an evening of merriment, laughing and making jokes at the expense of the stupid hippies and their stupid experiment in communal living.  But that is not quite the way it turned out.  Granted, I did Laugh Out Loud at many points, such as the description of "Toilet City", seven toilets arranged in a circle, so that the community members could continue their endless dialogue on the life of pure spirit even when attending to the basest needs of the body.

And there were several other times at which the folly of the community or its leader (Michael Metelica Rapunzel) made the documentary seem more like a Spinal-Tap-style mockumentary.

But I was sobered by the realization that I myself share the personality type of the people who joined this commune and put up with so much from their abusive leader.  My father noticed this trait in my when I was in my early twenties, and though I denied it at the time, I now must conclude that he is right.

How do I describe the combination of traits that makes me a candidate for membership in a hippie commune?  Let my try listing a few:

1.  A dissatisfaction with the world and a concomitant urge to either change it, or build a better one.  This is kind of the core value of that drives not only communal-living hippies, but is also behind the productive industrialists of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.  It can also drive people to become monastics, or revivalist Gospel preachers.

2.  The sense that "regular people" lead boring lives and are "missing out".  This is a close relative of the 1st trait.  It has some validity, in that the lives of most people leave much to be desired.  But it also comes from not studying closely enough the drama of the average human life.  We miss a lot, and assume a lot.  Eventually, we may come to assume that there is an ontological difference between us an the "regular people".  I think that this is incredibly dangerous.  You see it clearly in Free Spirits in the words of one of the children raised at the Commune, in his disdainful words (as an adult) about the closed-mindedness and limited lives of everyone he knows who didn't grow up in the Commune.

3.  The pride of youth.  Time has graciously arranged it so that I can no longer fall prey to this one.  But I remember one LSD-soaked Saturday in Central Park, circa 1979, when I asked my fellow acidhead friend:  "Why is it only we young people who understand, who are wise?"  In retrospect, this is one of the most embarrassing moments of my own personal documentary.  In retrospect, the answer is:  It's NOT, you dunderhead!  Get over yourself!

4.  Failure to appreciate tradition.  Why have traditional institutions grown up?  Why do we have governments?  Why do we have towns?  Why do we have any of the "establishment" institutions.  In general, the answer boils down to:  Long ago, our ancestors tried the "pure spirit" method of the Brotherhood and, thanks to some abusive personality like Michael, various safeguards were put in place.  We wander onto a dangerous path when we ignore what Chesterton called "the democracy of the dead":  Tradition.

5.  Attraction to charismatic personalities.  I have this.  I guess a lot of folks do, given the passion with which people seem to follow celebrities of all varieties, trying to fill their own empty lives with substance from the celebs' lives.  If you read the Daniel A. Brown article, please note the moment in which Michael invites him into the Community.  It puts a powerful spell on him.  Just reading it gave me the shivers, as I realized that I would have felt the same reaction he did.

My possession of theses "cult joiner" traits made me not laugh so hard at the "stupid hippies" as I had intended to, and that is probably a good thing.

I loved the documentary for several reasons.  One reason was that there was a good bit of film footage from the Brotherhood/Community, so the filmmakers did not need to resort to that horrid documentary practice of showing the same exact still photograph 50 times over, but zooming and panning to try to add some life to it.  They don't just tell you about making the silk-screened posters of Michael, they show you!
Then, too, the tone was very balanced.  Those who had left the commune, forced out by Michael's increasingly bad behavior, still had a wistful nostalgia about the Community.  The best and perhaps saddest remembrance appears in the trailer for the film, and is a statement to the effect that none of the attributes that had attracted the woman speaking to Michael at the beginning were present at the end.

Of interest to me also was the rock band that Michael Metelica Rapunzel started with commune members:  Spirit In Flesh.  From the brief snippets of music on the documentary, I had expected a hard and heavy psychedelic sound, perhaps akin to Iron Butterfly.  So, you can imagine my surprise when I heard this track from their album on YouTube, and found it to be almost 10 years behind the times, sounding more like Freddie and the Dreamers or Herman's Hermits than Blue Cheer:



I have to ask myself, had I joined the Brotherhood in its early days, at what point would I have left?  I don't know the answer.  I also ask myself what sorts of brilliant things this community could have achieved had Michael, its founder, been more interested in seeking to encourage to vocations of others, and less interested in pleasuring himself.  God only knows.

Cool, Quiet, and Time to Think.

This article is chock full of gems, and is well worth reading:  The Rise of the New Groupthink, by Susan Cain.

A few quotes from the article:

SOLITUDE is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious place. Most of us now work in teams, in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills above all. Lone geniuses are out. Collaboration is in.

The story of Apple’s origin speaks to the power of collaboration. Mr. Wozniak wouldn’t have been catalyzed by the Altair but for the kindred spirits of Homebrew. And he’d never have started Apple without Mr. Jobs.

But it’s also a story of solo spirit. If you look at how Mr. Wozniak got the work done — the sheer hard work of creating something from nothing — he did it alone. Late at night, all by himself.

“Most inventors and engineers I’ve met are like me ... they live in their heads. They’re almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone .... I’m going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone... Not on a committee. Not on a team.”

I completely agree with this.  I have had internet friends that I have had to "unfriend" because they were brutal and constant in asserting that everything was teamwork, covenantal, and corporate.  That, indeed, there was never and could never be such a thing as an individual act, much less an individual act of brilliance or heroism.

Once, back in the early 1980s, I attend a church retreat.  One of the themes of the retreat was how we are always stronger as part of the Covenant (this was a Reformed Church in America congregation, so we used the C-word a good deal).  I'm fine with that.  I agree with that.  But the way that the outside teacher we'd hired to lead the retreat spun it, it sounded more like:  Decisions of a group are always better than decisions of an individual.  Committees are always wiser than individuals.

And so we played a little game to prove this.  A sort of puzzle was handed out.  We first were required to answer the puzzle (which yielded a score from zero to 30) on an individual basis.  We then formed into six groups of 5 people each, and pooled our answers together, filling out a new sheet with the group answers.

The point of the exercise was to prove that the group is always wiser than the individual.  But I rather ruined that for the retreat facilitator.  Although our group scored 26 of 30 points, the highest of the 6 groups, my individual score had been 29 of 30.  So, not only had a lone individual outscored all the "committees", but joining a committee had made the lone genius stupider.  Still, the retreat facilitator could have saved face, had he not made a crucial mistake:  He asked us to summarize what the exercise had taught us.  I won't relate to you what I told him I had learned, but it wasn't pretty.  I'm pretty sure I ruined his whole weekend.


In case you are wondering about the title of this blog entry, it comes from this fine song: