Youth Epistle, June 23-25, 2023

To all friends everywhere, from the Youth YM of Sierra-Cascades,

Three adult leaders, and 4-6 youth (depending on their availability) met during Sierra-Cascades YM sessions. It was the leaders’ hope that this collection of children will grow into a community, even be the start of a Youth Yearly Meeting.

The icebreaker ended up being tossing around a pink flamingo plush toy, which became a metaphor and common practice. Then we played more organized games, including our favorite called “Fortunately/Unfortunately.”

We compared the story of Elijah & the prophets of Baal to Dungeons & Dragons. We read the story of Elijah and the earthquake, wind, fire, and finally the still, small voice. When we are faced with a situation of uncertainty (when the pink flamingo flies at us out of nowhere and knocks us sideways) we fill in the gaps of our knowledge with a story— so what stories do we draw on to fill those gaps? The Bible is filled with stories from our ancestors, and our Quaker ancestors left us stories; what stories do we tell from our experience?

A field trip to the Chachalu Museum was “fun,” “really cool and informative,” and “overall an emotional experience.” We include here the flyer for their special exhibit on Oregon’s queer Indigenous history:

We learned about the devastating consequences of Quaker Boarding schools here in our state and region, and we are not turning away but instead asking God, “What is our responsibility as we work towards a right and righteous relationship with our Native American neighbors?”

We agreed to meet again for fall quarterly gathering in Eugene next October, hoping to get permission to come on Friday night beforehand for “meeting for worship with attention to Dungeon & Dragons,” and several of us will be the dungeon masters for a game of pacifist characters.

We welcome a response from other Youth Yearly Meetings, since we are just beginning,

Amy, Espen, Isaac, Jotham, Kylan, Zack

Brayden, Joe, Julie