Paul DeCelles gave this report at the December, 2001, Teaching Review Seminar about what happened at the second High Country Adventure, which was for high-school-aged youth in the community. It was held in the summer of 2001. Paul described, in detail, the evening sessions and the rationale behind them. His comments are followed by a substantial Q&A session.
Transcript
This document is a direct transcript of an audio recording, and may contain transcription errors and other minor edits for the sake of clarity.
PAUL: Okay. So Iâwhat I will talk about here is not the whole High Country Adventure, which was a very, very complex and beautifully organized effort, nor the hikes, nor the accommodations, or the food, or anything of that sort. I want to talk about what happened at the High Country Adventure evening sessions and the conclusions that weâveâthat we can draw. However, I want to make clear to you that this isâthese results that weâll be talking about eventually, these opinions weâve formed, are not based on High Country Adventure. They take into account what we learned there, but High Country Adventure, as I said, was just a culmination of our investigation. It was not the heart of it.
So the staff, as I said, did an outstanding job planning all the various aspects of the daytime activities and coordinating all the logistical details. I think if weâwe have talked about the possibility of doing something like a High Country Adventure every two years or so, but that was before weâwas that right, not right? But weâveâand weâve taken steps to secure a place where we could do that, but that was before we completed this investigation. And it may be that we will not do the High Country Adventure. Or at least, if we were to do one, it might well be not that kind of High C-, not such a big effort involving 300 kids, etc. and so many counselors.
We learned a lot, I think, from just trying to manage that many kids in that kind of a situation. But one of the things weâve learned might be, I donât know, that we donât wanna do that again. [Paul and crowd laugh.] So many of the people who worked so hard on these things are really gluttons for punishment, and they would be willing to do it again, Iâm sure. Butâso weâllâbut thatâs part of what we have up for grabs in this time of discussion about what weâre gonna do with the kids. Will we do a High Country Adventure? Will we do a different type? Or exactly what are we trying to accomplish in all these things? Okay.
Let meâIâm working off my notes here. The hikes were especially good this year, and from almost all of the reports, as I said, they were a great success. Some of the kids complained that the white water rafting was too timid. Some of them said it was too hard. And, at any rate, it was a good break in the action.
The High Country Adventure administrative staff planned the Saturday evening session. People flew in on Saturday, mostâsome people came even earlier than that and wereâtheir families were vacationing in the area, etc. But theyâso, Saturday evening, most of the kids were pretty groggy, getting accustomed to the altitude, which is, you know, about a mile high there where they landed. It was a little higher than that where we were camping.
So the idea was to have a simple party, a time for them to renew acquaintances and to mix it up a bit. And that evening wasâwe were not trying to accomplish anything specific, and as I say, the administration of the whole High Country ran that evening.
But during theâduring that session we described what was going to happen at theâon the rest of the evening sessions. So Mary Frances Sparrow, who works with me, and who did with the girls what I was doing with the boys, with, you know, changing all the things that need to be changed there to make that a parallel. But her role with the girls was similar to mine with the boys, and each of us then, that Saturday night, spoke toâshe spoke to the girls in their meeting and I spoke to the boys briefly, about ten minutes or something like that, about what was going to happen.
During the rest of the evening sessions, the boys and the girls actually said very similar things about their lives, but the boys and girls said the things they had to say in a very different way, in a different manner. So the evening sessions, consequently, were slightly different from each other, taking itâI mean simplyâpartly [due to] the difference between boys and girls.
On Sunday evening, the boys watched the video that weâd put together. We studied all the videosâwe had studied all the videos the boys had made, and we tried to capture the heart of what weâd seen in the short clips that had been sent in.
[Inaudible question, probably about the nature of the videos] Okay, thanks.
Theâabout a couple months before the High Country Adventure we started asking kids to take video camerasâwe had picked kids that we thought would do a good job of this, and some of them did do a real good job of itâbut to just take the cameras wherever they go and take clips, or take footage of whatâhow they are living their life, what their life is like. Just a snapshot. Actually, you couldâve used just a camera, but the video was pretty nice.
So the stuff that showed up on the videosâwe got about 40 of these videotapes in from all kinds of different people. The stuff that was on there wasâthis was not high quality stuff in most cases. It was just, you know, itâs likeâwhat do you call it?âa home movie that youâre just taking. And it wasâin some cases it was the kids just cutting up and just being themselves and just living life, etc. And thatâs really what we wanted. We just wanted to have something as a starting off point, not as a statement but aâsome kind of a picture that when you look at it you can say, âOh yeah, you know, gee, are your parties like that too?â There wasâin NOVA, for instance, there was a lot of clip, a lot of footage on two parties, I guess. I donât know if they were two separate ones or just two different cameras at the same party, but . . . .
So that wouldâyou know, just having the party on video with everybody looking at it would enable us to say, âDo you guys have parties too?â or âWhat are your parties like?â or âDo you have a lot of parties?â or âWhat do you do at your parties?â or âWhy do you have parties?â or âWhat do you think about âem?â and stuff like that. So the idea was to just put someâitâs like a collage. Just paste some stuff on the wall and they canâit had the advantage of them being the actors, so that wasâwe knew that that was gonna be a success. Because everybody, all of them mug for the camera. All the kids loved being on the camera on those videos.
So we thought, âWell, they would enjoy it because theyâd see themselves. Theyâd see their life. Theyâd be proud of whatâs going on and happy, etc. etc.â And Iâso what we tried to do was to put together something that wouldâgave the widest possible spectrum of whatâs going on. Whatâs actuallyâwhat are the kids doing? Whatâs actually taking place?
Now we realize that they did notâthe people who were taking the pictures did not approach it with as much thought and care and scrutiny that [sic: âasâ] we who were putting the final, our video together were approaching it with. We spentâthere were ten of us on a planning team for this, and we spent hours and hours and hours looking at the tapes and putting it together and patching it together and coming up with a good video tape. But the purpose of the video tape was not for us to make a statement. It was rather to give them a voice and a picture. And I think weâit really worked. Is that enough [of an explanation]?
Some of the video tapes, well at least one in particular (and there were maybe more, I canât remember now) that were sent in actually hadâwere really heavy on ideology. Like, the guy that put, or the people who put some of these tapes together really knew what they were doing, and they wanted to make a statement. And they wanted to makeâand so, those came in freighted up with all kinds of, you know, âThis is what we think about the world and everything else.â So itâs pretty intriguing. But those were the least interesting, actually, because we were not interested in what they thought was happening. What we really wanted was for them to reflectâactually, ultimately reflect on what was actually happening, so that they could say, âThis is our world.â
Now, okay. So weâI guess the tapes wereâwell I donât wanna repeat myself here. Butâso, on Sunday evening, the boys watched the video that we had compiled. We studied all the videos the boys had made and, as I said, we tried to capture the heart of what weâd seen in the short clips. And we produced an hour long video out of many hours of footage. The boys really enjoyed watching the video. It was certainly a highlight of the evening sessions.
After the video we hadâthis was Sunday nightâwe had a very lively and very fun party. We had decided to increase the budget for food for the party, for snacks, by 50%, at least that wasâand I think we actually doubled it. And the idea was that, really, it was like, if the kids were there and they hated everything that was going on but they liked the food that would be great. You know. So we were simply trying to cover the baseâand we thought, âWell, actually, youâve got to at leastâI mean, who could not like the food?â So that was our fallback position.
Theyâwe alsoâletâs seeâwe had many games, board games, in places. We had live music. We had a jam session. This is all Sunday night. It was a good old time in the room. It was packed out, full of excitement, and people couldâI think everybody was having a good time.
But during this evening party, we had three teams. And each ofâthree teams for the boys and three teams for the girls that went around the room interviewing, in this case, interviewing the boys. And three teams interviewing the girls. During the interviewsâthese interviews were conducted with cameras. So the idea was youâre on camera again. And then we had theseâthe guys asking would ask questions: âSo is that what your life is like?â Or, âCould you tell us more about what your life is like?â or â. . . what life in the community is?â or â. . . what you think about the People of Praise?â âWhat do you think about school?â âWhat do you think about . . .â Just, you know, whatever. Just any kind of question that would be an occasion to get the kids to say what they were thinking and to reflect on their life. âThis,â like, âthis is the stuff in my life.â âI work too hard.â âI work day and night.â âI have too many jobs.â âI have . . .â Whatever it might be, just speak it out andââWell, where do you work?â âWhat kind of work do you do?â âWell, Iâve only . . . you know, I work at McDonaldâs.â That was a big deal. I forget where that came up. I canât remember. Maybe some of you here remember that, but there was aâone kid did work at McDonaldâs, and he was ashamed to say where he had worked. And he called it some other kind of very fancy name and somebody said, âHe means McDonaldâs.â And it was [Paul chuckles]âbut which was too bad that he had felt so bad about doing it. But anyway. . .
So theyâas I say, they, during the interviews they asked individual boys questions about what their life was like. So again, the questions were not strategic in the sense of trying to guide them to certain answers. The questions were bland enough and provoking enough that they would cause the kids to say something about what their life was like. It was a methodâthe idea was to just say, âSo this is what your life is?â eventually to them, as a result of what theyâve said.
On Monday, then all dayâactually we started Sunday night. The team worked Sunday night and then all day Monday to put together another video. Now, youâve gotta understand. The videos are not important. They wereâthe videos have to do with just getting the kids to say stuff and having something in front of them they could reflect on and say, âNo, thatâs not at all the way our life is. Our lifeâthat was, that kid was just joking.â Or, âNo, it doesnâtâthatâs not it. This isâand this. . .â âWell what is it?â âWell this is it.â And then they would say what it is, etc.
So this video, then, was distilled out of the interview footage. And on Monday night, after seeing the interview footage, we also decided to run a separate evening session for the 9th grade boys. Weâbecause the footage that we got Sunday night was, some of it, was pretty raw and abrasive and would be shockingâcouldâve been shocking to 9th grade boys. So we decided to cull them out.
So on Monday night, on Monday evening, I began the older boysâ session by showing the interview video, which was only about a 20 minute or 15â20 minute video. And I opened a discussion by asking whether the two videos that they had seen presented an accurate picture of the boysâ life. And the boys were very outspoken. This is Monday night. Everyone wanted to speak, and nearly everyone said what they wanted to say, I believe. Some did not. Iâll come back to that another time. Many points were repeated frequently, and sometimes obnoxiously, which was very aggravating for some of the boys in the room who were not accustomed to this kind of talk. Most of the ill-mannered boys were from South Bend and Servant Branch. Thatâs just a footnote.
I wasâthatâs just a question of manners, and [having] manners goes a long way, but let me say that being ill-mannered isâthat did not bother me at all. I wasnât there toâI mean, there was not a question ofâmanners was not the issue. The issue was the substance of whatâs going on with your life and can you get itâyou know. If you have to beâif you have to use rough language to choke out what your life is like, itâs okay with me. I didnât advertise that, by the way. I didnât invite that. But, I mean, thatâsâbut the fact was, âSpeak it out!,â you know?
It was interesting. On Tuesday, we worked to capture on paperânow this is the team again. We worked, actually we worked the rest of Monday night and Tuesday. Usually we got to bed about 2 or 3 oâclock in the morning, and then we worked, weâd get up and work during the day. So on Tuesday we worked to capture on paper what the boys had said in their original videos. So now itâs a matter of distilling out of what they have actually said and that weâve been able to capture. And we looked at it again, we went through it and we culled out themes, that this is what their life is looking like. This is what they have said their life is.
So we put down about 39 themeâthings that we thought the boys were saying, and we put these on large sheets of paper. So on Tuesday evening I posted these 39 themes in the boysâ meeting room. Actually, I had them written out and then I read them and one of ourâone of the members of the team, who wrote very well on big sheets of paper, wrote out the themes, and then, as they were being written out, he would put them on theâas they were finished he hung âem on the wall so that theâand they stayed up for the rest of the time so the kids could see them and study them.
So I posted these, and I went over them one by one and I asked the boys, âIs this what you were saying? Is this what you wanted to say? Is this your statement? I mean, is this a fact? Is thatâdo you all agree on that?â etc. And âDoes this describe your life pretty well?â Those are theâyou know, those are the only questions I was asking. I would ask them and change the words and order and say them in French and Greek and whatever. [Paul laughs.] Well, not Greek. But anyway, it was just basically, âIs this your life? Have we got an accurate picture of what youâis this what you said?â
Together, all the boys then (this is now Tuesday night) refined the themes, and they threw out about ten of them. Now this was actuallyâTuesday night was a splendidâMonday night was, a lot of kids were really discombobulated by Monday night. Sunday night was a picnic, although a lot of the boys really wanted to go be with the girls. That was a problem, but that wasâyou get past that. Monday night was tough. Tuesday night the kids were, whatever they might have told you, they were all very engaged in the process and they were very animated, contradicting each other happily. I mean, well. It went well. I mean, well not exactly happily, but itâthey certainly, I mean, they were enthusiastically participating. And they all did. Some did not speak public-, I mean, they didnât take the microphone or stand up and speak, but they were sure talking with one another. And they were all very much a part of what was happening. And there was plenty of time for people to speak out, you know, take the floor. A great deal of time.
So theâweâof the 39 themes, I said, âWell, letâs see. How are we gonna work our way through this? How are we gonna get some kind of an agreement? I mean, can we agree that any of these things pretty well describes our situation, your situation?â And so I started by saying, âI bet there are some, that however true they might be for some, they probably donât go very far. They donât have legs, so to speak. So maybe we could throw out some of them, âcause 39 is too many to work with.â So we were able to throw out about ten of âem.
Iâd say Tuesday night was very productive. I also told the boys that night that they were free. And I want to come backâweâll talk about that Iâm sure here. And that they could do what they wanted to if they were willing to pay the price. So, letâs see, Tuesday night we got to theâTuesday night was a turning point in what was happening. They did say, they had been saying and they did recognize what their picture was, what their life is.
And most of them, as most ofâmost people most of the time will say, âYeah, thatâs because so and so did it to me. This is happening to me because Iâm being, you knowâIâm in this situation. Iâm a victim of this situation, etc.â And consequently, especially the kids, but itâs also true of all theâof most adults, you know, donât think that they can do anything to change their situation. So they really are like slaves, if youâll pardonâI mean, thatâs a bit of a stretch. But they donât think that they can make a difference. They donât think that they matter. They donât have a role to play. They donât understand that, in fact, they are deciding. Theyâre deciding to go along with whatâs going on, at least. I mean, there are options. They may be very unpleasant options. I mean, they may have veryâconsequences that are personally unpleasant. But nonetheless, you know, so you take those options intoâthose consequences into account when you make a decision. Say, âWell Iâm not gonna decide that because itâll lead to this, etc.â But thatâs a free choice.
So Tuesday night was the moment at whichâletâs see, I should back up a bit. On theâmy role in this was not to tell them anything that I thought about anything. I did on theâon Monday night I said one sentence at the endâof what I thought, at the end of the Monday night session. But it was literally one, at most two sentences. And then Tuesday night I made one comment too about theâI said, âCan I address you as Christians?â And theâthat, actually, I think that was the Lord. I didnâtâthey didnât take it the way I meant it. What I was saying was, âYou gotta understand that I know that some of youââ I didnât say this. This was in my mind: âI know that there is a good fraction of people here, actually a pretty good-sized fraction, who really do hate God. And youâI donât want you to think that you have been tricked into being in a God situation, but I want us to sayâto pray. I donât want to have a prayer meeting, I justââ I didnât say any of this, okay? This is what Iâm thinking. So I said, âCan I address you as Christians?â And it was quite remarkable.
One of the fellows, one of the counselors who was in the back of the room was watching this, and he saidâhe came up later. It was George McManmon and he said, âYou shouldâve seen them.â He said, âDid you see what happened?â And I said, âI didnât notice. I was preoccupied with what I was doing.â And he said, âEverybodyâs heads just wentâphoomâlike this [making a motion?], and the room went dead, absolutely silent. It was quite a moment.â What they understood me as saying is, âAre you or are you not a Christian?â And all I meant was, âCan Iâdo you mind if I talk to youâcan I say something Christian in this situation?â So I said, âCan I address you as Christians?â And I think that actually it was quite aâyou gotta understand, sometimes less is a lot more. And I had talked so little that when I said that, it had a huge impact and probably was a real turning point for a lot of kids in the room. And it was the Lord, because it wasnât what Iâit wasnât even what I intended to achieve. But not that Iâanywayâletâs not get into that.
[Inaudible question] Yes?
[Inaudible question] There wereâyes, Iâll come to that. The girls were doing similar things. What took place with the boys was they were very aggressive and upfront and belligerent, initially, and then they got into it. The girlsâthey generated only 11 themes, and they came up in a different way, actually, but they were veryâit was obviously, I mean, weâre talking the same people here, right? But they really are different in the way they said things.
So theyâMonday night, for the girls, was wonderful. They had just a great time. Monday night for the boys was very hard on them, especially on some of the boys. It was a rough nightâaggressive, etc. The girls were just buoyant, joyful, delighted, having a great time, participating. And it was interesting because at the team meeting Mary Frances came in and I said something like, âThereâs been kind of a rough-and-tumble session among the boys.â And I might have indicated that it was, you know, a littleânot a lot of fun. Butâand she was actually obnoxious, obnoxiously happy. [Laughter.] âGee, it just went great with us.â [More laughter.] âWhatâd you do wrong?,â I said. [Paul and all laugh.] So anyway. So it wasâbut then what happened, then Tuesday night when we got to the team meeting, she was flat as a pancake because the girls hadâthen they got serious and their seriousness took kind of a nasty turn. Well the boysâ [session] was kind of aâthe boysâ was ill-mannered but it wasnât all together nasty.
But, letâs see. You gotta understand. Nasty, ill-mannered, I donâtâit doesnât matter. That was not what wasâthe issue was âWhatâs going on here?â I mean, âWhatâs your life like?â It was not a questionânobodyâs getting graded. Nobodyâs being approved or disapproved or anything else. We just wanna see what you understand your life to be. And do you recognize it, then?
Okay, well anywayâso the girls did come up with 11 themes, and let meâweâll go on from there, okay? [Paul clears his throat.]
Now theâoh, so also Tuesday night, I started to say, both the boys and girls heard not a long speech at all. It was more like ringing a bell and saying, âHey. You could change the situation youâre in. You can do something about it. And weâre talking to you. Is that the way you want life to be for you? Is that the life you want? And what doâso what are you gonna do about it?â Okay? So itâs a very, very big deal.
I took probably in, with the boys perhaps, I would say ten minutes at most to explain this. But again, that wasâit was a long time, perhaps, but it had the feeling of being pretty compact, I think. And theyâagain, it had the impact of some, you know, of something like hitting a nail that could pierce rather than, you know, hitting them with a sledgehammer thatâd just shake âem up. So, I think that it really didâa lot of the kids got out of the High Country Adventure the mantra, âIâm free.â And theyâre running around with that, a lot of the kids, and that ainât all bad. If weâbut we need to come back to that. We need to help. âSo, of course youâre free. But there are consequences to your decision. Can I help you make better choices?â etc.
Okay, soâbut that wasââWe are freeâ was a ten-minute, at most a ten-minute observation in this situation. It wasnât like the wholeâwe were not spending a lot of time talking to them about them being free. Okay. And we did say that theyâd have to be willing to pay the price for their freedom. If you want to know more about thatâthat was a very interesting momentâIâll be glad to talk more about it if you have any questions about it.
So the Wednesday evening session had two parts. During the first part, I gave each boy a sheet of paper with the 29 themes on it, and heâIâm sorry. I instructed the boys to rate the statements on a scale of 1 to 10 with a number. Number 1 indicating strong disagreement and number 10 indicating strong agreement withâlike, âThat is reallyâI do agree. That is exactlyâthatâs my situation. Thatâs our situation.â
Butâand this wasâthe next thing was very important. And you might think that they didnât get it, but I guarantee you they did understand it. I know everybody in the room understood it. We talked about it a long time, and it becameâa lot of them didnât want to do this. And I said, âNo you donât understand. You must do what Iâm saying here. Youâve gotta do this.â That is to say, they needed to understand that they were not voting as individuals. They were filling them out individually. For example, a boy could strongly disagree with a statement and still give it a 10, if he thought that the group as a whole strongly agreed with this.
So during this evening session the boys also filled out the High Country Adventure evaluation forms, and I then spoke to them for about 15 to 20 minutes at the end of all that. And I spoke about one issue that the boys brought up quite a lot. And their issueâin their words, the issue was, âThe community forces my parents to make me go to community meetings.â I also pointed out that there were some âPetersâ in the group, and this was another nail. It had a very sharp point and it deeply affected quite a few of the kids there. TheseâI said that there are someâthat some of you have been âPeterâ in this session, in this High Country Adventure, who denied Christ. And some of you need to do some serious repenting.
And I saidâI had framed thatâI explained what I was saying also. I said, âYouâre not Judas, so donât go hang yourself.â That, in fact, inâyou gottaâwe had tons of conversation, tons of information, all the videos before, during and after, all the conversations, and honestly, in all those conversations among the boys, the word âGodâ was mentioned I think three times. Now thatâsâI mean this wasâyou gotta understand, on Tuesday nightâMonday night was tough and it wasâthey thought there was some kind of controversy between them and me. There wasnât. There was no controversy, but itâs okay that they thought that. They were just going on and they gotâactually, some of them got kind of ticked off because I wouldnât enter the controversy that they wanted to have. I just kept turning it back and saying, âSo what do you think, you know? Is that your life, et cetera?â
Tuesday nightâby Tuesday night they hadâIâd become invisible to them, it was clear. Theyâit was as though theyâd forgotten I was in the room, and they didnât recognize any of the 25 adult counselors who were in the room also, who spoke not at all the whole time, except for one who gave a 3-minute talk on the firstâon Tuesday night I guess it was. No, Monday night. He wanted to say something. I had asked the counselors not to talk andâbut he really wanted to talk. Soâitâs a free country, so I said, âSure.â I donât know that that had any good effect, but I think it probably helped him. He wanted to say something, so . . . .
The point of all that is that it was quite remarkable that they were no longer reacting, or interacting with me. They were interacting with each other, and it was a veryâI mean, it was, this wasâthings had really cooked. It was a very interesting assembly.
So, letâs seeâthey reallyâletâs seeâyou have toâyouâre gonna have to take my word for it. There is some skill involved with doing this, and Iâve done it a lot, and I know how to do what I was doing. And Iâm telling you, it worked. That they actually did tell usâthey discovered themselves what their life looks like. They were not led to it. They, you knowâthere were no leading questions, nothing of that sort. The questions were only stimulating. âSo, what do you think? Is that the way it is?â And you can do that if you work at it, and you can get by with it if you talk long enough.
Okay, but my point was that I know that there were some people in the room who really wanted to talk about their life in Christ, and that Christ meant something to them. And they did not, not at all. Well, there was one boy who did, and he spoke very easily and in a manner that it wasâthat nobody paid any attention to him. It was very interesting. Nobody picked up on anything that he had to say. But for him it was just a statement about his life, his personal life. And it wasnât preachy or evangelistic or anything. It was justâGod was in what he was talking about. He wants to do Godâs will. Thatâs what his life is like. He wants to go to college. Heâs gonna do this. Heâs gonna do that. He was trying to find out whether God wanted him to do this or God wanted him to do that. IâmâI took that God isâthere wereâGod was mentioned more than once there in what he was saying, but he wasâthat was one of the three God remarks. Okay?
So, but there were certainly some there who it was clear did notâdid not, had not said what they wanted to say about life, their life or the life as they thought it oughta be or what they wouldâwhatever, having to do with their faith in Christ. And they really did. They were scared. Thatâs my impression. Now you could say the reason they didnât do it was because they were afraid, but what I said was the reason Peter did what he did was because he didnât love Jesus enough. It was not just cowardice, but itâs, whatâs behind this? Thatâs why Jesus said when he came back to Peter after the resurrection, he said, âPeter, do you love me?â three times. So thatâso I thought that they neededâsome of them, some of the guys in the room, some of the good Christian boys had just wimped out, and they really needed to take stock of that. That this was not a time for you to wimp out. I didnât say that, but thatâs clearly what was going on whenâletâs see. You shouldâthis is a time you should haveâthis was a day you shouldâve raised your flag, you know, and you didnât do it. And thatâs really serious. You cannot go through life like that.
So, I also said that that certainly does not apply to everybody, because there were some people in the room who do not believe in Christ and who donât want anything to do with God, who are mad at God, and they were not Peter. They didnât deny Christ. Are you with me? They didnât goâthey didnât do anything wrong in that regard, so I wasnât talking to them. I made that clear.
Okay, well, for the second part of the evening the boys moved to a different location for a wrap-up session which the girls also attended. And at this wrap-up session I pointed out that this was the first time the community had spoken directly to the youth in the way that we had. I also spoke more about freedom, but very briefly. And what I did was I used Galatians 5 and 6 and pointed out simply that, donât use your freedom as an excuse for license, because some of the things that you can do, you can freely choose, will lead to death: covetousness, drunkenness, lust, envy, etc. So, it was, again, it wasâwe didnât repeat much, you know, but I donât think we needed to. They certainly seemed to hear everything that was being said.
I spoke a little bit, well as I said, about freedom, especially Galatians 5:13. I urged themâthis was now in the context of âdonâtââI was speaking urgent-, I was trying to influence them. Causeâas far asâmy job was over, that, the job of getting the picture, getting them to see their own picture, was finished. And now I wanted to address the issue of, donât misuse your freedom.
Then I invited anyone who wanted to, to stay for a prayer meeting. Actually I said something like, âSome of us want to pray and thank God for being here and for all thatâs happened, and we just want to worship God. If you want to stay, youâre welcome. If you donât want to stay, please leave quickly.â So most of the kids stayed, along with all the counselors and the staff. And as far as we can tell, about 40 to 60 kids chose to leave, which is about 10% or so, 15%. We prayed together for about an hour and ten minutes, and I thought it was a really good prayer meeting. It was a. . . .
The girlsâ sessions that we planned also began with a video. Letâs see, do you want me to go through all the girlsâ stuff? Weâre going to run out ofâokay, let me do this a little quicker; itâll. . .
Theâwe planned also, began with a video put together from the many hours of footage. Sunday evening we showed the video, and the girls enjoyed it. After that video, there was a lively party and musicâwith music and various activities and snacks. The musicâthe sound, apparently, was a little too loud that evening, unfortunately. It was hard for people to hear each other.
During the party, there were three teams that tried to interview individuals, and many of the girls that were interviewed wereâthat night, this is Sunday nightâthe girls were very circumspect. Very different from the boys; the boys were showing off in front of the camera, and the girls, who had been very open on the videos that they had submitted, but on the videos that we took in the room they were very cautious, and didnâtâa few did speak about some real concerns, but they spoke about them in very cryptic ways.
For example, two girls described some of their worries about their friends. They described how they worried about their friendsâ health, their brains, their livers, etc. That is, they were saying they were worried about some of their friends who drink too much and who are on drugs.
Another girl described her familyâs dinner conversations. She said they never talked about anything important, and said she was satisfied with that. At the same time, she managed to communicate through her body language and the tone of voice that she wasnât at all happy with what was happening at home, but she wasâshe wasnât willing to talk about it.
It turns out that most of the girls interviewed wereâthat did accept the interviewâwere underclassmen. Although eventually the older girls spoke their minds, at this particular session they declined to be interviewed or they simply avoided the camera. And this reluctance to speak didnât surprise any of themâany of the team.
On Monday, we viewed the footage and made a decision. And we decided to run a separate evening session for the upperclassmen. In this case we divided the twoânot just the freshmen nor sophomores off, butâso we had just seniors andâjuniors and seniors from the preceding year. Are you with me? Andâtogether with the freshman and sophomoreâI mean, separate from the freshman and sophomore.
Okay. And we did the same sort of thing about âWhatâs your life like?â Mary Frances [Sparrow] asked the girls, âWhat is. . .â This is, she explained what we were doing, then she said, âSo, whatâs your life like? Is it like what you saw in the video or is it different from that?â
And the first girl to respond said, âWhy should we trust you? We donât know you. Weâre not going to spill our guts to someone we donât know.â Which is interesting. And she was explaining why the older girls declined to be interviewed the night before. And she wouldnâtâshe wasnât saying that they didnât trust Mary Frances because she represented the community or because she was an adultâthatâs our take on it. The girlâthe girls were saying they didnât trust Mary Frances because she was a stranger.
After several girls agreed with her, and one girl suggested that they give Mary Frances a chance, another girl said, âAnd you donât trust us with boys.â
That broke the dam, and the girls began clamoring to be heard. [Paul chuckles, some laughter.] A very fruitful session followed, and many of the girls spoke about a wide variety of topics: boys, community meetings, youth ministry, relationships with adults in the community, trust, and on and on and on.
Letâs see, I think we should take a break. Youâve been sitting here patiently a long time. Iâm sorry, I didnât think it was going to take this long to get through this. But, how time flies when youâre having fun!
[Interruption in the recording.]
. . . Let me alsoâthis is way off the track, but itâs in the general areaâI wanted to advise you that there were, in fact, for the men, there were 25, roughly 25, adult counselors in the room all the time, as I indicated before. They were not speaking nor participating, because we werenât asking them what their world was like. And they filled out aâan evaluation form for the High Country Adventure, each one independently, individually. It wasnât part of our night sessions; it was somethingâjust an evaluation of the High Country Adventure. It was a veryâthat was very rich. Phil [Monaco] went through all the menâs and Nano [Farabaugh] the womenâs reports, etc. And they compiled a report forâyou know, each of them having their view of what happened.
And so we gotâso those reports came to me eventually, and they included, therefore, 25 anonymous, independent-of-the-programâI mean, my programâreports by the adults who were in the room. And they were universally positive. Every adult who was in the room wasâthought it was good. And most of themâI forget the numbersâthought it was very good, and quite a few of them said it was the best thing theyâve ever seen. They had no idea. And they were recommending that we do what we did with the kids with the wholeâwith their whole branch, or with their area, or whatâvarious things like that.
And so, if one of you wants to do that with your branch, donât involve me! [All laugh.]
[Inaudible comment from crowd.] Yes?
[Inaudible question.]
They thought that the whole process works really well, and that the kids got out what they wanted to say. That wasâthat we really did get an honest, clear picture. Kids were frank, candid and notâI mean, sometimes, you know, the kids, some kids, were goaded into saying things they didnât want to say or wouldnât say on a calmer day. At any rate, they thought that it was very valuable, and that theâthey gotâthey themselves got a real picture of what the kids were saying their world is like. And they thought that the kids had gotten that picture themselves, which is what we were trying to do.
It wasnâtâwe were not trying to inves- âthis was not an investigation of the kids. I donât know if thatâs very clear yet. We did not go there to investigate the kids. We went there to have the kids say whatâto themselves, What is your world like? And then to say: So what are you going to do about it?
Andâokay. So thatâsâthere was no hidden agenda, interestingly enough.
So, now, onward. On Tuesday, as I said, we worked to get down on paper what the girls said the night before. On Tuesday evening, Mary Frances repeated back to the girls what they had said the night before. And they began to discuss the first point, which was something like, âThe community doesnât trust us.â That was one of theâshe had said, âThis is the point. This is whatââ she articulated that, and theyâso that started the discussion.
At this point in the process, we expected a different conversation. And for the first half of the evening it was a veryâin fact, it was a very difficult conversation. After a very long and tortuous discussion, which many of the girls found very frustrating, we ended up rewording the statement. Mary Frances changed it to read, âTrust is important to us.â
She then asked the girls to vote on whether or not this accurately represented what they wanted to say. And when theyâwhen asked to raise their hands, none of the girls did. They didnât want to vote. It turns out that they were saying something very important about themselves.
At this point, they took a break and some of the really negative girls left. And after the break Mary Frances told them to forget everything theyâd been talking about and just answer one question. The question was, âWhat do you want?â
The atmosphere in the room changed. It became very still. And, one by one, the girls spoke honestly and from the heart. And Mary Frances wrote down on a large flip chart each of the things that they said they wanted, which we have here.
So, this was a moment ofâit was a very different way of getting to this point for the boys than the girls. This was a real breakthrough for the girls.
So, on Wednesday evening we gave the girls a short survey, asking the girls to agree or disagree with some of the things they said in the evening sessions and on the videos. Unlike the boys, they simply gave their own personal opinions about what was said. The girls alsoâI mean, they wereâthatâsâMary Frances didnât instruct them to make it a comment about the group. The girls also filled out High Country evaluations, like the counselors were filling out in another place.
Mary Frances spoke to the girls for about 10 minutes, and she repeated the story of Joseph, as it is told in the Authority and Obedience talks. And she told the girls that she thought they could accomplish a lot together in spite of the limits in their lives, or the lack of a driverâs license, or curfews. Before joining the boys for the wrap-up session, the girls and the counselors spent some time sharing hiking highlights.
By the end of the High Country Adventure evening sessions, the kids had described their life. They spoke through the many hours of footage they filmed. They spoke at the evening sessions, and in the surveys. And from our point of view it was a big success. The kids said what they wanted to say, we heard what they were saying, and we learned a lot. The counselors also thought it was a success. As I said, their anonymous comments ranged from positive to rave reviews. Thatâs for the girls and theâfor the boys as well as for the girls.
Okay, so, letâs talk. Comments? Questions? Observations?
Sam?
SAM CLAASSEN: [Inaudible.]
PAUL: Oh, Iâmâthatâs veryâletâs see, we should run this around. Yeah, oh, thank you! Thanks. So we can get the questions on tape, we need to use the mic. If you donât want your question taped, just turn it off, okay?
SAM: Paul, would you tell us what happened with the ninth-grade boys? I donât think youâve addressed that yet.
PAUL: No, I havenât. Thank you. Actually, Joelâwhereâs Joel?âwas responsible for that, and they did not participate in what we were doing. But they didâtheyâI mean, they got a lot ofâyou got a lot of information from them, but it was in a different route altogether. Do you want to comment about that? Just give a thumbnail sketch of the sessions, maybe five minutes?
JOEL KIBLER: When we met with the ninth-grade boys, we met over three nights. The first night, we had a party together, based on the idea of âhave lots of foodâ for that age. And then, that night also, we had a short prayer meeting, about a half-an-hour long. We thought that a number of the boys would be open to that. Not everybody was.
And then, the second night, we had something like a town hall forum. And I asked the boys, howâs their life going? What do you want to say about your life? And that led to about, oh, about a half-an-hour conversation, similar to what Paul described, but not as intense, that he had with the older boys, in which they talked about all the things that they had concerns about in their life. A lot about the People of Praise, and community, and youth ministry, and parents, and community meetings, and so forth.
And in that conversation Iâd say about three-quarters of the boys spoke. Of those three-quarters, there were a few who were . . . Iâll use the same expression, âill-mannered.â But most were not. And it got to be very repetitive after a while, and they recognized it. And we ended up and had another party.
And then the third night, we didnât do a whole lot. We broke into small groups. Their counselors that were with those ninth-grade boys were together with us in the room, and they met in small groups and talked about their experience in High Country, filled out the evaluation forms, and then we went over and joined the large session with the boys and girls at the end of their respectively different sessions. Thatâs what we did.
[Pause.]
PAUL: Jim?
JIM GANTHER: Paul, you said that the boys came up with 29 salient points that describe their life in community. Will you be sharing what those were?
PAUL: Yes, I can do that. I donât have them with me right here. Theâthereâsâwhy donât we come back to that and see if we want to do it later?
The next thing I want to do is to tell you, in light of everything thatâs gone on and, I mean, all the study weâve done, this is what we think the situation is. This is what weâve learned.
And so, I would likeâIâd rather do that. But I could give you the 29 theses, with all the, you know, the voting and all that, and the correlations. There are lots of correlations we mapped, etc., if youâd want to look at that.
But letâs look atâletâsâlet me get through what weâve learned first, and then if you want to know more aboutâthat would just be the raw data we got from the High Country Adventure. That wouldnât include everything else. Okay?
MANâS VOICE: Paul, you told us that when it came time to asking the youth to, you might say, vote or to weight the various statements in terms of, you know, I know you said you pointedly wanted them to answer them in terms of what they thought âthe groupâ felt. Could you explain why you asked them to rank them that way as opposed to maybeânot only doing that, but also asking them how personally they would feel those statements reflected their own personal life as another set of data to maybe validate whether it was something like a false impression that they might have collectively because of outspoken youths that, you know, were more vocal than theâkind of the silent minorityâ
PAUL: Mm-hmm.
MANâS VOICE: âor the silent majority, for that matter, who might have been fearful or timid about really saying what was in their heart or what they thought personally was their life? [Pause.]
Iâm just curious about what, you know, what your thinking was on why you would have themâ
PAUL: Oh.
MANâS VOICE: . . . so clearly direct them that it ought to be what you think âthe groupâ is saying, not what âyouâ think.
PAUL: Now, whatâthe issue is: do you think, you personally think, that this statement describes your group?
MANâS VOICE: Yes, or the entire assembly, am I correct, orâ?
PAUL: Thatâs correct.
MANâS VOICE: Okay.
PAUL: And thatâs what they were askedâtheir personal opinion. âIs that an accurate description of our life together,â or âthis life,â or âthe life that the kids are livingâ? And that was what we were looking for, was a picture ofânot whereâI wasnât interested in knowing how many were devoted Christians or anyâthat sort of stuff. The issue was, what is your life like? How do you spend your time? How is the timeâhow do you guys spend your time? What are you doing with your time, with your money, with your energies, with yourâyou know, itâs, âWhat are your concerns?â That sort ofâ
And so, we got thatâthatâs the picture we were looking for. And thatâs the picture we got. Theâthere were all kinds ofâas I said in the beginning, there were individual variations in this. Whenever you ask a group a question of this sort, youâre not looking at individuals now. Youâre getting an individual estimation of whether you got the picture right: âIs that what weâve been saying?â
Let me come back to it later. There wasâ
MANâS VOICE: Okay.
PAUL: There was a very interestingâwell, this might be a good place to say it. Letâs see. It was this. Itâs in theâin our conclusions, in a big way, that a lot of what was going on with theâboth the boys and the girls, wasâthis was quite surprising: it was a real rejection of âgroupiness.â They really did not identify, they did not want to be identified, with this group. And, âDonât put me in this group. Donât think of me in this group. This group is not my group. I donât like this. I donât like what the people in this group are saying, and theyâre not speaking for me.â
Okay? Etc. That is to sayâso youâwhatâsomething that surfaced in this is, then, that this is indeed the way our group life is, and I donât like any part of it. In fact, there is noâthere was a real alienation from themselves that was surfaced. Which, Iâll come backâitâll beâweâll say this again later.
But it wasâwhat was really clear was that they identified wholeheartedly with almâwith the girls, it was 100%, said that, âFriends are everything.â And the boys, 87% said that. And Iâand they would have all said theyâIâm sure they would have said, âFriends are very important,â that would have been 100%. Butâso some of the boysâanyway, it was reallyâSo how do you put these two things together?
And itâs fascinating, because itâs clear: friendsâthat means two or maybe one, two or probably three, something like that, no more than thatâpeople rely on me, and I make a difference to them, and they make a difference to me. That is to say, Iâm going to beâif they donât show up, Iâll be standing in the parking lot at midnight because they didnât come by to pick me up like they said they would, and I count on them for that.
That isâso, the concept of friendship gets fleshed out of this thing. Theyâre notâitâsâwhen we think of kids saying, âOh, theseâsheâs my friend,â or âHeâs my friend,â we think of it as something emotional, friendship. And it isnât that, actually. Whatâsâwhatâreally, what surfaced in this situation was that this is the only intermediate association, if you use Nisbetâs language.1 This is the only group which they belong to, and to which they make a difference, where they matter. They donât matter to their families; they donât matter to the group as a whole; they donât matter to the school; they donât matter to society, but they do mat- âthey do make a difference with these two or three friends.
That was very illuminating. And that caâso thatâs the sort of thing thatâwe didnât know that. Thatâwell, somebody could say, âWell, I knew that.â Thatâsâthis is not a game of seeing who knew it first or what, itâs just, we just want to get to the point where we know something.
So, theâso that wasâthere are similar surprises that sort of, like, little gems that, you know, itâs like, when youâre panning for gold or something, you keep going through the sieve and you finally get something and, âWow!,â you know, thatâsâthat was quite aâthat was a good nugget.
So, I mean, a conclusion to that line of thought would be, as youâll see, then, is, whatever we do, we should have small groups. We should nurture this desire. They do feel comfortable relating to a few people. Itâs a natural bridge. Letâs take advantage of their desire, at least for that kind of intermediate association.
Secondly, we do not want to buildâwe do not want to organize their society, because they donât have a society. But weâll come backâthatâs the otherâthatâs the flip side of that. Iâthey were making their statements really clearly: âThese guys are not speaking for me!â And what theyâre saying is exactlyââThatâs exactly the way it is,â and âI donât like it, but thatâs the way our life is.â
Do you see the distinction? I mean, everybody could agree [that] this is a rotten situation, and itâs exactly right, and we all hate it, but thatâs the way it is. And I would say thatâs a perfectlyâthatâsâif that were a true picture, which it is not; Iâm just trying to illustrate the point. That would be: if you ask them, âSo how do you feel about things?,â theyâd say, âWell, I feel this way,â and ifâand you get this collection of all these individual things, but you say, âHow do we feel, what is our life like?â âWell, itâs really like this, and itâs crappy.â You know? âItâs just terrible.â And you wouldnât get that if you asked themâyou know, like, oh, say, 30%, 40%, say, âOh, I have this strong Christian life, Iâm very happy, Iâm doing [inaudible]. But my life together with these guys ainât nowhere.â So, pardon the French. If the French will pardon me for saying that. Iâll change it to âIrish.â
Yes?
KEVIN RANAGHAN: [indistinctly at first] the other kidsâ input, is the input from the teams on theâon this event confidential?
PAUL: Yes. Itâs confidential in this respect, that what was said in the room should beâwhen the kids left, they could say, âI said this,â but they should not say that âPeter said this,â or âGeorge said this.â
KEVIN: Okay. But you can express hereâ
PAUL: Right.
KEVIN: âstatistical informationâ
PAUL: Right.
KEVIN: âabout what was said.
PAUL: Right. But Iâm not talking about individuals.
KEVIN: No, but can you also break it down? Could you say, âIn regard to the youngsters from the Pocatello mission branchââ
PAUL: Oh, good!
KEVIN: ââthey had this opinion.â I mean, or not?
PAUL: No, I mean we could, but weâthe only thing weâwe decided not to do that. But Iâm really glad you raised the issue, because theâwell, this becomes clear in our surveyâin ourâwhat results we got, too. But the kids in the small mission branches were the ones who were, by and largeânow again, this is statistical, so you know, thisâthere were variations in this. But, on the whole, the kids in the small mission branches were much better off in their attitudes than theâthan in the big branches.
And probablyâI mean, I think we know why. We think we know why. It has to do with, as theâas one of the girls from Jamaica put it, who. . . By the way, where are the Jamaicans here? It was just exquisite, it wasâshe said whyâsomebody asked her, âSo, what about the People of Praise?â
And, sheâs a lovely girl, she said, âOhhh!,â she said. . . I canât speak the language. [Paul chuckles.] But, itâsââItâs wonderful!,â she said. âItâs my family! We would be nowhere without the community. Weâd be nowhere without the People of Praise. People of Praise is everything.â
It wasâand you could tellâI mean, that wasâyou could pick that up. And also, we tracked them. Of course, not all of them who were on the tape were at the High Country Adventure, but we did watch them. Theâbut it was theirâletâs see, thisâand it mayâI donât mean to single out Jamaica anymore, just that oneâbut that wasâit highlights something.
Theâtheir experience of community is family. And thatâs very interesting, but it actually has some drawback to it, which we touch on briefly in here, which is worth talking about. Itâs a big issue, but it is not necessarily theâletâs see, the trouble with family is the way itâs lived in city life. Family is whatâyou have your bags packed and youâre getting out of there. You like it, youâre kind, and youâre cared for, and you do yourâyou know, everything else, but clearly, youâre leaving. And the whole goal is to get out of this family. I donât mean in a contentious, argumentative way. Itâs just that you leave families, everybody knows you leave families.
So, the âbags-packed syndromeâ was very strong. If youâare you with me? Like, allâokay.
And, I mean, the kidsâsome of the kids had packed their bags whenâthey packed them when they were in eighth grade, I think. You know, theyâand theyâll put up with anything, you know, they gotta go through this stuff, and theyâso they, you know, so they discount parents, they discount adults, they discount school, they discount everything and theyâre just waiting until they can get outta here, you know?
And, some of them donât discount; itâs just their bags are packed, okay? And theyâre very happy about this, and that wou- âI would say characterizes the smaller branches. Their bags are all packed because itâs family, but they donâtâthey donât wantâthey like their family. They like the community. Itâs great. Itâs wonderful. So, itâsâit was intriguingâ
Also, I would say, without a doubt, myâI mean, this is highly personal, it didnât show up in theâI canât point to any data, but Iâm convinced of thisâthat there was considerably much more maturing in the kids from the small branches than there was in the kids from the large branches. Which might have something to do with the question of city life, and maybe the way they spend so much time together, in school, things like that, childish stuff.
But the actualâsome kids made some remarks that would really move things forward in a really powerful way, and everyone who did that was a kid from a small branch, from a mission branch. This was quite dramatic, it was very charming.
The Hawaii group was very interesting. They were very, âThe communityâs wonderful. Itâs, you know, these questions donât pertain to me at all. I donât have anyâI donât identify with anything thatâs being said in the room. Weâve got a life, weâre very busy, we love our music, weâre producing, Iâm a mature Christian, you know. Iâm engagedâI mean, Iâm engaged in this work, etc., etc., and I just donâtâyou know, you guys areââ They didnât say this, they were veryâthey were good, actually, quite good. I mean, they were very well-mannered also. [Paul chuckles.] So. . . [inaudible comment from audience] Thank you!
Soâbut that was an intriguingâthat was very clearly a âbags-packedâ group. I mean, they areâtheyâre really out of it. Theyâre on their way, theyâre virtually out of the nest. And theyâand so life for the kids with bags packed comes to an end when they graduate. And they simply start over a new life. I mean, literally, they take their bags, they go to college, and theyâre outta here.
And soâthatâs aâI mean, Iâm justâIâm highlighting something everybodyâIâm sure everybody knows this anyway, but it was pretty dramatically present. You could see, like, some of the kids wouldâwho were most forceful in their, maybe, strident opinionsâwere people who were burning their bridges behind them. But actually their bridges wereâI mean, theyâre gone. They had graduated. They were out of here, you know. So they couldâthey felt perfectly free to say whatever they wanted to.
Of course, you know, youâve always got toâwe got past all the potholes that you could find in that kind of a situation. We gotâwe really got down to some bedrock and found out what was going on. But, as they say, thatâdonât get fixated on the High Country Adventure.
But go ahead. Yes, Tom.
TOM DUDDY: [Inaudible at first, then into microphone.] I just wanted to ask a follow-up question about the âbags-packedâ syndrome. You seem to indicate that was more prevalent in kids from smaller branches.
PAUL: No, I didnât mean that.
TOM: Oh, thatâmaybe that clears up my confusion.
PAUL: Right, no.
TOM: So thatâthatâs not a specific problem to smaller branches or more prevalent in smaller branches.
PAUL: No. No. But what wasâwhat did stand outâit was a question ofâthe way in which we recognized it, was, here are these people who are really happy! But theyâve also got their bags packed. So, I donât know if thatâsâthat was what I meant.
TOM: Okay, thank you.
PAUL: Lloyd?
LLOYD MEHAFFEY: Paul, could you clarify in what context you used, âWhat are you going to do about it?â When you made that statement at different timesâ
PAUL: Right.
LLOYD: In some contexts, you know: âWhat are you going to do about it,â if they said, âWell, we want to have more interaction with the girls.â
PAUL: Right.
LLOYD: Or, âWe want to date.â And, if you were to ask that question, âWell, what are you going to do about it?â . . .
PAUL: Yeahâ
LLOYD: I mean, in what context did you use that phrase? Where was that relevant for that situation?
PAUL: Iâm sorry, I donât get the question yet.
LLOYD: Well, âWhat are you going to do about it?â was trying to put some ownership on their side, right?
PAUL: Yes, that happened Tuesday night.
LLOYD: Okay.
PAUL: And all that I did was to ring the freedom bell.
LLOYD: Okay.
PAUL: Okay? It cracked. [Paul chuckles, probably referencing the Liberty Bell.] Anyway, butâso, I rang the bell, got their attention, and they say, âOh my gosh, you mean, he actually thinks that we can do something about this, that I can do something about it.â And that was a re- âclearly a revelation to a lot of kids.
Now, some of them use it as a phrase, you know, they came back and beat their parents up with it, sort of thing. But if we had had another week, we would have moved to the next thing, which is where we are right now withâif we can getâif we get the youth consultation done and we actually get to the kids, the first statement is, to them, âSo what are you and we going to do about this? What do you want to do?â
Thatâsâitâsâso weâreâthe question has been asked, but the opportunity to answer the question wasnât there. But they certainly got the question; they got the picture of tho- âbut weâve got to doâweâve got to flesh it out, and weâve also got to work with them.
Also, itâs not a qu- âI donât want to continue to ask them if they, you knowâto go through this process. What I really want to do is to get them to the point where we sit with them, where we understand that we are genuinely interested in knowing what you want to do about your problems. We can do for you the things that we can doâthat we can do, but we cannot do for you the things that only you can do for yourself. And thatâs almost everything, when youâre talking to kids this age.
So I donâtâdoes that answer your question? Probably ten times over.
Yes?
CHARLIE FRAGA: Paul, without getting into necessarily the specifics of what were on those lists, like with theâwhat the boys say, for exampleâ
PAUL: Uh-huh.
CHARLIE: âis itâwould it be fair to say that the things on the list were all, like, negatives? Problemsâ
PAUL: No.
CHARLIE:âwhatâthings Iâmy lifeâthings I donât like about my life?
PAUL: No.
CHARLIE: So some of them were positives?
PAUL: Yeah.
CHARLIE: Okay. Well, thatâs helpful to know. Because then we getâ
PAUL: Oh, thatâ
CHARLIE: âit sounds like, that the process elicited nothing but problems that needed to be solved or something, there wereâthat they would take some ownership using their freedom to solve problems.
PAUL: Yeah, Iâ
CHARLIE: As opposed to, itâs like, âWhatâs your life like?â It seems to me that there might be some things the kids might have to say about their life that wouldnât be in the negative category. That life isnât all hell. Itâthereâs someâprobably some positives. Soâ
PAUL: Yeah, wellâ
CHARLIE: Iâm just wondering what the process did to bring out the positives, if anything.
PAUL: Well, it wasnât approached from positive or negative.
CHARLIE: Okay.
PAUL: Okay? And Iâ
CHARLIE: Well, the question still stands, though.
PAUL: Pardon me?
CHARLIE: My question still stands, though.
PAUL: Right.
CHARLIE: Like, what was brought out?
PAUL: Right.
CHARLIE: How would you characterize what was brought out?
PAUL: Thatâs an interesting question. I donât know that I had thought about it in terms of what was positive and negative.
CHARLIE: Okay.
PAUL: That is to sayâjust, âwhat was said.â I mean, âWhat is the picture?â So, the picture that emergesâfor example, one of them is, âFriends are very important to us.â
CHARLIE: Got it.
PAUL: Iâd say thatâs aâthat was certainly positive. âWe want adul- âwe want solid relationships with adults. We . . .â That would beâI mean, that was a very strong positive statement.
CHARLIE: Right.
PAUL: Asâthe girls especiallyâI think that was nearly unanimous. It was also the case that theâitâs clear that whatever is going on with the girls in Servant Branch has been very, very successful. They were in a really good spot with regard to adults and relationships with one another. That was very interesting. And [with regard to] trust.
CHARLIE: So the question, âWhat are you going to do about it?ââ
PAUL: Right.
CHARLIE: âis notâdoesnâtâis not necessarily solving a negative problem.
PAUL: Oh no, no!
CHARLIE: It could be just, âWell, we just want more of the same. Itâs working well,â or something like that.
PAUL: Right. Oh yeah, right, right.
CHARLIE: Good. Thatâs what I was trying to get at.
PAUL: No, thatâs a good point. In a certain sense, the next phase wouldâcould be something like, âSo, do you like what youâve got? Is there something you want to change? Is there something you want to do about it?â But I didnâtâwe didnât make that evaluation.
So it wasâit was pretty interesting. But donât getâletâsâas I say, letâs not get totally locked in on High Country Adventure. Any other comments? Yes?
MANâS VOICE: With regard to the negatives in the comments that you got from the kids, did you notice anything that would be unique to kids in the People of Praise that you would not find in kids outside the community? For instanceâ
PAUL: Well, Iâ
MANâS VOICE: âI think kids this age are generally antiauthoritarian. They feel constrained and constricted by authority in their life, and they kind of have a rebellious attitude toward authority. I think thatâs very common, probably with kids both in and outside the community. Thatâs an example of something that I would câI would say is, you know, fairly universal among kids this age. Did you notice any qualities in this negative input that would be unique to kids in the community?
PAUL: I donât mean to be coy, but we didnât investigate everybody else. And IâI mean, we know a lot of what people say about the way kids are in the world. You know, thatâsâweâve studied that. But we havenât talked to âem. And I really donât know whether whatâs being said about them is true or not. I mean, I donâtâhate to be soâanyway, whatever that is. But, I mean, for every expert who says this you can find an expert who says the opposite, in the literature, right up and down the line. So, I donât knowâletâs see, I canât answer the question you asked because I havenât talked to the other kids. I donât mean to beâokay.
But, if youâletâs see, but I could freeâI could wing it, but it would just be pure prejudice on my part.
The. . . hm. You know, I shouldâcould we justâwhy donât you all just think about it a bit here. Trying to figure this out. . .
Let me give you an example, which doesnâtâisnât going to answer the questionâbut one of the things they said wasâone of the things they voted on was: âBORING.â They said, capital letters, in quotation marks, okay? Now, you gotta understand, they knew exactly what âBORINGâ meant, because we had a whole paragraphâthat wasnât written out, but they gotâthey know exactly what was beingâwhat âBORINGâ means is this: âThe community stinks; it never does anything for us; oh, they put on some parties; theyââ
Well, Iâm changing the subject, it isnât âBORING,â this is âWe want a winter beer fest.â Thatâs it. Thatâs the line, okay? So Iâm giving you the paragraph that goes with that. The paragraph that goes with âBORINGâ is similar to the one I just said, but Iâanyway. âItâsâsoâyou donâtâwe neverâour mothers plan these boring parties. Theyâand the communityâhas no interest in us, and they donât ask us anything about what we want to do. What we want is a winter beer fest!â
Okay, soâ
[Inaudible comment from audience.]
PAUL: [Laughter.] I think he was a Canadian! [More laughter.] No, no, he was fromâ
MANâS VOICE: [Inaudible.]
PAUL: He wasâactually, I wonât tell you who it was. I do remember him [chuckling] very well who was the kid whoâwho paragraphed that. He really got it.
So, letâs see. That wasâI would take that nowâso, this isnât really your question. I would say that was not a negative statement. I couldnât say that was positive or negative. It was just thatâsâtheir opinion is thatâthat they donât likeâ
Oh, by the way, that was a big winner. That was the one that was the mostâamong the boys, that was theâgot the mostâlike, thatâs exactly right, thatâs what these kids want, you know? Thatâsâthey want to have a winter beer fest. The parties are boring, life is boring, we go to parties and stand around, or we go to parties and they goof around, or theyâyou know, the musicâs too loud, or theyâyou know, all kinds of stuff. Or our parents are overprotective and they put on these perfectly fine things and what we really want to do is be left alone with the girls. Andâwhich was aâwhich is really worthwhile thinking about more. I mean, we need to think about the boy-girl relationship in a lot more critical way thanâI mean, not negative, but, we need to look at it. We donâtâI think that it was pretty clear from our experience that the kids haveâthey certainly are unhappy about the boy-girl arrangement in the community. And we try to deal with that in the consultation. We need to do something, it seems to us, we need to doâchangeâwe have not had a really good approach to the relationships of boys and girls at that age. But, I mean, itâs incomplete. We can come back to that. Thatâll be later too.
So, letâs see. So, I canât answer the question for two reasons, but IâmâIâll be happy to think more about it. Thatâs a great question.
But one of them is, we didnât askâI donât know the other half of the story. And the other one was that we werenât looking at negatives to begin with. So, okay?
We shouldâwe should break.
Oh, one last thing. Gerry?
GERRY DEAKIN: Let me see. When the boy asksâand this would beâor questions like thisâwhen the boy says, âWe want to have a winter beer fest,â is he speaking about a winter beer fest or is he from a branch that has, during the winters, had a particular type of event that he really enjoyed for some reasons, and he labeled it that because thatâs the way it was labeled?
PAUL: Um, IâI donât know the answer to that. TheâI judge from the response of everybody there that it wasnât peculiar to his branch. Everybody wa- âeverybody in the room wanted a winter beer fest. They kind of captured it. And IâI would sayâwe touch on this later, in a different way, but part of it is: itâs daring, itâs adult, itâs forbidden. You know? Itâs risky, and we do it anyway, and weâre always sneaking around getting away with it. Itâs the one thing we can really do. You know? Itâs manly. All that sort of stâI mean, whatever you think about all that, I mean thatâsâIâm just saying that I think the kids, a lot of the kids in the room, have opinions of that sort about something. So you say, yeah, letâs have a winter beer fest, you know, letâsâyouâweâsomebody could have said, âYeah, le- âand letâs have one and then cut a hole in the ice and weâll all jump in naked.â You know? And some would say, âWow, great idea!â You know? [Laughter.] Theyâd get all pumped up over that too! Butâ
[Inaudible comment in audience.]
PAUL: [Laughing] Right!
So, when there wasâthere was that element, you know, which you alwaysâyouâd have to see theâI mean, you could expect that. But, so what do you get out of that? Well, I would say, they really do want to have more of a say in whatâin the way their parties go. I mean, thatâs a minimal sort of remark.
And, actually that extends over into a lot of other areas. Theyâre forced to do a lot of things. Theyâreâtheyâyou knowâthey would like things to be different, but they donât know how to make them different and nobody ever asks them. Theyâre not really in charge of the situation. And theyâre not given muchâtheyâre not given a lot of help in, you know, stimulating them to create new situations.
Okay, we ought to break, and when weâ
[Recording ends.]
Endnotes
1. Robert Nisbet was the author of The Quest for Community (New York: Oxford University Press, 1953). The term âintermediate associationsâ as used by Nisbet refers to primary groups based on religion, family or community that stand between an individual and a central government. Return to text
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