By Serena Greenwood, SCYL Clear Blue Sky Editor
At this retreat, we talked about the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. We had a pretty packed house with sixteen teens! Personally, I really enjoyed this retreat and all of the amazing lessons we had.
With Rev. Renée, in our session of wrath, we all lined up in height order, shortest to tallest, to all hit a piñata. This piñata was in the form of a fire. All of us got to hit the piñata at least once, some of us were lucky enough to get a second turn. The goal here was to show our wrath and get some of our anger out on the piñata while enjoying the experience with our friends.
In Kurt’s session on greed, we were sorted into dish teams, four teams of three or four people (at the start of every teen retreat, the teens are assigned to “dish teams” to complete camp chores and dishes). Each team was supplied with eight cards, including: three cards titled food, two cards titled water, one card titled building materials, one card titled tools, and the last card titled medical kit. After receiving those cards, every group got a special card different than all the others, which could protect us from a certain natural disaster in the game. After all our cards were supplied, Kurt randomly pulled a natural disaster. We had to give up some of our materials in order to survive all of these different disasters. Once one group was unable to survive the disaster, their group was eliminated. However, the group could’ve asked for help from a different group. This is where the greediness came into play. At the beginning of the game, nobody wanted to share with anyone. Nearing the end of the round, everyone was begging the other groups for materials, everyone just wanting to win the game. After reflecting on the game, we all realized how greedy we could be and saw the ways we could’ve done better and helped each other.
At this retreat, we were lucky enough to have seminary student Ben Gunter join us! One of Ben’s sessions was on envy, where we got to see what we like and dislike about ourselves/others. During this session, we all got a slip of paper with someone’s name on it and had to write something about the other person you like about them or wished you had. Receiving this feedback from the person who wrote about us, which was completely anonymous, was something everyone enjoyed, and we all agreed we should write affirmations more.
Between all the amazing sessions we had, teens always have our own fun like playing catchphrase, werewolf, imposter, and our annual bowling trip. We also had our annual officer elections! Nearing the end of the retreat, Renée and Ben led us in an amazing Exodus ceremony, along with our yule log burning, where we sat around the fireplace. On our last night of the retreat, we teens stayed up late, chatting and enjoying our last few hours together before the East Coast van had to depart. As always, it is so sad to leave our friends, especially having to leave early, but the trip is always worth it, no matter how much snow we have to drive through on our way home.
Read the full issue of the January/February Messenger.
Meet Kurt Fekete
Kurt Fekete has been the Youth Director for the Swedenborgian Church of North America for over twenty years. He also currently serves as Vice President of the denomination.
