Celtic Crossing

Have you ever hunted orchids in Borneo or kayaked through bioluminescent water in Puerto Rico? Have you ever attended Protestant services in Ireland? How about all three? Throw in skydiving over Antarctica and you've got some stories to tell, I'm sure.

Tonight, upon the invitation of my Alabama-bred nephew, my wife and I attended an evening service associated with the 187th annual meeting of the Alabama Baptist State Convention at Whitesburg Baptist Church in Huntsville.

At the service, we watched the singing performance of the secondary school church choir and a Irish-born couple called The Gettys (of course, their being Protestant, you can guess they grew up near Belfast, not Dublin) and their Irish-style band.

Through the years, my wife and I have sat at the church and watched our niece and nephew in various church-related activities (my wife and I are not members of the church but her deceased brother was and his family still are). The church's main seating area, the sanctuary, can accommodate several thousand people. Like many large sanctuaries, the church includes projection screens, videographers, professional sound system, orchestra pit area and other refinements tuned to the needs and desires of today's religious audiences/congregations.

Many years ago, in the same venue we saw a concert by a group centered on the singing performance and celebrity of Lisa Whelchel, a child star from the TV show, "The Facts of Life." We've seen several versions of the church's annual summertime show based on patriotic themes.

In other words, we're used to seeing the room as much for its role as a concert hall as a place for religious worship.

I've mentioned being in a small singing group called Sing Out Kingsport when I was a secondary school student, haven't I? You know, the one based on the international traveling singing group(s) called Up With People. Well, tonight I watched a 30-year slide in time, as if Up With People still existed but had hidden itself in the student body of a local church. The same upbeat music, the same rock band ensemble, everything including the sensitive choir director who had to compete with the kids watching themselves on the big screen instead of watching his hand movement for tempo and volume control.

What is the purpose of religion? You tell me your version - I'll seek first to understand, then try to be understood. Okay, I'm listening...I'm listening...oh well, sorry, you're taking too long. I'll listen to the rest of what you have to say later on. Anyway, religion, as my wife and I constantly discuss, is a way to develop a moral compass for people so they can agree with the social direction their subculture is headed and can turn nearby, interested people around who are headed in a different direction.

The youth singing group tonight sang songs and performed a skit to demonstrate their well-developed moral compass. I'm sure many, if not most of them, will carry on the traditions of their parents and their peers in this subculture. In fact, I'm more than sure. I know they will. All cultures train their members to comfortably conform to and comply with cultural standards, including religious practice. Barring major disasters or wars, cultural offspring carry on the habits of their ancestors. Well, then there's that other annoying inconvenience for cultures wanting to perpetuate themselves - the competing subcultures around the offspring.

I believe all cultures that promote positive reinforcement of our species are equal. I'm just as willing to review events tied to this Southern Baptist tradition as I am to sit and watch Inuits or Hindus or football worshipers (a late happy birthday nod to Nehru, by the way). By discussing them here, I realize there's the chance that those I discuss appear to get a level of higher importance than the ones I haven't discussed yet. I cannot control your impression but if you hang out here long enough, you'll catch me covering an ultrawideband variety of events about people interested in preserving our species for future generations.

After the youth choir finished, the main stars, Keith and Kristyn Getty and their backup band, performed.

Some of you may be familiar with a phenomenon known as Celtic Woman, an ensemble of five Irish women singing soft lullabies and other tunes you could imagine the "greatest singer in all the world" (at least so I'm told), Celine Dion, belt out on stage. Well, Kristyn and her crew are to the Christian music entertainment scene what Celtic Woman is to PBS/NPR fundraisers - a sure moneymaker and a fun evening of singing, handclapping and general joy.

I'll be honest with you here, whatever that means (probably that I want to throw in a side comment that contradicts what I know to be a generally well-liked something or other). I'm not a big church kind of guy. In fact, I don't attend many events tied to large numbers of people (except for American football, as many of you know) - not musical ones, anyway. I like intimate musical settings where you can see and hear and smell musicians passionate about their performance. I don't want to have to squint to see the performers' faces or join in singing a single melodic line for lyrics projected on a wall.

Thus, I find myself fighting against my cynical self to stay focused on the positive elements of tonight's performance, which was designed for people who like to gather in large groups and celebrate life. After all, they are what my goal for our species is all about, choosing lifestyles that may run counter to mine but point our species to one of many safe, reliable methods to ensure our future survival.

In this country, we have what we call retirement centers, nursing homes, assisted living facilities and other euphemisms for places where people who cannot or do not want to live independently are housed together. In these locations, you find people from all walks of life. They may be mentally challenged from birth. They may have been well-known CEOs, military veterans, housewives, or religious leaders. However, they all share the same life, with community activities geared to keep them as mentally and physically active as possible.

When I was in Sing Out Kingsport, we sang at these senior citizen housing units. We also sang at small churches, including pentecostal churches where no one was allowed to leave until everyone had stepped forward, confessed sins and declared an eternal love for Jesus. We performed at shopping malls. We stood on top of a flatbed trailer and sang in holiday parades passing through downtown urban centers.

They say that youth is wasted on the young. I disagree. After having been both a young singer in a youth group and an audience member watching young people sing their hearts out tonight, I believe that youth is what you make of it. You can spend your youth practicing sports skills, developing scientific knowledge sets, caring for the sick and the elderly, and putting your public singing/acting abilities to social use. You can also spend your youth playing video games and texting - socialising with your peers, in other words.

It's true what they say - you're only young once. You can be young at heart your whole life.

Tonight, I wanted to write a review of the Gettys. They were both entertaining and emotionally moving (after the show, we ended up buying and had them autograph three CDs of theirs) but in my thoughts they were overshadowed this evening by the youth choir I watched and heard.

I've focused my belief in moving our species forward mainly on the adults of this world. However, I've missed a large part of how a species' goal is accomplished - the future of our species belongs to the young.

I'm already middle-aged. My generation is running this country and flying from this country into space. We are the flag bearers carrying the standards of our youth. We are also the inspiration for tomorrow's leaders.

The 1960s and 1970s produced the folk rock music that created Up With People and groups like Sing Out Kingsport. Today, many religious groups are using that folk rock music style to attract young people to develop their moral compasses. What will the music and thought set of today's multimedia leaders generate 30, 40 or 50 years from now? I don't know but I sure would like to find out. I'd like to see the great accomplishments of the smiling faces of today's youth when they're middle-aged and leading their generation's political, industrial and multimedia machines of tomorrow. Some, like the ones tonight, will get there by following the moral compass of their ancestors. Some, like my wife and me, will get there by creating their own automatic robotic drum machine to develop a unique beat of their own. We can have a lot of fun along the way.

The fun's in the adventure of getting there. The adventure's in you.