On the heels of the many positive comments (including my own) about the musical offering of the Mikey Needleman Band at the Sunday evening Mass last week, I received the following unsolicited report from a parent of teenager who is not directly involved in our parish music ministry (names changed to protect the innocent) but who has some opinions about music in worship and is apparently willing to engage her peers in conversation about it. If anything, this highlights the possibility that youth are not a monolithic sub-culture within our parish community, but a microcosm of the diversity of opinions and tastes that run throughout the community as a whole. It is also an example of one person attempting to elevate the conversation above the question of “likes and dislikes.”
'Jennifer told a story about being at Prairie Star [Ranch] for a TEC weekend, and instead of the usual guitars, there was chant. Some of the youth were grumbling about that, and saying that chant doesn't move them. Jennifer said that it isn't supposed to move you; it is supposed to make you still. She called it the incarnation of the peace of Christ! She said that Life Teen music is the opposite of chant, and that it doesn't make you worship. Instead it changes the focus onto yourself—far removed from "Be still and know that I AM God."'