There’s a great moment during a concert, when the musician hits the opening notes, before any words are sung, of a crowd favorite, and everyone starts going up and down on their toes getting all psyched for him to launch into the lyrics.
I had that kind of experience a little while ago when Chris Tomlin, America’s number one praise and worship artist, got going on Glory in the Highest.
The guy next to me was a friend of mine, a young professional in the health care technology business. The guy on the other side of me was probably about age 30, had a couple of earings. The two middle aged fellows behind my from Metrobrook belted every song out in the most off-pitch rendition possible. In front of me were a pair of Margo Moms (a moniker I attach to moms with kids who love Margo Fieseler from the Fish morning show), each with two in tow (one of which, based on skin color, appeared to be adopted). In front of them was a family I’ve seen before at Oak Creek Assembly; the father, who has hair down to his waist, works one of the cameras. One of the kids, probably about twleve years old, had a huge mop of hair and his sneakers and hoodie screamed skater dude.
There was one point when the preacher, Louie Giglio from Passion, was talking about the stars in the universe and the number one million. He illustrated that with 1 million seconds (11 days), 1 million feet (just over 300 kilometeres), and then he asked, “By a show of hands, are their any millionaires in the room?” Not one went up. Louie responded: “Huh. Usually I get two or three in the front row.” None, in a room with well over a thousand folks.
During another part of Louie’s talk, he showed us images of a child in the womb, developing.
I say all of this because I would bet that, from polling, about 80 percent of the folks at this concert voted for President Bush. I say this because I attended this concert the week the Edwards blogger fiasco broke out. When Melissa McEwan, who Edwards ’08 hired as netroots coordinator, referred to President Bush’s ‘wingnut Christofascist base,’ she was talking about the folks at the Chris Tomlin concert – about the Margo moms and their kids, about the dad with hair down his back and his skate-boarder son, about the guy with the earings.
This Sunday I had a great experience – I attended my first Red Mass. The St. Thomas More Lawyers Society of Wisconsin gathers every year (this was the 49th annual) for a Mass calling for the Holy Spirit to infuse the institutions of law and government and those whose professional vocations call them to those works. I met up with a friend/classmate from the law school and had a fine morning (for those who know I am Lutheran, I will proudly point out that the late William H. Rehnquist, a good ELCA man, attended the D.C. Red Mass throughout his many years on the Supreme Court).
Mass was celebrated by Bishop Joseph Perry of Chicago, an African-American. There were attorneys there from Foley & Lardner and Whyte Hirschboeck, but also general practitioners from small offices across SE WI. Again, I would guess that the percentage of folks who supported the President in 2004 was at least 2/3, maybe higher.
Sitting at my table were a local municpal attorney and his lovely wife, who works in education, a husband/wife couple who practice together in Racine, their two person office, their daughter who works for a business downtown and a young male friend of hers, and another MULSer, his wonderful wife, and their beautiful little girl in her high chair.
It’s always useful to remember who is being insulted by phrases like “‘wingnut Christofascist base.”
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It’s always useful to think before group labelling the opposition. You never know who they might really be.
For instance, I know a couple who have been married steadily for twenty years and raised two extremely bright, drug-and-sex-free daughters. Both of them work as criminal defense attorneys, striving to make “justice for all” a reality. They are also religious and attend services. One of their daughters plans on going for religious ordination. In short, they are an extremely loving, clean living family. They are also “godless commie America-hating liberals”.
They are my parents.