Friday morning the kids and I went to Kingsbury Hall and saw the world famous Harlem Gospel Choir. This was a daytime performance for schools, some senior citizen groups, and home schoolers. We've been to these concert series before, but this one was definitely unique. They demanded participation! It was really fun; they had us on our feet, clapping, waving our arms, and singing!
I think this exercise was a little more extroverted than we are generally used to (especially Ian.) They started out by having everyone standing and clapping, and then they invited the audience to get up on the stage and dance. I think the kids weren't expecting to have to actually participate.
I thought the music was great, and it was refreshing to hear religious expression in a public / secular setting. I made me think about if as a nation we could all share our different faiths with our neighbors in a spirit of understanding, how healing that would be. Not to get too ecumenical, but I think that learning to appreciate the richness of other people's faith helps us to better live our own faith.
It's enlightening to see a portrait of how other people worship. I think that gospel music is a very moving way of praising the Lord. It's very foreign from my religious (Mormon) background, but I find it very inspiring.
It was fun to see all the school kids dance around, wave their arms, clap their hands, and get all into it. Their was one group of high school kids who were singing and dancing, and they even synchronized all their moves! It was refreshing, since usually when I see that age group of high school kids, they seem so non-committal about everything.
Afterwards it was raining and we ducked into the University Pharmacy and got some Jelly Bellies. We made up a game where we had to grab 2 without looking and eat them together whatever they were. We had some interesting combinations: bubblegum-licorice, lemon-caramel apple, root beer-dr. pepper, tangerine-cinnamon, and popcorn-pear.
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