Whose Counterculture?

Have you ever been at Mass where a family with children who are almost teens are sitting near you? The Mass begins, which brings about a stare-down from the preteeners who are glaring at the parental units because the parental units are singing the entrance hymn-loudly.

Mortified at their parents' practicing the very uncool tradition of singing out loud at Mass, the preteeners stare straight ahead wishing that the floor under their pews would open and swallow up poor ol' mom and dad.

As for the exchange of peace, the gesture extended from their preteener limbs resembled a zombie trying to hit on another zombie.

Several nights ago, I witnessed the same social class of preteeners with the same generation of parental units at a rock concert-yes, a rock concert!-engaged in the lip-sync gymnasts, a.k.a. "band," on the stage who elicited from the near hysterical audience shrieks, yelps, arm waving, in-the-aisle dancing, and anything else the cult wizards called upon their following to produce.

All of which pointed to their experience where ritual was everything in a temple-like setting which pointed to the little artistic psychodrama on the stage. Apparently, the gods descend, we adore, and we respond with the liturgy of standing, screaming, dancing, and staring.

Hours before the descent of the gods, the pilgrimage of disciples began with caravans of cars packed with preteens and their designated drivers. Looking at the ages of the parental units, the trek to screamdom was not unfamiliar. Mothers and fathers looked like Woodstock alumni.

I was among those pilgrims. I was taken to the rock concert site by my young friend, Prince Nicholas XI, with his parents, the czar and czarina. The evening initiated the three days of the celebration of the nativity of the czar, so we motored to the amphitheater where the celebration would begin.

It would all culminate with Smash Mouth coming on stage after two groups and one female singer held us in musical bondage until the great singers du soir were ready to appear and be adored in a ritual not much different from the guys who won at the Colosseum rituals of ancient Rome.

Because my internal clock shuts down early, we all thought it best that we travel back to town and on to bed without seeing and hearing Smash Mouth.

But why didn't these kids jump into the rituals of the church that housed them on that Sunday morning? One can develop a list of reasons that explain the need of the preadolescent and the adolescent to feel that they belong to a special part of the culture in which they live.

You know, conforming to dress codes, tribal consciousness, adoration of sexually charged male performing groups, parents who can cough up the $38.00 admission fee and who must sit at a distance after they drove their prepubescent boy(s) or girl(s)to the worship site-all of which make up the rock concert experience.

The major difference is that the rock concert is the most articulate speaker on the culture of the second millennium-not subtle and not demanding any crafted response with rituals, but screaming choruses of deafening noise. It is the culture's primary mode of expression-loud, immediately fulfilling, and hostile to reflective analysis.

The whole atmosphere reminded me of what Greek temple worship might have been like: awesome gods, awesome worship, thousands of people in a stupor.

If we can just adopt some of that awesomeness in the minds and hearts of those preteens into our worship, there probably would be very little difficulty in building the eucharistic community with the charge to change the world into the peaceable kingdom. Now, that's countercultural.

You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@earthlink.net