Oh What A Beautiful Morning, Oh What a Beautiful Day

What2Say2Day? I just have to know...Who broke into song reading that title? The answer to that may just show your age and how in touch you are with the age groups around you.

The other day while tutoring some kids after school one of them started coughing and complaining about the vog (look back a few blogs to learn about what vog is). Another one of the students then asked what vog was, and a reply came from several others that it's blown in from the volcano. As I thought "close enough" I broke into song...Sing along if you can:

I don't know, I don't know, I don't know where I'm a gonna go when the volcano blows (da da da da da)
I don't know!
I don't know, I don't know.....

I must have been surrounded by a dozen of our wonderful youth, each looking at me as though I was a weirdo. "What?!" was my only response, "that's a song, you know, by Jimmy Buffett." This proclamation was swiftly followed by deeper, more thoughtful looks of weirdness.

A conversation ensued, accompanied by validations from YouTube, about who Jimmy Buffett was and how his music spans all generations. We talked at length about how music influences our understandings of self and community. We analyzed how Jimmy's music went straight to that place which calls out for a life of peace with no responsibilities.

Ok, I did all the validating, and talking, and analyzing. Then I listened. They told me of their music and how it influenced their ideas of self and community. They analyzed songs which spoke of a life where we all get along and enjoy the presence of one another. They even validated their point with YouTube and a large sing-along.

I could only smile as I looked around at our youth, enjoying each other, in a room where nobody judged them, or put restrictions of pressured expectations on them. We were in a place filled with love, acceptance, and joy. And the background music was gangsta rap.

Thank you, God, for that day!