Kevin Alton Writes A Note About Youth & The Goose

I have always chased the conversation.

I have a science-fiction brain. That sounds way cooler than it is. What I mean is that since I learned to read I’ve always sought out stories that took what was considered normal and flipped it or tweaked it in some way purely for the sake of talking about it that way for a moment. I didn’t emerge from all of that reading believing that aliens had stolen 40 seconds from every minute in a world established on a base of 10 or that one day we’d be able to implant charisma plugs from our favorite public figures in our arms to enhance our own personalities—but I did emerged enriched by thinking freely for however long it took to read those stories.

Too often when it comes to spiritual things we’re conditioned to believe that there are no more stories to tell; those have already been written—in fact, all of the paintings have been painted too. Spirituality has already been expressed fully; better to just choose your favorites from among the existing voices and move on. At the Wild Goose Festival last year I was delighted to find the conversation is still open.

The young people I met through last year’s festival are longing to tell their stories. As someone that works with youth in a local church setting, I observe on an ongoing basis youth that are waking up to stirrings of individuality in a social environment at school where peers often discourage those who try to stand out and at the same time in spiritual conditions where they’ve come to believe (or are taught) that spirituality is about answers, not questions. At Wild Goose, we want to encourage them to live into their questions.

This June at the festival we’re going to pursue that in a couple of ways. We don’t want the youth area to become a bubble apart from the rest of the festival where kids are sent to “go do your kid thing.” There’s space in our schedule to allow them to experience the festival as a whole when we’re not engaging them in specific interactive programs. That said, there are some very youth-specific things we’re planning; we’ll be doing an open mic for youth participants, each afternoon there will be a song & story-in-the-round featuring some of our youth presenters, we’ll begin & end each day with a facilitated prayer time, and more. We’re also going to try to engage whole families with some specific times of conversation. It’s a journey; it’s good to hear from the other voices on the path.

Above all else, we’re going to lead the youth to learn to tell their own stories. In learning their own stories and hearing the stories of others, they’ll begin to grow into the idea that their individuality doesn’t isolate them as much as it clarifies them. That as their individual voices resonate with other voices around them they’ll find God in new places and new ways. That finally, hopefully, the light of others will begin to illuminate some of their darkness. And that they might be light to others as well.

See you in June!

Peace,
K