BEATLEFEST

Every year, on the last night of our church's Family Camp, a very cool, slightly clandestine event is held. The event is called "Beatlefest," and it basically consists of anyone who hears about it and wants to come ganging together to sing Beatles songs until, oh, usually 2:00 a.m. or so.

While there are musical clunkers like myself in the group, the majority of the people there are very skilled vocally and instrumentally, so out come the guitars and the bass and the keyboards (Lee sometimes sitting in there) and the tambourines and last year even an accordion. And the organizers hand out the lyrics, and the four-part harmony clicks in. And it is a truly beautiful thing.

...And that makes me think of a story told by John Fischer at a retreat he spoke at a couple of years ago. He told about being a high school kid and loving the Beatles and loving God, and having a problem reconciling the two.

One night after a marvelous worship time, he got into his car and the radio came on automatically, playing "I Wanna Hold Your Hand." Feeling it would be wrong to listen to secular rock and roll after worship, he stretched out his hand to turn off the radio. But there was an invisible physical obstacle blocking his way to the radio -- he simply couldn't touch the dial.

And he felt God saying to him, "How do you feel after worshipping Me?" And John said, "Happy and free." And God said to him, "And how does this music feel?" And he said, "Happy. And free." And God basically responded, "Well...?"

All this to say that Lee and I had the privilege to attend the last night of Paul McCartney's U.S. tour a few days ago. Some 20,000 people, I would guess, all in one room. And it was marvelous.

Knowing we were about to go out on our movie-pitching marathon, Lee insisted he was not going to sing along. He needed to protect his voice, after all. Well, that lasted about one and a half songs. There he was, singing along so loud the people at the end of the row were leaning over to see who was singing so loud!

To pull an overused word out of the lexicon, it was an amazing evening of community. The people behind us didn't even speak English (they were speaking some dialect of German), but they knew all the words. 20,000 people, all sharing the same moment. All the "required" songs were there -- Hey Jude. Let It Be. Live and Let Die. Band on the Run. Yesterday... Stuff from his new album, "Chaos and Creation" (Lee was the only one who knew all those words, and I didn't even know he'd bought the CD -- oh well, there's one Christmas gift crossed off the list). And songs we didn't expect, that were just plain fun to sing along with. I Will. Benny and the Jets. Please Please Me.... Paul was a very generous performer -- 3 hours w/o an intermission.

Basically, it was just like going to Beatlefest at camp. Except for maybe 19,975 extra people in the room. And fireworks. And oh yeah, a real live Beatle leading the singalong.

We thrashed our voices, needless to say. Lee sounded horrible when we went out to pitch the next morning. But for those three hours, we were happy. And free.

Makes me wonder what it'll be like to join the singalong of the heavenly hosts.....