Thank You & Why Music Matters

I can’t thank those of you enough who attended or sent along support for the fundraising concert last night! It was such an enjoyable evening and I am so grateful to have such an amazing community to call home and people to call my neighbors and friends.
If you weren’t able to attend, we’ll get some more pictures up very soon from the event and hopefully even some video of Danielle Rose performing so you can share in the joy and blessing of the event.
I want to also talk about something that some of you might be wondering about: Why would a newer group like The Guiding Star Project, who is still working to get up and running (and can sure use financial support!), spend so much time and energy hosting a benefit concert for a musician that is not even directly associated with our organization? How does raising money to give away benefit our mission? At first glance it may not seem to make the best business sense, but I am certain our efforts to bring Danielle’s beautiful music and lyrics to our broken world will pay off in this cultural battle we’ve begun. Our partnership with Danielle will help us achieve our mission of creating a Culture of Life.
We realize that our dreams are big…. Big….. ok, really BIG. We want nothing less than to cause a massive cultural shift towards authentic appreciation for our bodies and a love for the dignity of every other human being.  We have a pretty awesome model and a plan to get there, but this is not something that happens overnight. In fact, when I first had the initial vision for Guiding Star Duluth, I knew instinctively that it would take many years before I would see the full fruits of the work I was beginning. I even told another board member that I didn’t expect to see the entire vision realized for another 10-15 years in that city. She gasped and said that was ridiculous. She’d probably smile now and nod with agreement if I reminded her of this early prediction. We’ve all been learning that cultural change takes time and for many things to line up before noticeable changes can be seen.
After four years of work in the very first community piloting The Guiding Star Model, we’ve learned so much and have been able to identify some of the largest stumbling blocks for a Culture of Life to be realized. We are living in a culture so inundated with negative, death propaganda that we must first work to change the entire language and attitude surrounding women, children, and family life from pessimism and doubt to hope and appreciation. Music does this better than pretty much anything else I can think of.
How many times have you caught yourself humming a song with lyrics you’d be embarrassed to say aloud, yet that tune is stuck in your head!?! Going round and round, subconsciously repeating the negative messages you’d never consciously associate yourself with.  Putting an ideology or teaching to song is one of the quickest and easiest ways to remember and learn something new. (Do any of you remember learning the ABCs any other way?) Why else do you think parents of the 1950s feared Rock n’ Roll so much? They knew their kids would embrace more than the bouncy beats when they heard the lyrics and saw Elvis perform “Hound Dog” for the first time . They knew the influence that music can have on the next generation. Historian Marty Jezer noted the cultural shift that took place alongside Presley’s rise to fame. Igniting the “biggest pop craze since Glenn Miller and Frank Sinatra … Presley brought rock n roll into the mainstream of popular culture”, Jezer writes  “As Presley set the artistic pace, other artists followed. … Presley, more than anyone else, gave the young a belief in themselves as a distinct and somehow unified generation—the first in America ever to feel the power of an integrated youth culture.” 1.
So, we see great value in supporting Danielle’s music because we understand that she has a large following of young people who are becoming more life-affirming and rounded in Culture of Life thinking just by listening to and sharing her music with others.  We want to help support the music that will unite and excite this next generation.  We “get” that creating a Culture of Life requires a lot of time laying the groundwork to build upon later. It requires inspiring and connecting the next generation to our message.  Danielle’s music shares the truth about the wide-spectrum of pro-life issues and challenges others to see the inter-connectedness of the many issues involved in our current cultural mess. We are so happy and proud to support an artist who shares our passion and vision for a better world. And we know that in this early start-up phase for our organization, there is no better way to begin on the path to achieving our final goal of Creating a Culture of Life through the establishment of Guiding Star Centers than to put the pieces in play that need to be complete when we are ready. We need a pro-life community that sees the bigger picture and understands the benefits and the necessity of working together. We need people to be excited about collaboration and the full pro-life picture.
We pray that Danielle’s upcoming album will do just that and that soon we’ll see the results of a movement being reinvigorated with youthful enthusiasm and optimism. For LIFE!
1. Jezer, Marty. The Dark Ages: Life in the United States 1945–1960. South End Press; 1982. Page 281. ISBN 978-0896081277.