LOL!
Well I am in an area where there is about 5-6 churches in 20 miles… Its just theres not much for my age group. Once you are done with Lifeteen… its done you know? I would just love to meet people who are Catholic like me…
Oh yes, I know exactly what you mean about “done with Lifeteen”. Unfortunately, as you can see, I don’t have much of a solution on hand because it is a difficult problem. Fundamentally, we’re still living in the youth culture built for the 1960’s crew of boomers. Unfortunately, they didn’t reproduce. Blame abortion, lifestyle choices, the continued calculus of ciphering in children as liabilities instead of assets, or whatever theory you have, but the result is before us: your generation, through no fault of your own, hasn’t shown up. Wholly undeserved, you’re being whacked by the demographic stick and hard. Our culture is increasingly geared toward youth, but there are fewer and fewer regular American youths. Kultursmog.
This problem is not confined to the realm of young Catholic casting about, it’s a culture-wide phenomenon. Let’s look at one of the defining pieces of youth culture, music. When you survey the scene you survey moribundity. The decline in CD sales is supposed to have happened at the hands of Internet downloads. Nope. Internet downloads are tanking, too. Young people increasingly report a lack of interest in music these days, comparatively, and walk away. Contrast this to the youth of the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and even 90’s where music was a product that proclaimed personal anthems and provided a cultural space for gathering. That’s gone. No new musical form has emerged since rap, a product of the 1980’s or so. The critical mass that sustained that old musical culture has waned.
This same wane affects far more than something as trivial as pop music. Look around at civic groups like the Lions and Kwanis and various civic organizations. You’ll find a bunch of 60+ year olds, and the “newblood” is going to weigh in at around 50. That’s not the way it used to be. A large scale shutting up of shop is going to happen for very many local chapters of these civic organizations very soon.
Churches, civic groups, heck even top-40 radio (I remember a time when the whole family was glued to the TV to watch the Grammys, and everybody knew all the songs at play), are fragmented, sliced up demographically, and faced with a shrinking pool of participants.
Look around hard for the Catholic guy (I’m assuming you’re female due to the name, which may be an incorrect assumption), and I hope you find a good one. It’s simply not a happy time to be young in this country. I hope you find what you’re looking for!
