The class discussion today focusing on issues of religion, cultural identity, power, and emotion greatly intrigued me an touched on many of the issues I am seeking to explore in my ethnographic work. On my own quest for an 'identity' particularly in terms of my faith, I find that many of the emotions discussed are ones that I have experienced. For me, this is largely due to trying to identify with a preexisting religious system as if shopping for one, looking at all the offerings of each and deciding which one sounds the best rather than letting it be solely an outward expression of my own religious faith. I am trying to take an existing religion and make it my own, which leads to a great deal of personal conflict in my own life.

I am not going to dwell on this thinking because it is far too complex of an issue for me to suitably simplify here, I think. Instead, I will focus on some of the practical implications and hope that will provide some form of an explanation.

Last weekend a friend asked me to attend church with them. "I would really like you to come," they said. I had attended with them several times before so the request was not totally out of the blue, but still caught me slightly off guard and I was a little hesitant at first. Why do they want me to come? Are they worried I am losing my faith or something? Is this for my benefit or for theirs? Such questions swirled through my head, but I did accept the invitation.

The whole question of forming a community around a shared belief system is an interesting one to me, and it's nature was reinforced upon my attendance. While welcoming, there was an overwhelming sense of "us" and "them", or those who are part of the community and those that aren't. The message was a very evangelical one, seeking after a conversion experience deemed to be essential. While that was nothing new, what I found most striking was my own doubts about this. I would identify myself as a Christian, which would make me part of the in crowd here by conventional wisdom, but I identified myself more with the unconverted other. I perhaps wanted to show sympathy to them, 'I don't think there is anything you need to change your life, don't judge me based on what this church is preaching because I don't necessarily agree." It is a very precarious position, and one I am still looking to define.

I worked with the tutoring program again the other day. The variety of experience these kids bring to the program never ceases to amaze me. Each one seems to have an emotional depth that seems evolved beyond their age, but perhaps I'm biased based on my upbringing which was very different.

For several weeks have worked with a child, I will call him Ryan, who is very detached from the group in general, instead looking for friendship among the volunteers and in particular me and the other male volunteer. He will sit at his own table during opening activities, remaining distinctly seperate from the other children. He approached me this week and said, "Can we be friends? I can't hang out with [the other male volunteer] anymore. He is cool, but I was told I need to make friends with the other kids. Do you want to hang out?" I responded, "Alright, did you bring your homework or anything we can go work on? If you bring something for us to do we can hang out and not get in trouble." The relationship has to be defined on very strict terms, which makes it intriguing because while it is kept strictly a tutor/pupil relationship the boundaries of what that includes are flexible. He needs to practice his reading, so I ask him to bring something in that he likes to read. I try to keep the system as flexible as possible, while not betraying the system entirely. Altogether, it forms a relationship that is comfortable, yet structured.

Struggling to take on the identity of the observer, I have come to realize the patchwork nature of my objectives and essentially my life. In some sense I find myself withdrawing to a sort of internal monologue, formulating a topic made of different aspects of my life that at first I think are unrelated, but upon further contemplation really become to me a culture characterized with particular practices, power relations, distinct lexicon, and the like.

Essentially, I am exploring the aspects of my religion through the culture it has created. This is a very broad topic in and of itself, but instead of trying to take the religious system as a whole and construct a system by which I can study it, an impossible task, instead I hope to take a more focused descriptive approach on very distinct aspects of the culture.

First, I have a great deal of interest in music, in particular focusing on the ways in which music is used spiritually as a means of 'worship' or connecting with the divine. Second, as leader of a group exploring the Bible, or Christian sacred texts, I seek to look at the more intellectual aspect of this culture and the emotions triggered there. Finally, as volunteer with a church program focused on tutoring elementary school children I seek to explore my relation as tutor or Christian role model and what that title implies.

Wednesday afternoons I help out at the tutoring program, Kid's Korner. The program meets in the gym of a church in Southeast Austin. Around 3 pm when school lets out kids begin showing up and have a time for snacks, a health lesson, and a Bible story for the first half hour. The other hour and a half before the program ends at five is broken up between helping with homework, computer activities, and play time. I have helped for a little over a semester now so have developed a close relationship with several of the kids I have worked with.

One boy in particular, Daniel, I met last year while he was still in first grade, but is now in second with the new school year. I began helping him with his homework because when he came to the program he primarily spoke spanish and was still developing his english. I took spanish in high school, so was very rough with my ability to speak and comprehend it, but had more experience than the other helpers so sat down to look at his homework. After he was finished, we would typically play soccer or some other game for the rest of the time with some of the other kids. The relationship continued to develop, but recently became somewhat of an issue which coupled with my desire to observe and record phenomena transformed into an interest of study, namely to what extent is my relationship with these kids one of friendship? Role model? Tutor? Teacher? Parent? I feel at times I take on parts of all of these roles, but have to be careful which ones at which times. Last week Daniel was acting up, he wouldn't listen to the health lesson, he would hide under the table as a sort of game to avoid the other volunteers, he refused to take out his homework saying, "I don't have any," and proceeding to take out his Yugi-Oh cards instead for me to look at. He was clearly approaching me in terms of friendship when I needed to be the adult and the tutor. "No, Daniel, get our your homework. You must have some." Only when I took away his cards promising to only give them back upon his completion of his work did Daniel begin to cooperate. He had to write the numbers 1 to 100 on a piece of paper as a math assignment and did so rather attentively, showing excitement at his success and as far as I knew had completely forgotten about the earlier episode. Even when everyone else went off to play games and he was offered the opportunity for a break, he chose to stay and finish his work. Once the assignment was completed I gave him the cards back and asked him to explain the game to me, switching to the role of the friend.

Emotionally, the whole situation becomes muddled. I want to help, but I also want to please. I want him to be free to express himself, yet at the same time need to be firm. There is a clear power relation where I control the nature of the relationship and the context for any of our encounters, but with that power I have to be the one to decide what role is appropriate and be the one to act on that. It's an interesting question that continues to play itself outl