This class has been an emotional experience in and of itself and with my last post I seek to address my feelings surrounding it. The main thing that strikes me is the environment for discussion that it created. For me, the academic and the personal have always been two distinct realms that I have been always reluctant, embarrassed even, to blend together. They were two seperate parts of my life.

I think the greatest thing I have learned is that there is comfort in destroying barriers and looking for applications of the academic in the personal and vice versa. I feel more confident in my voice when it is distinct, personal, and unique to me. I also feel more secure in my personal life looking at it from a different angle. Altogether, it has been a very positive experience.

Power. It plays out in countless ways in every aspect of our lives. We want to control our little corner of the world we live in. We want everything around us to conform to our presence. We don't want to look outside ourselves, not because we are opposed to what we might see, but because it would somehow loosen our control.

Yesterday I became engulfed in a major argument stemming from a relatively minor issue just because of this concept. I saught to impose my will on other's actions, while seeing any disagreement to this as a personal attack against my person. Why would they ignore me? Is there something about me they don't approve of? Can't they take me into consideration? This led to an essentially circular discourse where I would accept nothing less than total submission, but was so unwilling to trust those whom I loved. When it came down to it, I didn't even have a reason. I had reasons to be concerned, but not reasons to not trust. It had to be a moment where I would let go. So many emotions of frustration and just anger stem from an otherwise passive emotion of caring for someone. You wish to protect them, you worry about them, you ask them to keep themself safe, you impose rules to do so, they reject rules because they are based on a senseless need for power and lack of trust, this leads to anger. In the end, the caring nature at the heart of the conflict won out, but the sheer variety of responses to something of the like amazes me.

When it was all said and done, presenting to the class, discussing was an enjoyable experience. It first allowed me to collect my thoughts on where I was going/had gone with my blogging, but most importantly let others react. It became less my inner dialogue and more an outward discourse. What was most important to me was that other's could identify with what I had to say, others are seeking. I don't want to go so far as to say this was a therapeautic experience for me, as I don't see my goal as one of finding peace within myself but instead finding where that peace fits within a societal context. Initially this was a very confusing experience for me, but after hearing others it seems perhaps the seeker is a place within itself. Your niche is what you decide it to be, not what is dictated by a structure. It is the ultimate statement for agency in an age of increasing structural powers. I find contentment in that idea.

I had this odd experience on the bus the other day. Usually I sit with the Daily Texan or a book to read, my Ipod playing, and totally in my own world oblivious to what is going on around me. I get on early in the route, so there are a lot of empty spaces to spread out. As the bus gets closer to campus, it gets increasingly crowded so I eventually have to give up the extra seat i was using to stretch out or put my stuff on so those getting on can have a seat.

On this particular day, I had just looked up to see a flood of people getting on, casually making eye contact with one of them. My eyes quickly moved to look out the window, but i grabbed my backpack and tucked it under my legs to clear the space next to me and sure enough they sat down. Not a word was said, not even any more shared glances, just empty space. Should I take of my headphones to open myself to conversation or should I remain closed off? Would it be awkward to make such a gesture, in effect signalling that I want to be open? Is that kind of openness bad? Are we expected to have our bubbles? More questions than answers came running through my head so I decided to go with the easy road and remain oblivious, turning to look out the window and wait for the trip to end. It was a potential conversation missed.

Today was the last day of Kid's Korner, the after school kid's tutoring program I help out at. We had a christmas party where we just gave the kid's free time to do what they wanted. They could play games in the gym, decorate cookies, play educational games on the computers, color different pictures. It was basically just a relaxed atmosphere for kid's to be kid's for a couple hours.

In an earlier entry I introduced Daniel, one of the kid's I spend a lot of time with. Over the course of the semester, he has grown rather attached to me. Each time we break for homework time, he is insistant that I be the one to help him. It has also, as he understands it, given him the license to act up more because he believes he can get away with it. The more trusting he becomes, the more he believes he can push the boundaries of what he is able to get away with. That or he has just become more boisterous in general.

Today was a particularly interesting situation to deal with. His latest way of dealing with problems is to run from them. He will take off in the nearest direction and force someone to chase him. Today, even with the cold weather, he had the same strategy. I saw him running out the door with another helper following and knew what was going on so went outside after him. Perhaps I was just playing into his game, but couldn't see any other way out of it. He is usually shouting, running and screaming, or otherwise a fairly loud child, but when angry he becomes very silent. He would run under a porch and just sit, knowing I was too tall to effectively come after him. "Daniel, what is wrong?" No answer. "Daniel, do you want to come back inside?" No response. At one point I was able to chase him down and grab hold of him to stop him running away and he screamed, "I hate church, I never want to go back." "Why, Daniel? Did one of the other kids say something mean?" Nothing. This cat and mouse routine continued for about 15 minutes until he finally gave up and I just took his hand and walked him back to the church and he returned to his normal, loud, jovial self. He increasingly has these fits, but they never last more than a few minutes and they end as abruptly as they begin. It seems to me that his anger isn't really at the program, my best guess would be one of the other kids said or did something to upset him as that has been the case in the past, but their consistent nature seems odd. It is something I can't explain.

Vocabulary. It's an odd feeling when in a conversation I am on the same page emotionally with someone else and yet words and distinct concepts are difficult. I have already stated in an earlier blog how me and my girlfriend Emily come from different religious backgrounds. I am Christian and she is Jewish. Since I take several religiously focused classes, lead a bible study, and am otherwise thinking about religious issues often the topic is approached between the two of us from time to time. In my presentation and in other entries I have discussed how religion becomes both an emotion and a knowledge based system and my frustrations with reconciling the two under set definitions or identities. I find that in this interreligious dialogue I am forced to focus more on the emotional experience and pass by much of the terminology because it is not shared. We both have different vocabularies of addressing the topic. At times this can be frustrating, other times it can be liberating. On the one hand, it makes the conversation difficult, on the other, it forces me to look outside of any preconcieved notions I have, look outside of myself essentially, and form a new common vocabulary based on the experience itself. I could no longer explain myself, my faith, in the ways I had always been taught growing up and instead form my own vocabulary, our own vocabulary, to address something we both feel but express in different ways. Here I also must be careful not to oversimplify the situation and say that our feelings or our spirituality are the same because there are differences that have to be accepted. However, it is a dialogue of acceptance and growth in both understanding and our relationsip.

It always amazes me how much emotion can be attached to theology, or really any attempt at an intellectual conception of spiritual matters. For me, it bridges two concepts rarely related to each other: knowledge and emotion. The first seems to be housed in concepts, models, objects. They are devoid of life, housed in books, and simply exist in some timeless realm of words and phrases. Emotions on the other hand aren't bound by words and situational. Religion for me has become the combination of these two concepts.

I lead a bible study that embodies this combination. Well, to be more accurate, I co-lead a bible study with the pastor of the Wesley Foundation, the methodist campus organization that I belong to. In that relationship I constantly see this contrast, I try to understand systematically what it is we are reading each week, he asks what it means to me emotionally, what it makes me feel, what it makes me think about. We both see things a little different, but there is a feeling of acceptance that we are looking at the same thing, working toward the same goals. In leadership, both become necessary and we as a team work well together.

Last week we were reading a passage in Joshua, where the Hebrews were in the process of capturing the land of Israelites from the Canaanites and other inhabitants already present. Part of God's command as stated in the texts is that each town they conquer, they completely eliminate those present killing men, women, and children. Having these immoral, harsh, and otherwise cruel orders ascribed to a God otherwise related to such emotions as love, compassion, and mercy was difficult for many. Those who could justify these actions did so on a largely intellectual level, clearly God must have some higher understanding, some higher reason that we can't understand. God is just, so by ordering the deaths of the Canaanites they must have done evil. On the opposite end of the spectrum, those who could not justify it were more focused on the emotional aspects. They saw the continuing possibility of redemption in those people, couldn't they have been given another chance before they were killed? God is a concept, an idea, and it becomes an emotional being assigned human attributes. The difficulty is once an attribute is assigned, anything in contradiction seems hard to justify. It is a classification of someone, something, some idea held in common and yet not. The difference in these approaches and the response both emotionally and intellectually is interesting.

Why do I feel nervous when addressing the topic of religion? What is it about this topic in particular that makes it so taboo in general society? Any belief system is inherently public, in that it is gained, practiced, or both through an open atmosphere of discussion and worship and yet remains relegated to a strictly private sphere. This experience does depend on the personalities involved, but in my experience it's particularly applicable.

I have been asked many times, what is your major? When are you graduating? What are you doing after graduation? In essence, what do you want to do with your life? Usually I tend to blow of the question. "Maybe grad school", "Maybe look for a job", "I don't know, I haven't thought about it" are all typical responses. In reality, I do plan on going to graduate school in theology and am in the process of becoming an ordained minister through my church. However, I am very reluctant to bring this up in conversation. Why?

Several thoughts come to mind. First is a fear of being immediately classified based on whatever opinion someone has of the church. It's a topic that everyone has an opinion on, good or bad, and by saying that is where I plan to work I see myself as immediately being grouped into that opinion and I don't feel that any of these preconceived notions are capable of representing me. I also feel that by merely mentioning the topic I am breaching an entirely different level of conversation. Bringing religion into the conversation, even if not intended to be a jumping point into deeper conversation, somehow betrays the strictly superficial level maintained up until then. Altogether, it is a complicated experience and comes down to a comfortability issue. Are these concerns real, or merely fears in interacting with others on a personal level? At this point, I feel the latter.

Perhaps I really need to bring more of myself into the blog, or ethnographic project if you will. I identify quite a bit with the 'Vulnerable Observer' text in that in my writing of emotions, particularly my own, ethnographically I am increasingly finding that I can not seperate myself from my observations because they become translated through my experience.

I am a Christian, Methodist to be more precise. I was born and raised in the church, so it has really become a routine part of my life. My family is heavily cultured in church life which is a vague definition I know, but it does have a profound effect on how they see things. My girlfriend is Jewish, and this raises some interesting questions and gets some curious looks from Christian friends and family. My mother related to me a conversation she had with my grandparents and some of my aunts who all live within an hour or so of my home in St. Louis so visit often. A large portion of my mother's side of the family is from the small town of Staunton, Illinois where it is characteristic for everyone to know everyone else, and my family is particularly prone to gossip. By coincidence, Emily, my girlfriend, also had family that was from the same small town. So the topic of the mutual acquantaince came up and my aunts said something to the effect of, "We think we know who she is related to, but she was Lutheran. Is Emily Lutheran?" My mom just told me, "I avoided the conversation because I didn't want to start a debate." I get a similar slightly fearful response from many others, "Are you sure this is okay?" or "I don't think I would be able to do that." They all do remain good friends and are supportive in the end, but the apprehension is there.

In an earlier entry I raised questions of identity, seeing a black and white distinction being drawn to who is 'in' and who is 'out' in terms of Christianity. According to this definition I am 'in' and she is 'out', but yet we are together and in our relationship that boundary does not exist. So am I in one category when with other Christians and in another when I'm with her? Switching roles becomes complicated, especially when they are seen to conflict.

This directly manifests itself emotionally, I want her to be accepted and I become frustrated at a system that could employ classifications based on such a basic principle, but on the other hand I am that system that casts her out. Where do I put my spiritual self, my relationships, my emotions? How can they fit together to one cohesive whole? There is a lot of confusion there, a lot of rethinking what I had grown up with, a lot of attempts to define my 'self'. Emotions tend to reflect this quest.

To continue on the issue of music, I find that it creates a mood, experience, connection that is beyond one's own self. Through emotional appeal, imagery, storytelling, mood, or any number of performative elements we enter into an emotional experience that draws from our own feelings, but is it's own entity.

The musical group, The Books, create a distinct genre of aleatoric music (a term adopted by the band themselves). Compiling seemingly random sound bytes from a wealth of collected recordings, some gathered by the band themselves by carrying around a recorder, with elements of verse sung by the band, and set to background music played mainly on violin or cello and guitar introduce rhythm.

The music itself is hard to describe without listening to it. The song "Enjoy Your Worries, You May Never Have Them Again" first sets a mood with it's title and somber tone, I begin thinking of worries, fears, and wonder how can I possibly enjoy them? One anectode is a woman explaining, "Because I just wanted... He kept calling me at night, all hours of the night, calling my husband, my brother, calling me every day. He's after me and I was devestated. I was without a job, without a salary, I was trying to get unemployment and I was told the first kicks in after a few weeks. And I was busy looking for another job and I also have a heart condition, I told him I have a heart condition. I said here take a few dollars, I'm sorry this happened to you, but just leave me alone, I'm not the person who deposited your..." CRASH! The song continues to pick up pace, and close with a much more light hearted string piece and a man saying, "All the music is a rainbow." The song, and the rest of their work, is interesting because it invites active participation on the part of the listener to sort out the segmented bits.

Upon my listening, I am forced to think. The emotions involved are complicated, but heavily involved. I don't feel readily invested in the story because I have no connection with the person who said it, but on the other hand I have a desire to be more observant, to find where the stories come from, to find the meaning of what I'm hearing. I am drawn in to another world, only to find out it is my own.

The recent discussion of music as a reference point for emotional feeling, both creating a feeling through the act of listening as well as reflecting an emotional state already present in the observer which they then relate to the song. This exchange is an interesting one, creating a precarious relationship between the songwriter and the listener. Music creates an atmosphere where it is okay to be emotional and expressive, so by listening to an artist I feel connected to them as I am taken through their thoughts and emotions.

Personally, while I do place a significant emphasis on the actual music played, I generally look to the lyrics as an essential part of the experience. I want to hear the story that is being told to me and assign it a meaning.

One of my favorite artists is Sufjan Stevens. He is currently working on constructing an album for each of the 50 states, exploring stories and the character of the state through a collection of songs. As such, there is a great emphasis placed on the lyrical explorations into the human condition. On his album, 'Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lakes State' he closes with a song titled 'Vito's Ordination Song'. The lyrics are as follows:

I always knew you in your mothers arms,
I have called your name,
I have an idea placed in your mind to be a better man,
I've made a crown for you, put it in your room,
and when the bride groom comes there will be noise, there will be glad, and a perfect bed,
and when you write a poem, I know the words, I know the sounds, before you write it down,
When you wear your clothes, I wear them too, I wear your shoes, and your jacket too,
I always knew you in your mothers arms,
I have called you son,
I've made amends between father and son,
or if you havent one rest in my arms, sleep in my bed, there is a design to what I did and said

The imagery is loaded with both relational experience at a family level and as a religious experience. Notions such as the crown, making amends between father and son, and the wedding as well as several others appear often in a Christian context as God's means of approaching humanity. For me the crux of the song is in the chorus "Rest in my arms, sleep in my bed, there is a design". I have written several posts about attempting to define a religious identity and the comfort that you don't have to identify with anything, that it is as simple as falling asleep, is comforting to me.

Sufjan says on his website concerning the song, "Don't worry. Put away your mirrors and your beauty magazines and your books on tape. There is someone right here who knows you more than you do, who is making room on the couch, who is fixing a meal, who is putting on your favorite record, who is listening intently to what you have to say, who is standing there with you, face to face, hand to hand, eye to eye, mouth to mouth. There is no space left uncovered."

I find this very soothing, perhaps identification is not what's important.

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.