New Blogs?

As you can read above, I might be starting a new collective blog with some fellow classmates. This would entail that we would have 2-6 people writing 3 posts a week but have everyone's posts show up side by side on a web page. If I were to do this, I'd first have to make a pact. I'd make everyone write down 2-5 topics and put them into a container of some kind, then every week, we would pull one of the topics out and each blogger would be required to write three blogs on the issue. This would prove advantageous, because, we could all designate a meeting place to come up up with ideas on what to write about. Also, this would be time efficient for us, because we would all have a set deadline and requirements, or else we would be liable to group discipline. On top of that, since we would have multiple contributors, there would be many posts every week. I would like to do this, but I don't know as to which of my peers would like to participate in this with me.

Is This Faith?

I'm a Christian. Easy enough to say, but I think that it's the hardest thing in the world to find a good church that I agree with. I won't write that I'm a perfect all-knowing man who understands his faith so well that it's bullet proof to change, but I will say that in the past few months, I've been going to many churches in a hope to find a church that I will support. I've sit in on many services at different churches, and through inspection, I can tell you that, all Houses of God are generally the same. Everybody is nice and thoughtful. Everyone is polite and respective to each other. Each place looks different, yes, but the amount of people of different age groups in each pew is about the same. Generally a good 40% of the churchgoers are between the ages of 35 and 55. Few people are into their old age and there is almost always only a few people that are 18 to 25 years of age. There is always a lot of kids and a sizable group my age, between the ages of 14 and 18.

Everybody will tell you their church is the best and that their views is always the right one. Each church will revolve around one of two defaults, either a very contemporary sermon with chanting and a silence while the Pastor explains deep thoughts on the world, or a sermon that is very new age with screaming and lessons on everyday problems that seem like you should already know this, but there is always a twist or a larger meaning. Many churches offer an open communion which, I don't necessarily disagree with, but I will if the pastor or ushers strongly imply that if you don't go up there you are wrong.

I've been searching for a good church for a while and I will tell you right now that if you go for the people in the congregation, you'll be stuck, because you'll feel like you'll offend the people you'll like. If you go for the words, you can rest assured that you can get along with the people. What amazes me, is that of all the places, only the people at one church understand my struggle for the search that I've set for myself. They wont guilt me into staying and won't argue with me, they just want to help and this is what makes me want to stay. As was at their alter, praying this Sunday and a man I know came up to me bowed his head and said quite loudly, "Lord, help him find his church." I know that I might just be pulling gold from a vat of manure, but it just feels right. I won't get lax and try to overlook the faults of the place, but I will say that the atmosphere feels great and I feel understood by more than just God. I'm glad for that place.

Fyisa

Fyisa is a man from Africa. He moved here, to America, many years ago when he was young. He's a smart and wise man, who has realized many things about life that I couldn't at first understand. When I first met him, I was 14 and in a dorm room with three other guys. He ran through the door and told me the greatest Hendonist inspired realization that I've came to understand. He told me that we only live once and the one thing that we need to do from beginning to end is enjoy ourselves and worry less about the small things. That we need to get as many friends as we can and as few enemies as possible. Live for our own happiness through making others happy. We must wake up every morning and decide what needs to be done and do what we want with out another person trying to hurt our happiness. That we must learn to accept all those who are here and appease everyone.

His thoughts stay with me today and grow. Fyisa would always be singing and telling stories about himself and life in general. He proposed many theories and among them, my favorite is his thoughts on clothing. He told me one day that he wished everyone was naked all the time. I kinda just sat there in the class room a little dazed and asked him why. He told me that if everyone was naked, there would be nothing to hide and fetishes would become extinct and people could only judge each other on what's there, not by what is not, like makeup or flashy clothes. People couldn't judge others harshly on appearance, because their physical flaws were visible. At first, yes it would be uncomfortable but, with time, it wouldn't be that big of a deal as everyone walked around with out their self-conscience mind controlling them to be who they were not. With time, no one would care about each other's appearance and rather, just judge others mentally.

I thought that this made no sense what so ever. Why would being nude make men any less sex-oriented. How would that change anything? Wouldn't this just make it impossible for some people to be happy, because their flaws were right there seen by all? I didn't know what to think, but i just knew that he just said what he thought.

Recently, this point was made up again as my language class; favorite author, David Sedaris, wrote in his book, Naked, about when he visited a nudist colony for a week. My friend made me read this article and I was very nostalgic as Mr. Sedaris pulled my thoughts to his time spent naked with the elderly (mainly). It reminded me of the African I knew, whose ideology was remarkably the same as the people who lived at the colony. I found it odd, how a these two related.

Even as I wondered if he was just using the same words as David Sedaris, I realized that no, Fyisa's thoughts went deeper and explored a much larger view of humanity. He was not just the guy who wanted to be naked, he was the guy who wanted to make others happy and wanted to end secrecy and hate. To this day, I'm sure Fyisa is just living to be happy for others, which makes me happy, because, I know that through him, others are too.