Seananigans

Hey guys.. haven't written in awhile, but I want you guys to goto Derek's blog... the post about Donald Miller and discussion. read it, think about, talk to us.

http://www.derekeacho.blogspot.com

I probably had the best birthday ever since maybe my birthday when i was 5 and i had a "B.B. cake" with my soccer team. No, this even tops that.

Ok, so this is what happened. Besides getting 25 messages in facebook saying "Happy Birthday Sean! Hope it awesome!!!!!" and people saying "Happy Birthday... i saw it on facebook.." the nights events were awesome.

I wasn't sure what was going on, but I had a feeling something was going to happen. The guys (Derek, J.P., Ethan, Joe) took me out to dinner at the Hong Kong restraunt and the people sung me happy birthday AND HIT A GONG! Ethan paid... sweet. And they took a picture of us "LOOK near the bathroom at the center front" if you ever go there to eat.

THEN, we go to Katy Station, a restraunt/bar and Trey meets us there and he buys me a Margarita and they give me a free "birthday shot" which consisted of Bacardi 151, Yagar, and wine (Heith says its called a Dirty Nazi). Ryan Hawking and Lindsay Best drop in and we all chat for a little bit then go back to my apt.

WHERE I walk into my apartment only to be surprised the crap out of by 35 people. Wow! Grace and Marisa and Megan Helmey (I think) made me some cooooool t-shirts. One with my name on it, and they all had "I love Sean" shirts they snuck on. And another t-shirt saying "nerd." because I told them how cool it would be if I had a shirt that said that in regards to all the girls that have the "I love nerds" shirts so therefor, I could point to my shirt. And say "hey, IM A NERD!@".

It was great.. everyone was awesome. Amanda Morrison got me some Margarita, limes, and a cup (SWEET), I got Twister dance moves (ladies beware) I got cookies, yes!, and a lot of other gifts (thanks everyone). It was great. So thank you everyone who helped make it an incredible 21st. It was a blast.. I won't forget it!

This summer I plan on doing an extensive reading 'program', if you want to call it that. After taking all of these philosophy classes, it has forced me to realize the little that I know, and I now have just a thirst for knowledge. So I've been telling everyone around me my plans for this summer. Not only do I want to read a wide range of topics, but I bought a bunch of folders for filing, and my plans are to write about the books I read (presented problems, questions that arise for me, etc..) and put them into files for later use.

These are the book topic ideas so far:
-Epistemology
-Learning how to Learn
-Psychology
-Christian theology (Johnathan Edwards, John Piper, C.S. Lewis..)
-Newspapers (current events)
-Pop-culture / Fashion (T.V, internet, movies, cellphones..)
-About: Literature, science, math, art
-Poets: Shakespeare, Thoreau, Milton
-Free-will - Sartre, Neitschze, Kierkagaard
-History

But I think central to this all is The Bible, for this I believe is the lens through which other books should be examined.

This is my plan. Other than working, and trying to stay healthy, I really want to dive into a lot of books. I'm inspired by my dads retelling of Bob Dylans autobiography where when he was about my age, he stayed at a guys house who had a large library. And he would just read anything and everything. And when the time came as a songwriter, he has so many sources to draw from that it just flowed out of him. Not to say I am going to write songs, I just want to fill my head with literature rather than T.V. I want to know what is out there (the world), so that I can make the most of my experience here. I want to know what kind of problems the world is facing. I don't want to revert to ignorance.

If anyone has any ideas about book ideas, ways to help me structure some kind of reading plans, comments about why you think this is a dumb/good idea - let me know...

Taking these 3 philosophy classes has taken my mind down this windy road. It has been extremely challenging to say the least. Learning about Hobbes, Descartes, and Bacon takes me to the realm of questioning everything. Existence itself. What we see, feel, touch, taste, hear. It forces me to look at my own beliefs (or lackthereof). It challenges me to look anew at my former conceptions. It makes me want to start over. In a later post I want to explain what my plans are for this summer in regards to all of this. It involves an extensive plan of reading.

Don't let the title of this post scare you. I think its important.

Ok some ideas.. for things to happen productively you have to have a vision of it beforehand. You create in your mind this goal, this idea of what you want accomplished. After having a clear goal in mind, the next step is to put it into exercise. Put the effort into getting the desired goal you want. It is a basic rule of reaping what you sow. But you have to know what you want before you can go after it.

This rule applies to all areas of life, but I want to apply it to CRU. What we need in CRU is vision. We need people in CRU who have a vision for wanting to make a difference and have CRU as a resource for doing this. We need people (like Matt Luna and others) who have a desire for wanting to be used and wanting to do things. The first thing we need is vision. Lets establish that.

The next thing is casting this vision to others. Getting people on to the idea of what you want to do. Getting people involved who have hearts for this. For anything to actually work in the long run, you will NEED support. People who want to help. People to encourage when things don't work out exactly the way you wanted it to. People who are committed.

Then, it is actually exercising the vision. Putting things into effect. You caught onto the desired vision, now you want to actually implement it. Its the actual work. What are ideas and vision, if it isn't actually put into use? It's great to have fantastical ideas, but if you don't actually do anything with those ideas what is going to happen? Nothing.

It's great that we meet up for lunch everyday. I think its great that CRU has events and frisbee. But if we aren't talking about what we want (vision) to come of things, we are just meeting. Their is no agendas other than seeing your friends, and its not necessarily accomplishing anything. If we want non-Christians or just other people in general to come into our group, we have to talk about that first. Say, hey.. this is what we want. Be specific. Then tell others about it. Then do it.

Texas State University campus life. Is it wierd to say that I like to watch people?

I don't want to compare our campus to other campuses, but this is what I see... Our campus is small. We have a few organizations and many fraternities/sororities. If Greek life isn't your bag, it appears like there isn't a lot else out there for you.

There are Christian organizations, and a few school organizations like SACA, Freshmen Class Council, etc.. This is what I observe.. there isn't much to offer as far as things to be involved in. I think this attributes to a lot of people's sense of disconnect.

Where do people spend their spare time? Watching television, playing video games, chatting on AIM, talking on their cell phones. Oh, and then there is homework right? ..Right?

Unfortunately, I don't think our campus is challenging enough, engaging enough. There aren't enough things going on and things to be involved in for people to feel connected. This attributes to student apathy. I think one of the coolest things one of my teachers this semester said that will stay with me is this, "When I went to Oxford I didn't have to force myself to think how lucky I was. The walls bespoke it." The halls were decorated with ancient art and there was this sense of nostalgia there. It conduced an atmosphere of wanting to learn. The students had a zeal and passion for learning.

Here our attitudes are more like, "ehh...". We didn't have to work that hard to get into Texas State (or was it SWT then?). I came to school here having no idea what I wanted. For me it was just the next step after highschool. I did know I wanted to get out of the house away from my parents, but other than that I didn't have super high ambitions.

I need a sense of involement, that is probably why my last two posts have been on community. I need a sense of connectedness. Despite what our individualistic culture says, we need people. We need love and acceptedness. Being alone is never good. That is one of the first things God ever said.

"It is not good for man to be alone."

I told you I was going to post more about this.

CRU is in the developmental stages of a community. I guess I used to look at it as an outsider looking in, but now the more involvement I have in it, the more I see it as a growth in progress.

It's interesting and very cool that at about 12 pm pretty much every school day, a huge group of CRUstians gather together to eat at the Den occupying at least 3-4 connected tables. This gathering is not questioned, it is expected. Everyone meets and eats, and laughs and drinks.

Other than that, we have our actual CRU meetings on Thursday, then Taco Cabana, then Ultimate frisbee. All occuring on Thursday evenings. This is where the hub of our community is found. The 7:30 meeting is where EVERYONE who affiliates themselves with CRU (and others visiting) meets up to gather.

From there, there are small group Bible studies, aka 242 groups where we are instilled more personally, Biblical knowledge and what it means to follow Christ. And there is also Journeymen, for more personalized training in evangelism, personal growth, and discipleship.

Anyways, my point of this post is simply to show that we are just in the beginning stages of building a true community. Its not like someone actually laid forth a plan and said, "ok, this is what we are doing.. here is the vision of what our Christian community should look like.." and ready, set, go do it.

No, on the contrary, most of this has formed out of boredom or just we randomly gathered. It's interesting how we kind of just assemble. But thats another story.

BUT, and my final point is that I think community is extremely important. It gives us not only something to do, but a place to belong. Also, we get support from others when we are down, we get encouragement when we need it. We have people that care about us, and want to be a part of our lives. It gives us things to do. We are inspired by those around us, and we all have the common bond and love of Christ.

I want to share this story that I read about a week ago. I'm not going to be able to tell it in exact detail, but the point of it is a pretty interesting one anyways. It is about community.

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A long time ago there was this monastary. This monastary was dying. There were only five active monks in it, and no one came to see them. The monks didn't know what to do. If they didn't do something soon, the monastary would end forever.

As it came upon them, one of the monks remembered hearing that there was this rabbi who, from time to time, would stop in at this hermitage a few miles outside of their monastary. So one of the monks thought, "maybe this rabbi can give us some advice." So he traveled and eventually found the rabbi.

When talking with the rabbi, the monk explained to them their situation. "Look, our monastary is dying. There are only 5 of us left including me" he said. "What can we do?". Well the rabbi counseled him and told him he didn't know what they could do. So the two talked a bit more, and they cried and prayed together, hoping that something would change. They read some portions of the Bible, and had some deep conversations, but when it was time to go, the monk was still saddened. "Isn't there any ideas or advice you can give us rabbi?", the monk said. The rabbi just shook his head and said he was sorry. As the monk decided to part and head back home, the rabbi commented, "There is just one thing. The Messiah is one of you". And that was it. They parted and the monk went back to the monastary.

When the monk got back, the other monks immediately came up to him and asked what advice the rabbi gave him. He told them that the rabbi and him had a long deep conversation and that they had cried and prayed together. He did say as we were leaving something strange, though. He told me that the Messiah is one of us. Isn't that strange?

Well the monks talked amoungst themselves about this. They really started to wonder what this meant. Could the rabbi be serious? Is one of us really the Messiah they asked? Could it be Brother Snider... he certainly is a great man. Full of energy and zest. Maybe its Brother Arnold, he definently is a holy man after God's own heart.. It can't be Brother Jeb because he is just so crude sometimes... but then again he has a knack for always being there for others when there are down.. maybe it is him. Maybe its me, one said.

After this, they all started treating each other with just a deep respect and admiration, for certainly one of them could be the Messiah--they just didn't know which one. As this went on, some people from a nearby town came in one day just to visit, and saw these monks interacting with each other, and just the deep respect and reverence they had for one another. They were in awe of this, and when they got back they told their friends, then those friends went, and were equally impressed and they told their friends. Eventually they had a mount of people coming to their monastary and after some time, a few even started asking how they could be monks.

And the monastary was revived.

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I think this is just an awesome story about community. I want to leave this story for the few of you that read and just really use your imagination when thinking about this. Imagine a community like this. How amazing it could be... What if we thought one of us CRU guys or girls was the Messiah? Would that change how we treated each other? Think about this in regards to community. Think how powerful a true community after God can be..

I want to talk alot more about community, and these ideas, because I am starting to really value that, and can see how important something like this can be. Stay tuned.