OMG, my brain has been running on overload recently. That probably means I got stuff I need to get out of my head but have just been reluctant to. Ahhhh.... That said, there have been some really cool developments over here recently. On one hand I've been training so much here that I think I'm about to break. Just a little more though, I'm about to hit a couple of events which will give me a chance to take a break anyway. First, Peter comes to visit Cali. next week, and then, two weeks later, I'll be in VA visiting peoples. It's kinda crazy in that I think Mark is now officially bigger than me. I mean, he's always been taller than me, but I think he has a few pounds on me now. Don't worry though, I'll still kick his ass if it comes to it. Someone has to keep that boy in line. Freakin' bear.
So I went and did Baha'i stuff this weekend. That was interesting. At a basic level, it felt good to be involved with the community since I hadn't been in a while. Saturday was our cluster reflection meeting, and Sunday we went door to door teaching in a couple communities in San Jose. Door to door teaching is a very strange animal. I thought I was going to absolutely hate it. Naturally, there's a part of me that hates the idea of taking my ideas and forcing them on others. I mean, it's not forcing really, but still, it triggers that feeling. In practice, it's pretty respectful, we're like "Hey, we're from the baha'i faith, and we're in the neighborhood giving people the opportunity to learn about the baha'i faith." If they say no, they're marked on the list as "not interested" and that is that. It's a lot easier than I expected it to be. People were all generally pretty nice. I think my final opinion on it is that it's not my favorite thing in the world, but I now know I can do it.
The thing that came out of that that I was really interested in was the idea of starting a youth group. It's weird, but we have children's classes galore, and we have pre-youth groups, but we don't have a youth group put together. That's so not gangsta, that's not gangsta at all. I think establishing a firm baha'i identity in those young adult years is critical so that as they get older, they don't stray totally away. I think a certain amount of straying happens anyway, so one has to take precautions. So anyway, just talking with one of the youths, Ryan, I threw out the idea of starting such a group. We'll see if that pans out, I've mainly just offered to be the adult sponsor, I guess it's up to the youth to actually move on it. Even if it's just a few kids to start, that would be cool, but I'm excited by the prospects. We'll see where all this goes.
So, consider this part one in a series of braind dumps. There's been a lot on my mind recently, let's see if I can get it all out before my finder get sore from typing.