Analyzing a Blog

Jacob Gay
Dibacco
English 201
25 February 2009
Understanding Change: New Beginnings from Old Testaments

Third grade was the year for me. My sister was so involved with Crossroads Christian Church. She attended each Sunday and participated in many Wednesday studies. She influenced me and my mother to start going to Crossroads. Even though the church is gigantic, especially for a chubby, short kid, I soon developed new friendships and met a lot of interesting people. It was the same for Lumanor in her blog, Citetez.

Every Sunday was a day to look forward to. I would eat too many doughnuts and bagels to the point where even God found it unholy. Church had its perks without the highly saturated fat. I would play this Bible game for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Not the Nintendo 64 or the Gamecube or the Wii. Crossroads kept it old school (either that or the Bible games got blown away by animated rocket launchers and machine guns).

I forget the main objective of the game. All I know is that you could walk around town and jump on things while talking to people about Jesus. It made religion adventurous. It was like a holy war for a little kid who rides his bike around and screams Bible verses at old people.

Lumanor went to church for a different reason. “My nearly 13 year marriage had been troubled for a very long time - pretty much since the 2nd year. And one of the biggest reasons it lasted as long as it did was religion. It was morally wrong to get a divorce (Lumanor 1 paragraph 4).” She writes on, “About 6 months before I made the decision to contact a lawyer and truly get my divorce going, there was a very dark time in my marriage in which I wanted to separate. I was mostly getting guidance from church folk, whose message was ‘stay at all costs’.” She wanted to listen to herself instead of a book, though (Lumanor 1 Paragraph 5).

She soon left the church to follow her own path, just like I did my freshman year of high school. I started to realize that a man being swallowed by a big fish isn’t too likely. I also thought that if God has the power to do anything, why wouldn’t he make everyone Christian? There is no point in Earth if Heaven exists. Everyone would want to live there. It’s like telling someone that they will live in a mansion after living in the dumpster at the back of Hooters if they do good deeds. I just want the mansion.

Not everyone agrees with that, though. Whenever I left church, there wasn’t a massive following of ex-followers following me out. That might be a tongue twister, but I lost my church friends. Surely they weren’t just hanging out with me because I had a prominent voice during prayer, but I guess that was overestimated.
It just became awkward after that. Recently the music minister called me and asked to go out to lunch, but it is just sort of hard to explain that I don’t really fit in with Jesus anymore. Lumanor writes, “I will admit right now, I don't really keep in touch with my former church friends. After I'd stopped going, I did received a few phone calls here and there but honestly the talks were uncomfortable to me and so a bit stilted. I didn't have it in me to explain things very well, and so I didn't (Lumanor 2 Paragraph 2).” I blamed not going for a funeral. She blamed hers on a divorce.

Her blog really made me feel like there are more people like me. She is very humble to say that she just runs on emotions. She makes a lot of good points as well. The Bible, at times, can seem very outdated to current day standards. She mostly writes for friends, but it seems to be that anyone can relate to her situation. She lost her guide, or the bible, when she decided to leave her church. After that mishap, Lumanor figured out the most interesting thing in life: there is a lot more to figure out.