Changing Face of Marriage

As my 'domestic church' experience, I have seen the heard of love, forgiveness, and trust grow and flourish. In my own life I have experienced a great Church Family within my own family. Not only are my parents practicing catholics and have raised their three children as practicing and sending them through catholic schooling, my parents are active christians in that each and every day they live out the mission of Jesus Christ. On television and in movies I have seen that marriage can be tough. In one of the videos I watched today they talked and discussed the financial income between and married man and women. I have seen on television that many men become offended and embarrassed even when their wife makes more money than him. A man and a women should be equals in a marriage, one is better than the other and together they are compatable. I think that who ever, man or women, brings in the most income should not matter in a relationship, just that they love each other.
The idea that came from the study is that those with a college degree are less likely to experience divorce and multiple marriages than those without a college degree. This give me great hope for my marital future. One of my cons to getting married is the idea of divorce. I do not want to get divorced, ever. But I also don't want to live my life with my husband and I hating each other. This new statistic gives me hope and confirms that marriage is not 50-50 but 100-100. One day I would love to establish the domestic church in my home. Growing up in that type of household has been better than anything I could ever imagine and I wouldn't change it if I could. I hope to one day have a husband and family and to establish my own domestic church.

Papal Conclave

After visiting the Villa today and discussing the candidates for the new pope with the sisters, I think that some of the important issues to discuss are interacting and relating with today's youth, the sex abuse scandal, allowing women and even married men to be priests and leaning away for more traditional values. I think the Church needs to understand that the world is changing and that the traditional values from before need to be let go or just evolved into something more modern. As a women in the church, I think it is important to express our desire to become priests and show that we are capable of leading the church as well or even better than a man. If I could I would allow women and dedicated sisters to become priests and help out in the church with a more hands-on approach then they are able to now. One thing the cardinals pray for is that the Holy Spirit guide them in making the right decision. I think that not only the cardinals but every single member of the Catholic Church needs to pray to the Holy Spirit in asking for guidance.

Dating: What's the Point?

Referring to the assumption that dating is 'essentially practice for divorce', I do not agree. I believe that dating is a good way to get to know yourself as well as the type of person you wish to spend the rest of your life with. With my parents, they dated for many years before they decided to get engaged. Right now, many of my friends and my sisters are dating different people. Even though some of them don't even see themselves marrying and spending the rest of their lives with the person they are with right now, dating is still a good way for them to have a better understanding of who they are as a person and what type of qualities they desire in their partner. My sister is currently dating her 3 very serious boyfriend at the age of 25. Her first boyfriend was her high school sweetheart that followed her through college. In their senior year at PSU, they decided to take a break and see if there was something else out there for either of them. A few months later both of them had new partners. 

Relating to the hook-up culture, dating is different. Hooking-up is regarding to sexual encounters, where dating is simply hanging out if you will. I believe that two people can get to know each other, themselves, and who they want to spend the rest of their lives with by just hanging out and experiencing the people around them.

Gender and Dating Relationships

In this article the author was saying how many women use marriage and the ring as accessories. The author compared real-life marriage stories to the movies and how many women in the relationship want the ring - some even as an escape from love. I reflected on my parent's love stories as well as the other love stories we had heard in class. Each and every one stated that their love and their relationship is not like the movies. Relationships need work and time and commitment, something the movies do not show at all. I think the author made very good points in his article. His one story about how his girl friends didn't want to take their fiance's surname - it was too sexist and gender-dominant for them.  However, I believe that taking the man's name is traditional and nice, but I do understand that it is not for everyone. I liked how the couple agreed to both take each others names.
Compared to my families' experiences and my parents' love story, I think that my parents had it right. One thing my mom told me was that when her and my dad got engaged, all of their friends and families were like, "Finally!" because they had been dating for so long. Another thing is that the couple needs to talk about marriage and their  future life together. One women in the article stated that her and her boyfriend hadn't talked about it all because she wanted the proposal to be a surprise. I would want my proposal to be a surprise but that doesn't mean I don't have to talk to my future husband about it! Sure, you will know that you ARE getting engaged but when and where and how will all still be a mystery!

America the Beautiful

After watching this video and following Gerren Taylor through her story of starting modeling at a very young age, modeling as women twice her age, and then falling and ending her modeling career, I have learned many new impacts the modeling world can have on people. The modeling world has shown me that the industry is harsh.  Towards the end of the video when Gerren was in Milan to try to get booked for jobs, the women at the company told her she was obese and ugly and that they weren't looking for her to do the job. Being stick thin, Gerren was told she needed to lose weight around her hips, that in order for her to get the job she needed to become skinnier so they could save money by using less fabric. As a 12 year old, Gerren was hired for numerous modeling jobs; she knew she was beautiful and talented. As she got older, the industry kept denying her the jobs because they said she was 'too fat' and 'not pretty enough' bring her self-esteem and self worth plummeting down. I believe that my experience as a young women living in todays society has been altered by the ideals and expectations of society. I am constantly reminded that there are women prettier, skinnier, more talented, and smarter than me everywhere I turn.  It is having the confidence and the power to face those constant reminders and say that just being yourself is enough.

Becoming Who You Are

Parker talks about his life, his determination and success and his vocations in life. He explains that the concept of vocation is 'rooted in a deep distrust of selfhood.' He spoke about this deep-rootness of vocation crated a gap between who he was and who he was supposed to be, making living his own life hard for him. One thing Parker said that really struck me was that our vocation isn't a goal in our life that we need to work towards and eventually reach in order to feel whole, complete, like we have our mission in life. Our vocation is something each and every one of us already possess. Vocation comes from the voice within and calls us to be the person we were born to be, not a person that we need to change into becoming.

Parker continues to talk about how we often times spend the first half of our lives losing who we truly are, then we spend the second half of our lives trying to gain back who we are. He talks about his granddaughter and how he plans to take not of her as a small child and the things she says, does, believes, trusts, etc., then he will give it to  her when she becomes an teenager or a young adult to remind her who she really, truly is and how as a baby she was being her true self. This idea that we are who we need to be and who we are called to be in life is exactly who we are as a child. I can see that in my everyday life my ideas and my thoughts are conformed into the opinions of the people around me and the people in my life. After reading this passage I realized that what he has said is true. Throughout middle school and high school my beliefs and my ideas and opinions have been changed to please and agree with those around me. I realize that who I was and who I was trying to be was something completely different than who I am and who I am called to be. I need to refocus myself on my life, my beliefs, my ideas and my opinions to figure out who I truly am. I think it is ok for me to listen to the opinions and ideas of others to help form my own opinion, but completely changing mine to fit their mold of who they want me to be is not my vocation in life and not who God has called me to be.

Sources of Identidy

Many differ people, experiences and events have have affected my life and helped to shape me into the young lady I am. My biggest influence and the biggest mold that has shaped me is my family and most importantly my sisters. I have always been the baby, growing up with two older sisters and as the youngest cousin on either my mom or my dads side of the family. As the 'baby' of my family, my sisters have really helped to show me who and what kind of young women I can grow into. Even though my title as 'baby' immediately puts me as an adolescent, my sisters have done everything except baby me. As a child my sisters always encouraged me to do things independently because, as my babysitters, they weren't going to clean up my mess for me and they sure weren't going to get into trouble for it. Besides chores, my sisters have taught me to life lessons in how to treat myself, my friends and my family by being role models and examples of the woman I want to become. 

Another huge influence in my life has been soccer and the girls I have spend the last 9+ years playing with. Soccer has helped to shape me into the woman I am today because it is a team sport. It has taught me teamwork, communication, dedication and perseverance. The game is just one part of it, the 18 other players I have grown up with in the process are really the mold that has made me into who I am. These players, my best friends, from FC Delco have been through everything with me. We got to travel all over the place for different tournaments such as Virginia, New York, Florida, Ohio and even California. With out this sport and my teammates I would not be the Lisa we know today.

My friends are another giant influence in my life. They have grown up with me and been through experiences and events in my life that I can't even explain. We have spent weeks straight with each other, months apart and gone to school together for the past 13 years. Our families are basically all one and our memories always interlace. My friends have taught me about friendship and the meaning of it. They have helped me through many tough times in my life and I have done the same for them. Together we have been through it all. They have taught me that walking behind someone is good, leading in front of someone is good, too, but that there is nothing greater than having best friends walking right beside you.