For the Beauty of the Earth

Wow. I randomly went with some friends to Folly Beach last night to go watch the sunrise. It was absolutely amazing. The colors were so rich and the companionship was awesome. I really would like to do it again. I truly enjoyed it. It is amazing how beautiful the sunrise is and how special God made it. Maybe I should try catching it more often.

As for the evening, I was almost constantly attached to one of my friends. It was pretty funny. For the first half, my friend Steph clung t0 me. she wasn't feeling really well so she stayed home, yet for the second half my friend Kate kept me warm. Don't worry nothing happened. I feel as if it strengthened both friendships, especially this morning when Kate said, "Wow, you really are amazing, even though you may have been attached to a girl all night, you never once took advantage of it. Most guys would have at least claimed that their hand slipped." Well that is one way of looking at it. I feel as if you must always respect one another. Especially close friends. Why couldn't all my friendships be that simple? Oh well. As for now, I need some sleep. Amazing how staying up all night can make you tired. Hehe.

Well God Bless,
ForeverSearching77

Now just for my mass transfer exam

Well the good news. It is only 1 am and my group has finished its mass transfer project. Yay... Absorption towers are very annoying, and I don't want to think about it again for a while... Lets hope that there is not one on the final tomorrow/today at 2pm. In the meanwhile, I will probably wake up around 10am to study for that exam. Wish me luck.

In the meanwhile, I was thinking. I just wish I could go back to the days of innocence. Back to the days when girls were girls and guys were guys. Everyone knew that girls had cooties and you should avoid them. Those were the days when the biggest worry was that horses would knock down your earthen made dam in the woods or that you would be challenged to a neighborhood water war. Oh how fun those days were.

I wish that I didn't have cares like that nowadays. It is too much to have to try and figure out how to design an absorption tower when you get a height of almost 200ft. That is just too dang large. Pardon my engineering side. Then Hysys disagrees and gives you a value of just 6 ft. Very annoying.

As for girls, one would not have the problem of trying to figure out what others think of you. I absolutely hate it when they say one thing and mean something entirely different. It also annoys me when they say what they should have done and ask what you would have done in that instance. Some things just can't be changed in time. Sure I am probably bad with this too... but its my blog.

More often than not, I do think it would be cool to start a men's group on campus that is formed to develop strong friendships and a stronger faith. A male catholic group would absolutely rock. I think I am going to try and do that come next fall. It would be neat, and definitely a great retreat from this female dominated world. One only wonders why Jesus remained single. JK. Anyways, I need some sleep before I say too much or get others upset with me. Let me know what you think anyway. Any solutions to anything would be great.

ForeverSearching77

EXAMS

Yay for exams!!! Not really. The past two weeks have been absolutely jam packed with loads of schoolwork and almost no time for relaxation. Even after the senior dinner I wasn't able to go relax. Instead it was straight down to swearingen for several exciting hours of Mass Transfer homework. We have a huge project due tomorrow when we take our final and it is absolutely incredibly long. I have spent more hours down here in the past three days than I have in a long while. So it gets pretty boring staring at the concrete walls.

In the meanwhile, I didn't even bother staying for Newman last night. I was too tired to even attend a meditation period. Instead I slept on one of the couches before returning back to Swearingen. One would think that I live in the engineering world.

As for our final, it should be four questions and rather long. I am not looking forward to it as it will take 3 hours, but afterwards a trip to the beach with some friends to watch the sunrise is in order. I have already finished all my other work and the next exam that I have is on Saturday morning, so I am not worried at all about it. Especially because it is my Differential Equations course which has been a joke all semester. Every day I am becoming more and more convinced that the only majors requiring actual work are engineering ones. More so chem E. As I know that I practically live down in Swearingen. Liberal arts majors just get on my nerves sometimes ;-). But such is life. Oh well, I better get going so that I can get a little more Mass transfer in. Fun Fun. Maybe I will see you again soon... That is if I ever escape this concrete prison.

ForeverSearching77

This says it all

Last Week

First off, I met a really cool guy from Italy last week. One of my friend G's Italian friends Paolo was in town and we all went out for dinner and then ice cream. It was awesome. We decided to get gelato instead which was really good. Not as much cream and it just tastes better than ice cream. It was a great night and I really enjoyed getting to share tales of Italy and foreign cultures. Americans are simply not educated very well in European or World History/Culture. I really felt stupid when talking to them. Truthfully, I couldn't have told you why India and Pakistan are such arch rivals or why Italians think they are above the law until the other night.

In other things, I took a cool picture of one of the Horseshoe plaques. In September 1987, Pope JPII actually came to Columbia and gave his blessing on USC. He said, "It is wonderful to be young, it is wonderful to be young and to be a student, it is wonderful to be young and to be a student of the University of South Carolina." Only a year ago this week was his funeral and burial. That was and still is one of the most emotional events of my life. He was everyone's pope and I think the Church is very grateful for what he had done. Just try and remember him in your prayers this week.

As for me, I decided to take a break and have gone home for the weekend. It really is nice and I look forward to getting more sleep. So I must be off. Good Night.

ForeverSearching77

Ideas for NC

Well, now that I have mentioned some of our weaknesses, I have compiled several ideas for what we could do. (Some of these have been said by others)

Others Ideas:
Include Scripture into each meeting, perhaps starting the meetings with a reading
Have testimonies regularly, or perhaps after Mass,
Discuss key saints perhaps a Saint of the Week,

My ideas:
More Praise and Worship (better songs, contemporary Christian)
Continue the Bible Studies,
Start a couple one-on-ones, *involves the pastor greatly*
Lots more prayer, (Rosary or office of the hours)
Create a vision of where we are going with the meetings
Perhaps start a Discipleship Training group
Emphasize humility (not quite sure how, but I think that this would really help. I feel as if others have left due to a sense of pride, where they see us as condescending)

Well any others? Please let me know what you think.

ForeverSearching77

Newman

I just have to spew for a little bit, so here are some of my thoughts.

Following the weekend, it was really made clear to me that our Newman club lacks a vision. Sure we have a mission statement, which reads "We, the Catholic students at the University of South Carolina, strive to strengthen our relationship with Jesus Christ in the Catholic Christian tradition, and to spread the Good News of life in Christ with our campus community through prayer, faith-sharing, fellowship and service." We had updated this in the fall and had promised to try and follow it closely. I would simply like to evaluate how we are doing in my opinion.

First off, we have maintained a strong group at the University and do have an appearance on campus. However I am not sure how much we actually are striving to strengthen our relationship with Christ. It was pointed out to me that often at our meetings we focus on the Church's doctrine. I am not against church doctrine, but we focus again more on the idea as opposed to the person (see previous post). As for spreading the Good News of life in Christ, I don't think we do this a lot. Certainly we celebrate Mass, but often NC can be elitist, where you have to do this in order to be a good Catholic. People aren't excited about their faith, and aren't ready to share it with others.

Another good quote said this weekend, "You can't have 2 without 1." The question is, what are we doing with the 1 that is coming? I think we establish the Church's tradition and reasons behind it, but we fail to show people how to pray or the power of a direct relationship with Christ. I myself have fallen victim to this and it was made very clear to me over the weekend. Faith needs to be personal.

The next point discusses through faith-sharing. Certainly every once in a while there is a speaker who gives a testimony, and we do have 3 very active Bible Studies, but there is nothing regular in our meetings or at Mass. Maybe that would be something to try out.

Finally through fellowship and service. I think we have these down. If you don't believe me, look at this past weekend, I drew very close to some members of NC that I haven't gotten to know very well, but I did the same while in Biloxi with NC and I have always enjoyed our monthly dinners. They have gone well and I am glad that they have. It is easy to find Christ in others when you work together and just share Christ's love with each other.

May God grant you peace,
ForeverSearching77

ECI 2006

Sorry, but this will be a long post. :-)

I finally got back today from the Evangelical Catholic Institute at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. It was absolutely amazing. I picked up a lot of new info and new ideas and am really excited about implementing them. What is even cooler is that several of my friends were able to go to the conference as well. This year, I won't have to try and implement them as a student all by myself. There are others on board. Our pastoral associate was awesome in helping last year, but the other students lacked my vision. This time they have shared in it and I am very excited.

The Evangelical Catholic movement is clearly spreading within the United States and across the world. It is quite possibly going to be the future of the Church. Those students and youth who are excited about their faith will be ON FIRE and ready to share their faith. These same youth will further be leading the Church. It is really exciting.

The EC model focuses on several points. An Evangelical Catholic experiences a daily interior conversion and has a rich sacramental life. Further they engross themselves in a strong Christian Community and devote time to both the Word and Scriptures. It is through Prayer that they grow stronger in their faith. The emphasis upon EC is Christ and not apologetics. Often I find myself making this mistake. Too often I am focused on the little things and fail to see the big picture. I am focused on an idea and not a person.

Brad Klingle sp? from UW gave an awesome speech on this and in it he said, "A theist is someone who believes in God, a Christian is someone who believes Jesus is the Son of God, and a Catholic is someone who believes that Jesus is alive in His church." How true is that. I feel that often I forget this. My faith has been based on ideas and not the person, it is so off the right path. It is necessary to make Christ your best friend, if this happens then it is easy to share Him with others. Don't you always introduce your best friend to others? Christ needs to be our best friend.

I learned many other things as well. In specific I learned about leading one-on-one groups and Discipleship Training groups. Both of these things emphasize training disciples into becoming workers who will go and help in the fields. "The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest." Matthew 9:37-38.

Well more to come later.