We're Moving!

Okay, here's the lowdown.  This is not an entirely easy decision for me, but Magic, Ink, and Dreams/Ginger and Rubies/Marcmire is losing its usefulness.  I've been watching other people transition to new blogs and I just sort of goggled them in bewilderment.  Their new blog wasn't radically different from their old one – why didn't they just overhaul their old one?

But now I think I understand.

This blog is kind of a mess.  Like a journal you've been using for a long time, it's falling apart at the seams and contains a lot of different material.  I've "overhauled" it a couple different times and I'm just not happy with it.  It's too cluttered and messy.  Only a complete demo and rebuild would do, I feel like – but there's still some good material here.

So while I'm trying to decide what to do with "Marcmire" (returning to "Magic, Ink, and Dreams" is an option I'm considering – theme as well as title), I've started a new blog.

"[Experience] Our Hearts [Wholly] Unhindered" is partially a more serious blog and partially a more grown-up blog.  "Our Hearts Unhindered" (working title?) will be for those posts I have written and will write that address real world problems, such as Busting Franciscan Myths, Ridiculous Facebook, Confidence Quotes, and perhaps re-blogged articles from other blogs (with the proper attribution).

If I continue to use this blog, it will be for the other stuff – the stuff that reads like I threw-up on the page; the stuff that is just my geeky, awkward, spazzy little brain letting off steam.

One main problem I have with this blog is my audience.  I'm not too sure that I really have one anymore; my stats have jumped into unbelievable numbers, but I'm fairly convinced these page views are mainly bots crawling my pages.  And what's more, I think most of my "audience" is either still in that blogging phase that I've left behind, or has moved on and left me behind.  Either way, I've lost my audience.

And what's more, I want more out of blogging.  I want to reach people and get comments by people who come to my blog for a specific topic I've written about – and not just because I'm in a blogosphere of young writers journaling about their lives and getting super excited reading about others' lives.  That was fun once, but I honestly don't have time to read posts about the daily walk you took this morning.  Not unless it has a point.

And I don't need that kind of outlet anymore.  (Praise my Heavenly Daddy for His blessings these past few years.)

So… to those of my loyal readers who still keep up with this blog, this post is for you.  Thank you bunches, and I'll try to keep this updated with random thoughts that come to mind – but it's getting harder to do.  I used to write about things that happened in my daily life, but it didn't used to necessitate hiding identities or trying to be vague to avoid embarrassment.

But at the same time, "Our Hearts Unhindered" isn't the place for spazzing – and sometimes I want to.  So the future of "'Marcmire'" is unclear.  As you are the one who reads this stuff, I'd love to hear what you think – if indeed, "you" exist.

And that's how that goes.

The address of the new place is http://ourheartsunhindered.blogspot.com if you wanna check it out and give me feedback (if you want to comment on appearance or anything not directly related to the posts there, please comment back here).  It's a work in progress and it's not officially "published" yet, so to speak, but it should be ready soon.

Thank you, anyone and everyone, for reading anything I've written over the years.  I've come a long way… and it still awes me to think about it.  Truly, I could not be more grateful for how far I've come.

~Meggy

Busting Franciscan Myths

"I mean, I'm mostly going to college to find a husband."

Don't come to Franciscan.  According to THIS SITE and one other, the boy/girl ratio is between 40/60 and 30/70.  There are a lot of girls.  A lot of girls, especially compared to so few guys!

I know: "I'm hoping to find a good Catholic husband, so where better than at a great Catholic college?"  Yeah, well, good theory, but Catholicism doesn't come with automatic awesomeness.  It'd be nice if it did, wouldn't it?  You may know a person who is Catholic and seemingly devout but has so many character flaws you wish they were atheist so you could "convert" them.  From my view on this campus, Franciscan seems to be the preferred and chosen college for this type of person.

Smoking and drinking are not foreign to this campus.  You have to know the right people in order to get really stoned, but it's not hard to find them – just listen to the right people talking about, well, the wrong people.  Smokers stand outside every building.  …Not constantly, but you'll see a few on a daily basis if you're paying attention.

Smoking is not inherently evil, so far as I can figure (although I hear tell that cigarettes are really, really bad for you).  But it has been my limited experience that most of the guys standing outside in "smoking rings" on a regular basis – cigarettes, cigars, or pipes – are charter members of the group of guys that smart girls are learning not to dream about.

So smoking is directly related to weak character?  Well, no, I can't prove that.  It could be that the majority of the campus male population is of weak character; in which case, it would naturally follow that the campus male smoker population would be largely dominated by this type….  After all, there are plenty of stay-away-from-hims that don't smoke or drink every Friday night.

But that's just a taste of what you'll find on the Franciscan campus.

City on a hill?  Salt of the earth?  Light of the world?  Certainly, all those things.  The Franciscan Friars are so adorable and so powerful and so life changing/challenging.  The witness of a chapel full of young adults singing to God four Masses a Sunday, three a weekday is breathtaking.  Perpetual Adoration, Students for Life, The Harmonium Project, Red Light Ministry… and whatever else we have going on 'round here – sometimes it's hard to keep track of it all.

At the same time, we've got Households that are known more for their off-campus parties than for their spirituality; we have sexual assault investigations and guys banned from certain all-girl's dorms; we've had students kicked out for drug activity; there are Freshman couples hooking up within the first one or two weeks of school and breaking up because one or the other is "struggling with their spirituality;" we're overflowing with flirt action hidden under the pick-up line: "I want to guard your heart."  (See THIS page for campus crime statistics.)

Finding a man on campus?  The majority of the girls in my acquaintance who will be graduated this year are going out into the world without marriage plans, without an engagement ring, without even a boyfriend.  A lot of relationships that happen are not particularly mature or prepared for marriage.  Yes, there is the occasional sophomore marriage – but believe me, it looks more insane than it does romantic.  A lot of people collapse, after a long day here, among their closest friends, and admit, "This place is like high school all over again."

If you want diversity, you won't find it here.  There are only a few black people; most people are moderately chill Catholics split about equally between the charismatics and… not charismatics; a lot of geeks and nerds, as well as geek and nerd wannabes; hardcore partiers and smokers, rebels, and cool people are the severe minority; and then there are the small populations of blatantly "traditional" Catholics and "full-length-skirt-addicts."  Most people more or less dress the same – the jocks and drama queens being pretty much the only exception – and frisbee is the thing.

Babies are cute; friars and other religious are celebrities; discernment into religious life merits a huge celebration; and a day when it isn't raining is everyone's dream.

Oh – and I should mention the huge homosexual community.

In some respects, it's just like any other campus.

But a good girl with all her ideals intact… is more likely to get hurt here.

See, the bad guys here are hidden because everyone goes to Mass, signs up for an Adoration hour, goes to Theology classes, and has some kind of "lightning bolt of providence" story.  And I'm sure these guys are essentially good people – they're just stupid when it comes to relationships.  So they lure you in with tales of their struggles for holiness – and then they just stop talking to you.  Or worse.  (And then the respective Households get involved….  It can be messy.)

Brother-sister relationships abound.  Which I'm happy about – I'm putting together a whole family over here!  But girls actively seeking their knight-in-shining armor get hurt real fast.

So if you're going to college for your MRS degree, you may want to look elsewhere.  I mean, my philosophy is to not look for an MRS degree.  I think they're earned on a basis of merit, not effort.  More like a scholarship.  I like that – a scholarship to life: 'The MRS Scholarship, funded by Heavenly Father.'

But I digress.

Franciscan University has a lot of problems.  And there are days where the only reason I'm still here….  It's Catholic.  And if you are honestly doing your best to follow God and discern His plan for your life, you can find a very supportive and healthy spiritual community here.  For all its flaws, this school is run on the idea that you can leave this place with a stronger relationship with Christ and a solid foundation to fall back on.  So far, I'm finding that part of the school to be excellent (though it obviously isn't perfect).  And I've got a pretty good head on my shoulders and a lot of grace on my side, thank God.

I've slowly been changing my perspective.  I have to assume that I just might not leave this school on the arm of a man.  With that in mind, I think I can get the most out of and give the most to this school.

But yeah, girls shouldn't come here assuming that their degree won't be terribly important when they graduate – it may be the only thing they have to live on when they leave this place.

~Meggy

The Talking Phase

"We're Just Talking"

By JD Gunter

Talking

One of the unique opportunities I have attending seminary, after ten years of marriage, is discipling young men who are single or dating. One of the disadvantages, however, is not being current on the lingo.

This struck me in a recent conversation with a friend who told me he had gone out several times with a young lady and was uncertain about the status of the relationship. Curious, I asked him if he was planning on continuing to date this girl.

“You misunderstand,” he said, “we aren’t dating – we’re just talking.”

“Talking?” I replied, a little confused, “you mean like we’re talking right now.”

“No,” he explained, “we’re at the stage of the relationship just before dating. It’s called talking.”

Dumbfounded and feeling a little old and disconnected, I decided to investigate this new pre-dating phenomenon. “Talking,” I discovered, is a widely accepted stage in current guy/girl relationships wherein a young man and a young woman get to know each other without better defining the relationship. This isn’t even a real stage of the relationship; it’s a pre-stage. They’re not just friends; they’re not really dating or pursuing marriage; they’re “talking.”

After these conversations, I was left with the question: Do we really need another stage in relationships that are directed toward marriage?

Shirking Responsibility

Our culture suffers from a large number of males wallowing around in quasi-manhood for many years. Boys used to grow up, get a job, and move out of the house. But we have inserted this chain of life stages from adolescence, to the college years, to early career, and so on – all of which permit young men to put off growing up, taking responsibility, and generally acting like a man.

This new phase of pre-dating called “talking” is like adolescence for relationships: an unnecessary stage in the relationship allowing young men to avoid taking responsibility and acting like men. It prevents the man from having to be clear about his intentions to pursue or end the relationship. If he wants to stop “talking,” he simply walks away, leaving behind a confused, and potentially wounded, young lady.

John Piper defines biblical masculinity as, “a sense of benevolent responsibility to lead, provide for and protect women in ways appropriate to a man’s differing relationships.”[1] It is the responsibility of the man to take a leadership role in relationships, to be forthright, honest, and clear about his intentions. This “talking” phase normalizes relationship without responsibility; closeness without clarity; cultural manhood, not biblical manhood.

The young ladies I’ve spoken to share this frustration. They are left in a state of relational limbo, where they are unsure of the young man’s intentions and the purpose of the relationship. They are stuck going on non-dates with guys who are scared to date.

In their defense, guys tell me they are afraid to ask a lady out because she might immediately assume he wants to marry her. I understand the concern, but that does not change the need for character – it makes it all the more necessary.

Intentionality Is a Way to Serve Sisters in Christ

First, you should ask girls out that you see as potential wives. Second, when you don’t see her as a potential wife any longer, explain yourself and then stop asking her out. Third, throughout the relationship be clear, upfront, and honest about your intentions. If you just want to get to know her better, tell her so. If you see this relationship turning into something more serious, tell her that too. If you think she’s a great girl but don’t want to pursue the relationship further, tell her! That’s the kind of “talking” that should characterize the relationship.

If things don’t work out, and if you’ve acted like a true man, you’ve gotten to know a sister in Christ better and helped prepare her to meet her future husband. If things do work out, congratulations, you’re married. Those are the only two options for a man of God.

If you are a young man intimidated by the prospect of intentionally pursuing a young woman as a wife, seek the Lord in fervent prayer. Search your heart and your intentions to ensure they are grounded in the gospel and informed by Scripture. With your conscience clear before the Lord and your heart and mind shaped by His word, stand confident in the care of your heavenly Father (and hers) and speak boldly to your sister in Christ. Our God is a God of truth, and your sister in Christ deserves to know the truth from you.

If you are a young lady stuck with a guy who isn’t interested in pursuing you but expects your prolonged time and attention as he “talks” to you, ask yourself if this is the type of indecisive boy-man you want to follow for the rest of your life. It is impossible to follow someone who will not lead. Find a man who will treat you as a sister in the Lord deserves to be treated: with honesty, integrity, and clarity.

It’s time to kiss “talking” goodbye. Our brothers and sisters in Christ deserve better than this.

http://cbmw.org/men/manhood/were-just-talking/