Assignment #5: The Speaker :)

     I greatly enjoyed spiritual emphasis week. I think that everything Andy had to say was what needed to be heard. My favorite day was Thursday when he spoke about how ideas have consequences. He showed the clips and played the songs and it helped me realize that even though a song may have a good beat it doesn't make it ok. I enjoy listening to music so it really helped me. On Monday he spoke about believing. He asked us a lot of questions such as… What is it to believe? Who is God? Who is God to you? How do you know that the sky isn’t green? All of these questions made me take a step back and look at the way I had been thinking and the way I should be thinking. It showed me that I need to be able to know who the true God is and what it is that I believe. It is especially important that I know what I believe not only because I am a Christian but because I am catholic and people question my beliefs a lot. Another good question was… Are you doing it right? This question REALLY made me think. What if I am not doing it right at all? What if Catholics are completely wrong? What if Christians are wrong? Spiritual emphasis week completely grounded my belief in the one true God. Before I had believed in him but that belief was not backed up. On Friday he talked about belonging. He asked questions like... What does it mean to belong to each other? What does it mean to belong to the world? What does it mean to belong to Christ? Something that resonated with me was "love one another". I try really hard to show "love" or be friendly and kind to people. I happen to fail a lot. I am one of those people who speak without thinking and just say what is on their mind. That is probably not a good thing. So lets just say I voice my opinion way to much, sometimes when I should not. Lets just say someone is ticking me off, well, I end up saying something I don't mean without thinking about how I probably have done the same thing before. Then after I feel like a horrible person and apologize a million times. Something I need to improve is definately thinking before I speak. If I had thought about how I had probably done or said the same thing to someone before then I probably would not have said anything mean and would have avoided that whole thing. To make a long story short: I need to show love to everyone no matter what they do. This made me think about how I am at fault in this area and have been working on it since then (even though it hasn't been very long). I am starting to improve as hard as it may be. What I saw a lot throughout the week is that you need to know what you believe. Not just say you believe it but know what you believe and why you believe it and how you can support that it is true. We need to live out what we believe, not be half in half out or one toe in, it is all or nothing really. If we truly believe it we need to show it in everything we do and try not to sin (although it is impossible). I think spiritual emphasis week had a great impact on my life and the way I think and look at the world. It has made me realize that I am not better then anyone. It has made me realize that I need to be all in and put my time in effort into my relationship with God which I don't think I have been doing very well at all. I need to love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. I need to live a life that would be pleasing to God and if I mess up I need to be accountable for it. I need to be conscious of the things I surround myself with because they affect the way I think and behave. In our 7th hour Bible class he showed us ways we can prove that the Bible is real. It really showed me that the Bible does comply with history and geography and etc. I will never forget spiritual emphasis week and how it strengthened my Belief in God.

LOVE KATIE

(Mr. Mendenhall, I thought that this had posted last night. I went home to check it and see if I had writted everything that I wanted to and it made sense and it was not there. I am really sorry.)