The Way

I really loved the movie "The Way." I liked the idea of taking an immersive trip to Europe, being a part of nature, and experiencing the people and the food on a long journey. I also am a nature lover, and think the beauty of the walk would be almost overwhelming. I think everyone can benefit from taking some sort of retreat or pilgrimage to really get in touch with themselves, their values, and their goals in life. I think each pilgrim's goal changed along the journey from doing something with a specific purpose, to realizing some real burden they were carrying and attempting to heal themselves for their own sake. They searched within themselves to let allow themselves to be healed, and consciously gave up the burdens they were carrying. i think the lesson we can learn from this movie is that healing comes from the self, just as the purpose of the Camino is to walk it for ones self.

IVF

I think the biggest pro of IVF is giving couples who are unable to conceive a chance at creating their own family consisting of their genetic children. This can be a wonderful opportunity and blessing for those couples, and give them great happiness and fulfillment in their life. The biggest con of IVF is the capability of humans essentially "playing God"and attempting to genetically design the traits of their baby. The Church sees IVF overall as a form of playing God, and overstepping the boundaries of natural conception. The Church also believes that life begins at the moment two sex cells combine, and the creation of embryo cells for IVF often results in unused, extra cells. When these are discarded, the Church sees this as discarding potential human life.  While I don't think people should be making designer babies, I do think IVF is acceptable and wonderful for people who can take advantage of it. I don't think the fact that it is expensive makes it morally unacceptable, because hormone treatment can be expensive and the Church sees that as acceptable. Also, we wouldn't have connected with our new friends/extended family the Savages if IVF were not possible. Yay babies!

Abortion?

jk

http://zenpencils.com/comic/102-timothy-leary-you-arent-like-them/

My favorite quote and cartoon was about "finding the others." It talks about ending the cycle of hiding who you really are and trying to mold oneself to fit society's standards. I love that it promotes individualism, because I think society today places too much focus on a certain skill set and devalues the importance of creativity and trade skills. I think people feel pressured to hide their passions and being passionate about something that someone else is not interested in can be considered weird or frowned upon. We need people who absolutely love outer space and people who could do computer programming for hours. We need diversity to maintain a wholesome and functioning society, and we need to applaud everyone's individuality and uplift them instead of condeming those who see things or do things differently.

word of 2013

I found the article interesting stating that love is the word of 2013. I don't think love really sticks out as a trademark for 2013, as it is very general and can be applied to any situation or any point in time. I think that love may have been her personal word for 2013 as she began to realize love in its fullness and it took its first real dive into her life. I was touched by her realizations that she needed to accept her vulnerability and use it as an opportunity to embrace acts of love offered by others, and I think that is a good lesson for us all. If think that I could also apply the word love to my year for several reasons. But as a general word for 2013, I think "selfie" or even "sharing" could be an applicable word for the year in relation to the amount of information we shared on vine and facebook and twitter and instagram this year became incredibly popular.