Sex, Lies, and Mass Manipulation

Awww, I'm in such a girly mood. How silly. This Antioch retreat was absolutely amazing, especially Chip and Virginia's chastity talk. Hearing it made me toooootally desire a pure, chaste, holy, wonderful courtship. They told their story and it is absolutely beautiful, every detail was wonderful because they set aside their personal 'wants' and allowed God to fulfill their true desires. Wow, insanely awesome. I wish I could explain it more thoroughly, but I know that no words of mine could even begin to do their talk justice. It made me realize that I don't have to end up like my mother- broken and burdened by heartbreak. I know that the man I go on to marry is going to challenge me and encourage me to strive in my faith like nobody's business and will complement me, revealing to me a goodness on earth that will lead me to the Goodness beyond this earth. Wow, it's flipping amazing to think about!

I also found a book on my bookshelf called 'Three To Get Married' by Fulton Sheen, an insane beast of a writer and a sweet bishop as well. He goes into the theological and philosophical aspects of love and marriage and it is so refining and enlightening to read. So far I'm only about 50 pages into it but holy wow, it's like Mountain Dew for the soul. Not only does it increase the desire to wait for a true and holy love, but it also makes more apparent the truth that love consists of not just romantic; in fact, it is least of all romantic, and greatest of all, charitable. (Haha so you can imagine my absolute shock when a guy from the retreat asked me out to dinner today.)

My third point in this feminine spew of random nonsense is that this weekend is Sweetest Day, and I just watched one of the best romantic movies of all time. No, not the Notebook, I hated that movie! Sleepless In Seattle is an insanely awesome flick, and I just saw it for the first time tonight. However, I think all these chick-flicks are pretty much the equivalent of female porn. Since a guys' mind is hinged on sex and physical pleasure and piqued by sight, pornographic images are obviously the way to disturb and pervert his mind. But, as Sheen says so eloquently, "Man is driven by pleasure; woman by the meaning of pleasure." Women, myself included, do not pervert the act of sex itself, but rather, and possibly more importantly, we pervert the concept of love. The chick-flicks that are ever so popular amongst Catholic and non-Catholic women alike advertise love as a hallmark sentiment driven purely by emotions and having little to do with actual charity or agape love. It's all about the chivalry, the magic, the stars, the cute quotes, the ring, the dress, the sex. The media blasts (rather subtly) into our minds the idea that love is a feeling rather than a decision, a fleeting sensation rather than a permanent Christ-like choice. We females are twisted into thinking that love is all about the cute stuff, while males are twisted into thinking it's all about the passion.

It's kind of scary to think about it that way, but there is, I believe, a remedy to the manipulation we've been fed. Ladies, with all the movies, books (ugh, I hate romance novels!), and TV shows (never actually seen Friends or the O.C., but I've heard that they're killers) that show us the 'ideal Prince Charming' situations, we can so often (but not always) break these messages down and understand why exactly we get all mushy and starry-eyed. Think about it. In the Notebook, why do most girls get all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when they find out that the elderly couple have been in love for so many years? Why do we cringe when the main character fights with her future husband, and cry of happiness when the husband and wife die in bed, together? It is because we subconsciouly know what God wants for us, we know what a holy relationship should be like! We smile at the fact that the husband remains with his wife, even when she has no recollection of who he is, because we know that love should be 'till death do us part.' We are filled with worry when the couple splits, because in our hearts we know that it isn't meant to be that way, that Satan is working to end something good. And the sight of the couple dying together symbolizes a permanence of the love they possess for one another, a passing of love from this life to the next. (As Chip said with tears in his eyes, "My grandfather couldn't live without my grandma, and I just... can't imagine my life without Virginia.") The world strives so desparately for the truth, and they are so close!

Well, I hate to leave this with the whole choppied-off feeling again, but my hands hurt and I should be doing some reading. God bless!