RE: What Francis would do if he encountered poverty in the modern world

Francis would most likely be appalled if he saw how the world is today. There are tow extremes in the world and they mostly have to do with what country you are in. Most European, north american and australian countries do not suffer from poverty and hunger. However south american, african, and asian countries are under hard economic times and need the help of other countries that are more fortunate. I think that Francis would begin a campaign to encourage countries such as the united states and and china to provide more care and tools for people that are not able to provide for themselves.

RE: What Saint Francis Meant to Different People

Francis meant a lot of things to different people. To Clare, possibly a reason to branch out in the world and gain power as a woman during medieval times. To Pope Innocent III, maybe a sign of change and reformation to the church. And to Francis's Francis's Father, a big mistake that stole and gave away his hard earned possessions.
Whatever the case is, Francis for the majority gave a positive aura that made people wish to make their lives better and bring themselves closer to God.
Today people are drawn to people that are much similar to Francis. Students at Briar Cliff are naturally drawn the campus leaders that devote their lives to helping others, such as Sister Janet or Bev Wharton.

RE: Supernatural Phenomena

From what I can tell, the majority of the world's religions are based on two things: promoting people to do good things and unexplained supernatural phenomena. Religions based on these two things dates back to pre-history (The invention of writing).
From the God Zeus to more modern time accepted Gods of Christian faiths, they both seem encourage or enforce doing good things. Another reason gods existed was to explain natural phenomena such as earth quakes and floods.
Unfortunately, there have also been some versions of God that encourage violence and non-tolerance. Two examples would be the Extremist- Muslim group that believe that they are pleasing Allah by murdering infidels and another would be small groups of extreme-catholic religions that persecute homosexuals and people that do not conform to a modern and heterosexual society.
God or Gods will always continue to change in the eyes of people as time goes along, but one thing will always remain constant; people need something to believe in in order to give them reason to do in good conscience and have something to explain why things happen.

RE: Sister Death

After reading this chapter my respect level for Francis increased dramatically when I learned about how incredibly sick he really was. I cannot imagine the light of a candle being able to sear someones eyes. However I do not think that it was due to a random disease. When you have very little nourishment and lack any real physical activities your body cannot defend itself from simple sicknesses such as catarax.
In countries such as North Korea, the people have extremely limited food and what they do have is rice which contains little nutritional value. Therefor approximately 60% of the population will suffer from catarax at some point during their lives. Also like Francis, the North Koreans do not have access to sufficient medical treatments and many go untreated until they become completely blind and have no cure.
It was also interesting how Francis wanted to be stripped naked and left to die in nature but his supporters would not allow it.

Re: A beautiful Place that you have been to

The most beautiful place that I have ever been to was the Smokey Mountaints in Eastern Tennesse. The forrests were so lush and green that it was truely breathtaking. The air was so clean and fresh becuause of all ot the trees and grass, and every day there would be a beautiful sunrise and sunset.
There was always something new to do everyday. I could go shooting in the forrest, hiking, hjunting fishing, and even white-water rafting. The people were all extremely pleasnt and the mountains seemsed like they were not from this planet.

Re: Clare

I think it is interesting how both Saint Francis grew up with rather privileged families and had many financial assets. And through their lives, they eventually gave up all material things in order to be closer to God. I find Clare in a sense more admirable than Saint Francis because during the time, it was mush harder for a woman to gain respect and followers that it was for a male such as Francis.
I find it very likely that Francis and Clare had some sort of romantic relationships. Even though it can never be proven, I think that because Francis liked Clare romantically, he gave her extra support in his community to make her stature more superior to other religious figures. The fact that Clare aided Saint Francis throughout the last month of his life during his extreme sickness may also indicate that Clare had a romantic attraction to Francis and his well being.

RE: Week Three Wealth and Poverty in the 21st Century

Wealth and poverty inn the 21st century can be viewed as very similar or completly different. During Sait Francis's time, a wealth person would be someone who possibly owned book, had servents and was possibly a lord over a village of people and served more as a town mayor than a single wealthy individual. In the 21st century, anyone can be wealthy, and it does not require a blood line to inherit land and power. A wealthy person today canoften be found with materialistic things rather than inherited traits. A weathy person now will probably be able to afford plane tickets to any place that he or she wants to travel. Drive a luxory car like a Mercedes Benz, or spend money on entertainment like font row seats at sporting events. A similarity between wealthy people could be that they both ate well and wore nice clothing.
Poor people on the other hand are very similar today, they both struggle with maitaining their health, finding ways to pay for food and often are immigrants or victems of opression from a more powerful person or people.

RE: The United States Declining Position in the World

The decline of the United States is in my opinion because of only two reasons, poor leadership and a poor economy. I am not blaming President Obama nor President Bush, but the combination of them both in the order that they did has resulted in a natiional debt in the trillions. We are spending moneyon a war that has gone on for almost 10 years, longer than even World War Two. It would be safe to say that a progress in the middle east has come to a hault because of the politicians in Washington that are staling the military from doing what they are meant to do because they have to much to personally gain. Our Governement has become more focused on what they can do for themselves rather than what they can do for the American people.
Our economy also is poor because of the outsourcing our comapanies are doing with countries like China, Vietnam and Bangladesh. We are helping the economies of these forign companies, however, in the process we have boosted China into a more powerful position then the U.S.
Its time that we have someone step up and get the people in the U.S. on the same team in order to pull oursevelves out of our economic and power crisis.

Is Francis trying to create a new government?

No, I do not believe that saint Francis ever tried to creat a new covernment but rather reform the catholoc church. He sees problems with the way the catholic conducts others and the lavish lifestyles of church leaders and he wasnts to change them. He wants to make priests more true to their oath to a life of poverty as well as make them not abuse their powers. For example: may popes in the past have had a history of having children and even wives. he wants to stop the corruption by leading through example of his own life of begging, poverty and service to others.

RE: Francis and the Sultans Interaction compared to current life.

You could compare Francis in the middle east to the United States occupaton in Afganistan, Iraq and Lybia. Like Francis, the United States entered the middle east with positive inentions of removing Sadam Hussain from power and re-establishing a democratic government that is ruled by the people. Unfortunatley, like Saint Francis, we have worn out our welcome and are hated by the people. We have no business in the middle east because things have never changed politicaly and things are exactly the same religiously.
It was a miracle that Saint Francis was let out of the Muslim country alive and unfortunatley thousands of American citizens and Iraqi cizitzens have lost their lives during the war in the middle east. Hopefully the U.S. will withdraw from the middle east and stop trying to meadle with other people's political systems.

RE:(Vandalism in College) Topic of our choice for Francis paper because Heisman was too Vague.

Freshman Students living on the first floor of Toller Hall at Briar Cliff University last year were fined over 400 dollars each when numerous accounts of vandalism, theft and property damage that took place in the hallways, dorm rooms and on school property.  Now this year many student are wondering if the same bad behavior is going to happen again.

            Each year no matter what circumstances or amount of supervision, students at Briar Cliff University (any school really) tend to get a little rowdy in the halls during the afternoon hours.  Generally the damages that take place include broken ceiling tiles, clogged toilets, broken furniture and other simple things of that nature.  The punishments, according to the Briar Cliff University Student Handbook include: Fines, replacement costs, and repair costs for vandalism may be charged to groups, individuals, or portions of the campus community.  In some rare cases such as students, Manny Aranda and Jordon Murphy were asked to leave the Dorm Hall and find another means of housing.

            According to Carter Kruckenberg and Manny Aranda (both students at Briar cliff), there were over 400 dollars in fines assigned to every student living in the first floor of Toller Hall.  This is because of incidences such as:  Throwing machetes through dorm walls, defecation on student’s property, destruction of doors, arson and throwing rotten food through the hallways often resulting in broken windows.  It is undisclosed in alcohol may have been a factor in the students behavior.

            You might think that there would be more that fines for actions like these but there were no specification in the Student Handbook regarding actions as extreme as these.  “There was too much craziness to stay on top of things,” says Josh Hindman, the Toller floor Residence Assistant, “Whenever one incident was resolved there would be two more to replace it.”

            The behavior that you see in Toller Hall or any hall for that matter is not a rare occurrence in college.  At Sullivan County Community College, Jay Blotcher reports similar patterns involving fire extinguishers and vending machines.  The behavior seems to have no end in sight, but unless Resident Assistants change the way they punish the students, the dorm life will most likely no see any changes in the near future.

RE: School Event: Fatality at the Construciton Site

Its sad to say that last week at the construction site of the new Heelan Hall a worker; Jeorge Morales was in a tragic accident and passed away from the complications on his injuries when a large amount of debris fell ontop of him. It is awful to have later learned that Mr. Morales left leaving behind a Wife, two chileren and another on the way. I can only hope that his family is strong and can learn to move on in life. This is easy to say but if I were in his families position it would be almost impossible to live without a son, husband or father.
On a lighter note, I later learned that the family and the construction company were moved when Briar Cliff University had a remembrance ceremony for Mr. Morales. A co-worker spoke during the ceremony to tell the University that he was touched because he never expected the school to react in the such a positive way that it did for his friend.

Re: Sait Francis Transitus

The Transitus was an unusual and intresting experience. I have never been to an event quite like that. I am still not very sure what all took place at the even because I was so exhausted at the time. I did like the different stories about Saint Francis from the different points of view of his followers and friends. I, personally do not find saint Francis as a very inspiring figure. But I also do not know enough about him to voice a fair opinion. I like some of his methods, but others I find very un natural. For example I have learned that he participated in self punishment. I do not think that God wants anyone to commit such an act, as well as starve because you have to beg for food constantly. I do not find this admirable at all.
I hope that I can learn more about Saint Francis and his life and be able to one day form a better opinion about him.

Re: Student Event/ Job Fair

I thought the job fair was awesome. I would have loved to work at the Home Depot, Sears or anyplace for that matter. Unfortunately, I do not own a car or any means of transportation this year. If I had a chance to apply somewhere I would, however it is simply impossible to get to work from my dorm.
Hopefully next year I can buy a car or a motor cycle so I can commute to work on a timely fashion. Until then, I plan on slowly using my savings from my previous job at my home.

Re: Community Service and helping others

I think that its awesome for Briar Cliff to require their students to take part in community service because of all the positive effects it sends to our students and community. It is so nice to put a smile on someones face or to do a good dead for m=someone when they are not looking. Like sweeping out a home filled with debris from flooding. Or possibly giving someone a second chance like in the "Pay it Forward" video in the class assignments.
I hope that everyone in general will find the need to help others or do something that has a bigger meaning than themselves like the students at briar cliff did last weekend.

Re: Francis's relationship to Money

     Francis's relation ship went from extreme to the other during his lifetime.  During his early years, Francis enjoyed all of the comports of his fathers wealthy business.  He spent his father's well earned money all the time when he was a teenager.  With all of his fathers money at his disposal, he bought things like suits of armor, alcohol, and lavish clothing.
    Later in life, Francis had an epiphany that made him want to peruse a life of poverty and and honesty.  He had either little or no money at all.  He would beg for his food, and not accept the food from charity.  Even his father had offered him money, but Francis would have none part in his money or charity.

Re: Immigration

     I have mixed opinions regarding illegal immigration.  First I would like to say that I have the utmost respect for any man or woman that is trying to get into the United States whether it because of war, political refuge or looking for a better life.  I can only begin to imagine living in a county where a job is not good enough to provide for my family.
     For example:  If a man from Mexico had small children and a wife and could no longer afford to feed them because of his corrupt government and terrible economy, I would be in the United States or Canada in a heartbeat.
     The problem of this is that the United States citizen man or woman can no longer work because this illegal immigrant has taken their job for a percentage of the wage.  This does not help our citizens or our economy.
     I think that the people of Mexico need to change the way that their government is run and start on a fresh state, because coming to the United States is illegal, dangerous, as well as hurting the country.
    Until we can successfully secure our boarders,  this problem will never end.  No matter what we do politically of physically the people living in less fortunate countries will still come here in search of work until we can permanently  stop them.

Re: Identity

Identity at this day and age can mean two very different things. whether it be the pyre of shoes you wear and the away you keep your hair, or the individual numbers on your social secutrity card.
I personally think that your social identity is what you make of it. I am speaking from experience because I am new to college and the state of Iowa. So, it is important that I keep my new identity to my peers positive and keep a strong moral character.
Along with being a positive social person, I need to keep my personal information safe. In college it is extremely easy to loose things things as small as your birth certificate, or as important as your birth certificate.
All thats necessary for a strong identiy is to be of good character, and protective of your information.

Re: School Event, Dinner with the President

It was very generous and admirable for the school president to invite all of the freshman and some of the teachers to her own home to eat dinner with her. I was completely surprised and taken back by how well the event was as well as all of the people I got to meet.
We were all very comfortable with the social situation because everyone knew each other, and nobody was left out of the crowd. I think that anyone coming to Briar Cliff should definatley be willing to visit the presidents home and enjoy the delicious meal b ecause they will undoubtably meet new people and learn about their community as well.

Re: Would St. Francis use social media?

I think that Francis would absolutely use social media. Especially things like Facebook or twitter. Francis seemed to be a person that lived in the right here and now. He seemed to live life to the fullest and had many adventures. This leads me to believe that like many other adventurous teens, he would want to stay in contact with people through the social media.

Re: Relate to a favorite thing or something that I have read.

A favorite thing that i have read recently would be the book "The Green Mile". I personally love this story because it shows how things are not always the way that they seem, or that there are people in this world that are genuinely good and do not wish to do anyone harm. I also like that the story takes a toll on your emotions and make you change your outlook on life.