Any Catholic singles reading? Or singles interested in meeting Catholic singles?
Our Lady of the Fields Catholic Church in Millersville has an active singles group called Anne Arundel Single Again Catholics (AASAC). Here are three events they have planned for February, if you want to mark your calendars. If anyone goes to one of these, please let us know how it was.
February 12th at 7pm
Discussion on "Developing Meaningful Relationships"
in Our Lady of Fields Parish Hall, Room 203-204.
Our guest speaker will be Ms. Diane Dixon.
Interested contact Jeanne 410-437-3619.
February 1st at 7:00 pm
AASAC Game Night will be February 1st at 7:00 pm
in Rooms 203-204 on the second floor of Our Lady of the Fields Church Hall, This is our regular monthly get together for games and to enjoy a fun evening with friends. Most "game-nighters" usually bring along a snack or a non-alcoholic drink to share. Interested contact Jeanne 410-437-3619.
February 28th at 7:00 p.m.
AASAC Singles making sandwiches for the poor
in the kitchen at Our Lady of the Fields Church. We need Tuna, chicken, mayo, relish or a box of sandwich bags to make this monthly endeavor a SUCCESS. This is especially helpful if you are unable to come by and make the sandwiches with us. There will be a box available for your contributions under the sink in room 203.
Interested contact Patsy 443-799-0608.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
AM,
Thanks for the post. This is a great venue for Catholics or those interested in becoming Catholic or in finding a Catholic significant other.
Only problem is I am not a Catholic converter or a would be Catholic. I could explain why -- if anyone out there is interested.
It has to do with the object of one's faith and resulting outcomes vs the practice of religion.
What happened to the real commentary worthy subject matter -The blog should be for tackling being single in predominantly a couples world.
OK I'll throw out something that deals with being single and one's spirituality plus the added benefits of having a pet. Here goes:
" While group living isn't critical to survival in the modern world, feeling socially connected is. Feeling isolated and lonely is a very painful emotional state for people, Epley said, and can lead to ill health, both physically and mentally. "Being socially isolated is just not good for you," he said.
When people feel lonely, they may try to rekindle old friendships, seek out new ones or, as Epley's study suggests, they may create social connections by anthropomorphizing nearby gadgets, such as computers or cars, pets, or by believing in supernatural events or religious figures.
Pets and religion
In their study, detailed in the February issue of the journal Psychological Science, Epley's team tried to induce feelings of loneliness in people to see how it affected how they thought of pets and their belief in religious figures.
In one experiment, college undergraduates were shown movie clips and told to try and empathize with the protagonist as best they could, in order to set them in one of three emotional states.
One group was shown a clip from "Cast Away," the movie in which the main character played by Tom Hanks is deserted on a remote island, in order to induce a feeling of isolation. The second group was shown a clip from the crime thriller "The Silence of the Lambs" to promote a sense of fear. A third, control group was shown a clip from the sports comedy feature film "Major League."
All three groups were then asked to describe a pet they owned or knew well and pick three traits from a list that best described them. The list included anthropomorphic traits that related to social connections (thoughtful, sympathetic) and simple behavioral descriptions (aggressive, energetic, fearful).
Participants from the loneliness group were more likely to describe the pet using the anthropomorphic descriptions than those in the fear or control groups.
All three groups were also asked to rate their belief in ghosts, angels, the devil, miracles, curses, and God, and again, those in the loneliness group reported stronger belief in these supernatural agents.
Future predictions
In another part of their study, Epley and his colleagues asked participants from the University of Chicago to fill out a personality questionnaire and were then told that the answers would be fed to a computer which would generate a future-life prediction for them. Half of the participants were read statements implying they would be lonely later in life, while the other half were told they would be socially connected for the rest of their lives.
"We tried to manipulate their loneliness, to make them feel lonely," Epley said.
The participants were then asked to rate their belief in the same supernatural agents in the other study, and those in the "lonely group" reported stronger belief than those in the "connected group." The results were also compared to ratings the participants gave before they got their life predictions, and those who reported a belief in God before and were made to feel lonely reported a stronger belief after the experiment.
"We found that inducing people to feel lonely made them more religious essentially," Epley told LiveScience, though he notes it won't cause any sudden conversions.
Health benefits
Owning pets and religious beliefs and practices are both known to increase a person's sense of well-being, but why exactly that is isn’t well known, Epley said.
Epley and his colleagues plan to probe the issue further to see if anthropomorphizing pets or believing in anthropomorphized supernatural agents is what is responsible for alleviating feelings of loneliness. If it is, it could provide alternate means for people to feel socially connected when connecting to humans isn't an option.
"There are health benefits that come from being connected to other people, and those same benefits seem to come from connection with pets and with religious agents, too," Epley said."
Copyright: Yahoo! News
OK --- So tell us about your pets.
Don't have any pets --- then share with us one of your pet pieves.
One of mine is people assuming that I am lonely just because I am single. Between work, interests, and friendships I have a pretty full plate and satisfying life; but, if the right individual comes along I will simply make room on my plate !!!!!!!!
I'm going to save the pets topic for the April issue of the magazine which will focus on pets.
You are welcome to summarize articles or post links to them. That was long!
Being along and being lonely are two completely different things, aren't they. In many ways, I was lonelier when I was married than I am now.
and,
Catholic, Presbyterian, Jewish, Muslim or Buddhist,
I bet singles that you met while you were making sandwiches for the poor would be some pretty cool, kind people.
Remember, if you always go where you've always gone, then you'll keep meeting the same people.
AM,
Sorry, I guess I should have put up an article link with an executive summary, but it was such a relevant piece to religion it was too hard to resist.
You will never feel alone or lonely with all your blogger friends like me. I always like to throw in some controversy on the blog topics too, just to keep things lively & interesting. ( my pet project -- HA !!!! )
Altruism can and does cross all religions too. I'm not discriminating here.
Post a Comment