JEN HANTZ
STAFF WRITER
On Tuesday, Nov. 27, over 20 people came into the Gentile Gallery in the J.C. Williams Center at 8 p.m. to discover how to live out chastity in all of their relationships throughout their lives.
Leading the night’s discussion were Joel Feldpausch, Laura Riebe and Carrie Hoeft, three speakers from the Culture Project, an organization that goes from schools to youth groups to conferences sharing about living in a culture of virtue and living out chastity. Each speaker
gave a few tips on how to live in the virtue of chastity. The night ended with questions from the crowd.
Riebe, a first-year missionary, gave two tips on how to live a chaste life: do not boil one’s identity down to just his or her love life and be honest with oneself about intentions. She said that a person needs to think about the end goal and to think about whether one is dating simply because he or she does not want to be alone, because one is settling for what is available or so that the other person heals his or her wounds.
Hoeft is also a first-year missionary. She said that, since she lived in a small town, there was no one that she wanted to date in high school. Once she hit college, she expected to find the right man, and she hoped to be proposed to before senior year.
Hoeft continued to say that sometimes a person can only see the other people in the room as potential spouses instead of just people, which led into her main tip. She called on the attendees to see people as people and as potential friends before worrying about trying to find a spouse.
“Focus more on becoming the spouse of their dreams,” said Hoeft. “Focus more on becoming the person that you want to be as a gift to them.”
Feldpausch is a second-year missionary who had a different yet similar approach to chastity. He brought up the topic of casual dating, saying that the desire for more casual dating is really a desire to not be vulnerable. It is impossible to avoid vulnerability in dating, said Feldpausch.
The night ended with questions from the crowd on topics such as pursuing friendships, finding virtuous relationships and casual dating.
One of the students was especially impressed with the questions and responses at the end of the night. Senior Yassy Mirsajedin said, “I enjoyed the question and answer. It was really insightful.”
This event was put on by the Culture Project. The Culture Project has come every year to Franciscan University’s campus to look for recruits to join its cause and to give talks on chastity to provide a healthier dating community.