Before you read this: I still have all of my jobs. I’m not so stupid as to walk out on them. But I simply can’t afford to work at Carthage anymore. It doesn’t pay the bills. Agnes is helping me to get a job at Walgreen’s, and I have an interview there tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m., before I go up to Milwaukee. I’m also thinking of applying at Old Navy, maybe even apply for rehire at Target. I just need something more than what I have currently.

Speaking of currently, I’m gearing up for the final preparations for the newspaper this year. Next weekend, we’ll officially have all of the office work done, which is going to be an amazing accomplishment. I am trying to get everything done to make the transition a little easier. I don’t have a lot of time right now, so that’s going to be difficult.

Cleaned my room, so now that’s organized. I’m reading this book, The Ten Commandments of Financial Happiness, and one of them is to be organized throughout your life. I started with my room. Although I’m having a little issue maintaining it, it’s working out fine so far. Look at it!

I feel bad for Liz–she’s having a lot of issues. Emily called me yesterday, but I was sleeping. And I’m doing fair to good in my summer classes. Tomorrow I’ll be finishing up everything for the summer term and I should be finished by Saturday. Then it’s just gearing up for next semester. Ugh.

Well, not at this moment, but it was raining when I left this morning, and it’s supposed to rain off-and-on all day today. We need it here in Wisconsin and Illinois, so it’s a welcome sight.

The air conditioning is broken in the Todd Wehr Center. Old buildings from 1962 allow no air movement, so you can feel it. It’s not supposed to be fixed until the end of the week, so this could be a miserable workweek.

First, congratulations to the happy couple. Andrea and Dan’s wedding was beautiful, and it was awesome to get to see everyone again.

I couldn’t remember what time the ceremony started, so Brian and I showed up ready for a 2:00 wedding. (It was really at 2:30.) As soon as a red Cavalier with a Carthage College sticker on the back was spotted, the herds came running. Hannah and Brook came out first, followed by a summons for me to go back to the bridal room to give my greetings to Andrea. It’s always nice to be so popular.

The reception was at the alumni center at the U of M. Gorgeous building. Makes me wish I went to a slightly larger (or more wealthy) college so we could have something like that for use on our campus. It wouldn’t be an event without pictures! Check out http://homepage.mac.com/drossjones/PhotoAlbum3.html.

It was great to catch up with everyone, and I genuinely enjoyed conversation with my parents this time home. Shocking, I know. The weather isn’t better there–hot and muggy Thursday through Sunday. Just looked at the weather icon on my dashboard–it’s 80 in Kenosha with a projected high of 86. Looks like they’re hoping for some storms tomorrow, with a cooler Wednesday, but then back to the drought.

Brought a carload back with me–it’s all chillin’ in the living room. My roommates are going to kill me. We’re having a little bit of drama related to dish washing, but I’m going to be cooking them all a dinner on Tuesday so they should be happy then. Went shopping at home and here in Kenosha last night, got two skillet meals, some noodles for pasta salad (along with appropriate other ingredients) and materials to make apple crisp. Should be tasty!

I know I’m a little behind the times on this one, but blessings to my Christian brothers and sisters in the United Church of Christ for recognizing marriage equality for hetero, homo and bisexual couples.

In my own Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, there are mixed blessings as we go forward to Churchwide Assembly 2005, August 8-14 in Orlando. Here in the Greater Milwaukee Synod, members reaffirmed their position to allow individual congregations to determine whether or not to go forward with same-sex blessings, a position the synod has held since the 1990s. The Northwest Wisconsin Synod has chosen to take no position on the sexuality study. The Minneapolis Area Synod has chosen to affirm same-sex blessings, but not pastoral ordinations.

Trends over time tell me the ELCA is heading toward a split. Us Lutherans can’t play together nicely for an extended period of time. The Word Alone Network has been gaining some ground, especially in the upper Midwest and Great Plains states. The Alliance of Renewal Churches, led by North Heights in Arden Hills, Minn., has been pulling some of the less traditional congregations into their fold. Both of these organizations do not desire to create a new church per se, but they will “assist” in the transition from one church body to another.

In addition to the sexuality study, the new worship resources are up for approval this year. Renewing Worship is designed to be the successor to the Lutheran Book of Worship, which has been in standard use since the 1970s. (With One Voice, a supplement to LBW, was released in the mid-1990s.) These two issues combined should lead to a very passionate, very intense Churchwide Assembly.

We’re not unique; every mainline Christian denomination–and our non-Christian brethren–are battling with the “issue” of how to minister to gay and lesbian individuals. Of course, we are all in different stages of response. As Lutherans, we are blessed because we are not fundamentalists, we are not literalists. Our tradition embraces an historical-critical view of scripture, interpreting the word of a living God. We don’t try to box our faith in a 66-section book. Because of that respect for individual faith, we should be able to come together in a civilized manner and agree to disagree. We shouldn’t need legislation, such as Recommendation #1, to hold us together as a church.

How can we say God’s love is all-inclusive, when we can’t even demonstrate that within ourselves? How can we say we believe in a fair and just God, when we use scripture to oppress each other? God is all-powerful, beyond the realm of human understanding. When we try to bring God to our own level, try to explain everything away with a simple reference and turn of the hand, we’re elevating ourselves to that all-powerful level. We’re holding ourselves higher than the God which we profess.

With God’s grace, we in the ELCA will soon stand proudly with our family in the UCC, the Metropolitan Community Churches and other people of faith who have proclaimed in a unified voice: God’s love empowers all.

Hopefully the mixture of grilling, beer and fireworks didn’t upset anyone’s systems too much this Fourth. At 6622, we took a trip on the third up to Milwaukee for Summerfest in honor of Janine’s birthday. I was…violated?…by a random guy at the Gavin DeGraw concert, but I didn’t mind all that much. Bought a couple of t-shirts, ate a little funnel cake and otherwise had a good time.

Yesterday, I worked on cleaning up and organizing my room. Got a decent chunk done; now it’s a matter of putting files away, boxing things up that need to be stored, etc. Bought more pieces for my closet storage system at Target, which was also an opportunity to return the garbage can I didn’t need.

Back to the grind today. Pretty uneventful around the office today. It was a “no shirt day” and I wore mine. Naughty. I’ll learn for tomorrow. Getting ready to head to good ol’ Minnesota at the end of the week.

I’m not giving in to those who believe that “all news is bad news,” but there are some days when there are just a lot of really sad stories in the news. There are two stories like that in today’s StarTribune:

Eagan man dies after being struck by baseball. The dad was just pitching to his son’s little league team. Someone hit the ball a little too hard, hit dad in the head, he died later at St. Paul’s Regions Hospital.

Man sentenced to 3 years for slaying of Petters’ son in Italy. The 21-year-old son of a Minnesota executive was vacationing in Florence and was the victim of mistaken identity and a language barrier.