Both institutions often invite alumni to return to speak to students about how having graduated from Newberry and Southern prepared them for their successful lives in the world and for their response to their call to ministry.  Alumni who are also pastors are also routinely invited to preach for chapel services at both institutions.

Such invitations were offered to Katrina in early 2008.   She was invited to Newberry College during the week of 15-19 September to present the Fine Arts Lectures which meant presenting 2 public lectures, teaching 3 classes and preaching in the College Chapel for Wednesday morning services.  After informing Southern that she would be close to campus, an invitation was made to visit the seminary, stay on campus, eat with students and faculty, sit in on classes, meet and talk with students and preach at the seminary’s Friday chapel worship.  These arrangements and constant coordination for them were done through Rev. Dr. Tony Everett, Professor of Pastoral Care.  Dr. Robert Hawkins, Professor of Worship and Music and Dean of Christ Chapel at the seminary, coordinated the text she was expected to preach on for the Friday service. Her visit was well and widely known.

Katrina was ordained in December 1994.  She is on the roster of ELCA clergy in the Metropolitan New York Synod. For the last 13 years, she has been the pastor of Fordham Lutheran Church in Bronx, New York, a congregation that describes itself as “a welcoming place to an amazing array of people. We come from Africa, the Virgin Isles, the Caribbean, Central America, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and different parts of the United States. Many of us are immigrants or first generation American. We are single parent families, widows, gay and lesbian families, young, old, somewhere between, well educated and some who have difficulty reading. One thing we all share in common: our trust and faith in Jesus’ love for us and our faithful response to this love.”  This, a church that serves its community well: the two blocks the church occupies are the only drug-free ones in the neighborhood.  This, a church that is about to begin a $22 million redevelopment project to better serve the community and the church’s ministries.  This, a church that is growing.  This, a pastor presented the ELCA’s Dr. Richard Lee Peterman “Good Steward” award, in recognition of her gifts for stewardship, and held up as exemplary at synod assembly.  All subjects that should be of interest to the seminary’s students…

Katrina is also an out ELCA pastor, living in a committed, long-term, same-gender relationship with Pamela Kallimanis, together raising their daughter, Zoia.  Katrina was among the 82 LGBT ministers who introduced themselves to the larger church at the 2007 Chicago ELCA Churchwide Assembly.   Her story and a picture of her family were published in “A Place Within My Walls,” the devotional booklet distributed to voting members and visitors at the assembly.

Until Thursday, September 18th, everything went as arranged and coordinated over the months.  Katrina went to Newberry, South Carolina, last week, participated in the Fine Arts Lecture series, taught classes, preached at the Wednesday service in the College chapel.  On Thursday, the e-newsletter for the seminary went out, reminding all that Katrina would be visiting the seminary, meeting with students, and preaching on Friday.

Thursday morning, Dr. Everett informed Katrina that the invitation to preach on Friday had been withdrawn by the President, Rev. Dr. Marcus Miller shortly after Drs. Miller and Everett had announced to the class they co-teach that Pr. Foster would be arriving on campus that day to meet with students and preach the next morning.  Subsequently, that evening, she had a conversation with Dr. Michael Root, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Professor of Systematic Theology, who said the reason that she had been dis-invited to meet and preach was that, because of her self-declared non-compliance with Vision and Expectations, she would not now be admitted as a student-candidate for ordination, and so would not be allowed to preach.

Friday morning she met with the president of the seminary, who was upset that the dis-invitation of her had resulted in lots of calls and emails to him, protesting the action.  He was dismayed, thinking that she was causing a controversy, instead of quietly accepting his dismissal and going home.  She wasn’t causing the calls and emails.  His action had.

Rev. Dr. Miller told her he had not known she was to preach until the e-newsletter on Thursday, despite announcing it in the class he was co-teaching on Thursday morning.  The time spent on arrangements from early in the year to last Thursday and that one of the classes she was going to visit at the seminary, whose students she was going to meet, was the class that Dr. Miller team-taught with Dr. Everett, raise questions about what actually caused Dr. Miller to rescind the invitation.

Emily Eastwood, Executive Director, LC/NA, said, “In an environment where bishops have been  encouraged by the 2007 Churchwide Assembly to exercise restraint or to refrain in matters of discipline, in the environment of the decades-long struggle over the issues of LGBT people and the church, in an environment where the ELCA Social Statement on Human Sexuality is going before the 2009 Churchwide Assembly and is in draft with hearings being held all over the ELCA, in an environment of dwindling membership numbers, reduced benevolent giving and shrinking numbers of congregations, you would have thought that someone at the nexus of LGBT, LGBT family, rostered pastor, growing congregation with increasing ministries, award-winning stewardship, and redevelopment to the benefit of church and community would be precisely the someone an institution trying to graduate real-world pastors would want its students to meet.”

The president of Southern Seminary can be contacted at 803-786-5150 or by mail at President, Southern Seminary, 4201 North Main Street, Columbia, SC 29203.

The Semlog is a new series I’m instituting here that will chronicle the goings-on of my life at McCormick Theological Seminary.  (Read more about my discernment and theological position.)

McCormick is unique among U.S. theological education in that our physical campus space is shared.  Our main campus building is connected to — and housed on the land of — the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.  Ecumenism and partnership are strong themes at McCormick.  Many elements of our seminary life are shared between the schools: worship occurs in Augustana Chapel, the library space is merged (and includes holdings from the now-defunct Jesuit School, which was merged in with the Catholic Theological Union) and because of a burgeoning enrollment at McCormick, some of our students are housed within LSTC facilities.

Augustana Chapel, however, is rife with symbolism.  Being mere blocks from Lake Michigan, one can feel the inspiration of the lake’s movement in the design of the stained glass.  The chapel faces south, with untinted windows on the sides of the platform to remind us that our ministry is rooted in service to the world.  The sounds of a bubbling font and baptistry near the entrance to the space (with connected outdoor pool) call us to remember our covenant with God the Creator and Sustainer of life.

But it is not enough to just be moved within sacred space.  As Christians, we are to move from that sacred space and take our calling into the world: pleading the cause of the widow and the orphan, being in service to the poor and distressed, walking gently upon the earth, and demonstrating unyielding love, compassion and peace.

Being in a theological environment, its easy to find yourself within that sacred space.  The bubble of seminary life makes it difficult, however, to balance that with the sacred calling.  Its easy to complain.  Its easy to live in passive justice.  Its easy to criticize and fall prey to the same dynamics we are called to change.

…Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. -Isaiah 1:17

The In Care relationship between a student and the student’s Association is part of the formal process leading to ordained ministry in the UCC.  As I journey through the three years of seminary, I will have a number of checkpoints along the way as the denomination seeks to prepare me for ministry in the congregations.

Below is my first sermon, given at my home church, Plymouth UCC in Milwaukee two weeks ago.  I wanted to wait to embed it here until I was officially In Care.

Today’s paper is reporting on a proposed change in MPS aimed at drastically cutting the birth rate among teenagers in the city by starting with a comprehensive sex education curriculum in fourth grade.  To that, I say bravo.  (Although the proposal is far from implementation — it still must receive the seal of approval of the Board of Ed. and teachers trained.)

I vaguely remember, in eighth grade health, discussion about the reproductive system.  In tenth grade, although I was in a different school district, our school promoted an abstinence-only curriculum formed around materials produced by James Dobson of Focus on the Family.  (And yes, I attended public schools.)

Questions weren’t welcomed or addressed.  Topics such as homosexuality, contracting STDs, and the specifics of practices other than intercourse were relegated to the sidelines, and the official policy of the school district was that teachers were not allowed to discuss such subjects with the students, even if the students brought the questions up themselves.

Check out that article again, especially the sidebar: the first bullet point says it all.

A little under half of Wisconsin’s high-schoolers have had sex, according to the state’s 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

I remember that video in tenth grade.  “Not everyone’s having sex,” it said.  You’re the only one who is thinking about it, you dirty, dirty teenager.

Sticking your head in the sand doesn’t work.  When schools withhold valuable, preventative, comprehensive information from their students, the schools are failing to provide the necessary education for success.  We have myriad problems in this country surrounding parenting, childhood and adolescent development.  We absolutely need to work on ensuring children are raised in stable, two-parent households.  We definitely need to ensure parents have the tools and resources necessary to raise their children, fulfilling their end of the bargain.  But part of that toolbox is compulsory education, and we need to be certain our public education systems aren’t leaving the future generation in the dark, simply because we as a society are uncomfortable with the subject material.

But it sounds like no one in the Western world is going to — or supposed to — enjoy the events this time around.  From cries of cultural imperialism on behalf of the West thrust on the East, to being upset that the International Olympic Committee awarded the games to a communist government with a spotty-at-best human rights record, the general undertone of this year’s games is that of suspicion, of injustice.

At best, this level of indignation is bull.  And it only goes downhill from there.

I’m sorry, but I’m not going to feel guilty about cheering for the U.S. team.  I’m not going to feel as if I am somehow communicating that the U.S. is culturally superior to the rest of the world.  I’m not.  I’m simply cheering on my team, my nation, my fellow Americans.

I’m not going to boycott the opening ceremonies because of China’s human rights record.  And what’s more, if you’re really that upset at their government, then you should avoid buying Chinese-made goods, avoid benefiting from the burgeoning Chinese economy.  That means everything, from the product you use in your hair to the ballpoint pens on your desk.  Do you receive promotional materials or “freebies” from places?  Better check where those were made.  Do you enjoy authentic Chinese food?  Double-check the importation information.  What about the parts in your car?  In your computer?

I’m not going to protest the summer games because of China’s pollution problem.  We, as Americans, simply modeled this behavior and continue to do so as we now come to the stark realization that we ripped up our rail infrastructure, we destroyed our fresh water supplies, we continue to fear nuclear and renewable energy sources.  The people in Beijing live in dense structures, perform many of their daily routines on foot, and many do not even have access to a passenger automobile.  In comparison, here we work for the “American dream” of an acre or two of land, 2.5 vehicles per household, far away from centers of commerce and trade.

I’m not going to be suspicious of the media reporting from a country which censors its information.  How is overt censorship any worse than a government that purposely lies to its people and the wider world?  A population so disengaged and lazy to check facts for itself and taking E! television as high-class reporting?

I might give some credit if this indignation weren’t complete bull.  So go off, protest the games.  Stand on street corners and decry the awful affects of globalization and the industrial complex.  Do your “grassroots” blogging and reporting.  Just don’t you dare let me catch you doing it as you sip from a cup, wearing shoes, underwear and clothing, holding signs marked with ink, all made in China.

St. Andrew’s at Christmas 2007

I could attempt to explain what I must have been thinking then in my current, adult context, but I won’t. I have more respect for myself and my childhood development than to do that. I don’t have any idea what exactly I was thinking or why I was drawn to that place, but I jumped at the opportunity to spend those moments there, in the still quiet place, in the awesome presence of God.

Of course, I didn’t just stay in the sanctuary. I would cause the ruckus that every child does, and there are many stories of “that Ross-Jones boy” sticking his nose into things and doing stuff he shouldn’t, causing chaos around the building. But it was at an early age that I began to truly become active in the church — participating in every Sunday School program, singing in the children’s choir and playing piano for youth Sundays, attending every Vacation Bible School and Day Camp for years and then helping out with the younger kids once I grew too old to be enrolled.

Any day of the week was a good day for a living room worship service. My dad helped me to build a “pulpit,” and I acted as musician, preacher and sound technician. My first congregation consisted of stuffed animals and the family cat — even if she did end up sleeping through my sermons.

I thought it was the best thing since shredded cheese because I had the opportunity to participate in not just one but two churches in my hometown — our family church at St. Andrew’s and the children’s and youth programs at Salem Lutheran Brethren Church — which then grew to three when the Grand Rapids Christian & Missionary Alliance Church merged its youth programming with Salem. That meant three times the fun!

While the other boys aspired to be firemen, policemen, lumberers, miners, doctors, and all the other vocations on the minds of the children of Minnesota’s Northland, I had two professions in mind: a minister or a news reporter.

My childhood faith was basic: Jesus loves me, this I know. That faith has carried me through 23 years of existence.

I didn’t question that premise. I didn’t question much of anything until Confirmation. I had a basic formula for living, for being in relationship with God and my neighbor. (And I knew that when the Bible says neighbor, its not just talking about the people who live behind us but instead everyone.) I knew there were some differences in faith, because other kids went to the Catholic church, the Presbyterian church, the Solid Rock, Assemblies of God, Full Gospel or Fellowship of Believers churches. In town we also had two other Lutheran churches — called Missouri or Wisconsin Synod — and another ELCA Lutheran church. Add to that mix Episcopal and Methodist, Nazarene and Baptist churches. But the differences to me were in the way they gathered. They dressed differently, they had different music during worship. That was the difference to my 12-year-old mind.

Jesus loves me, this I know. Love God. Love your neighbor. This was Christianity to me then, and this is the same Christianity that propels me today.

Micah 6:8 asks the rhetorical question, “What does God require of you but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your Lord?” It is a passage sometimes used by various groups advocating for change, especially social-political groups who are seeking to provide a Biblical basis for their action. But often times it is misused and construed in a way so as to emphasize one of its three commissions over the rest — most frequently the call to “do justice.”

But it is far more challenging, more profound than that. Believers should always speak out about the injustices that plague life around them, and there are plenty of examples in every context where the community of God gathers. That justice must be counterbalanced by mercy, by a recognition that God’s justice is always higher, always better than human justice. A mercy that demonstrates God’s rich and powerful, all-encompassing love for creation, for it is all things are created by God, and God loves all that God creates.

Walking humbly with our Lord, however, throws many of us for a loop. Its a challenge. When we get caught up in the action, we forget our approach. The end does not always justify the means.

I started Confirmation, and that wide-eyed, innocent, childlike faith left me. A lifelong process of reconciliation, of paradox, of searching, of frustration, of anger, of peace had begun.

I officially joined Plymouth United Church of Christ in Milwaukee on an April Sunday in 2007, severing my lifelong membership in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. But in all reality, I left the Lutheran faith of my upbringing as a response to my deep love of God and creation, and the assurance of Christ’s love for me empowered by the Holy Spirit, sometime in 1998 during Confirmation. And today, that same love compels me to continually pray for the Spirit to work in the life of the ELCA, that God’s love for all God has created reign down that all may freely serve as God has anointed. (1 Corinthians 7:17)

As certain as I am of that basic faith, of the simplicity of my childlike conviction, I am certain that God has created me in God’s image for me, and that image includes an altogether boring characteristic that western society has long marked as sinful, as something for which repentance is absolutely necessary, and above all an insurmountable affliction that until the last 30 years was marked as a mental disorder necessary of therapy and conversion.

I am a gay man. The scientific term is homosexual. Unlike “normal” people, I am attracted to — and subsequently will fall in love and make a life together with — other men.

Researchers, sociologists, theologians all argue about why roughly 10% of the population finds themselves in my position. Some say it is a conscious decision one makes, based on various mitigating factors often in one’s childhood. Others point toward the existence of homosexual animals in zoos and the wild. Yet others believe in a dynamic state of sexuality, that one’s same-sex attraction is a “phase,” and that that person will simply progress to the mainstream heterosexual orientation.

Certainly in the year 2008, that characteristic alone should not be emphasized over all the others. And the church has made great strides in the previous three decades to reformulate its pastoral response in a manner which is authentic to God’s love for God’s creation. That improvement, however, does not extend to the whole church. Nearly all U.S. Christian denominations have long-established policies which maintain either either separate-yet-unequal status for persons of my orientation, or outright bar gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender (GLBT) persons from holding positions of leadership. Of the mainline protestant denominations, only one — the United Church of Christ — fully and officially allows GLBT clergy to be called and served in its congregations. (The smaller and relatively unknown Metropolitan Community Churches, a denomination started in the 1970’s with a specific outreach to and a majority constituency of gay and lesbian persons, also has no restriction, although the MCC is not considered a mainline denomination.)

The ELCA’s current policy states that, “persons who are homosexual in their self-understanding are expected to abstain from homosexual sexual relationships.” (Visions & Expectations) Essentially, a gay or lesbian person is told they are welcome to serve in the professional ministry of the Church, yet they are not allowed to enjoy the same lifelong companionship an intimate relationship with another person brings that heterosexual pastors enjoy.

“And God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good.” -Genesis 1:31

Its a challenge, living under the assumption that God makes all things as God intends, and that God makes all things good. Some cynically call it overabundant optimism, and others fear such an outlook is ripe territory for Satanic action among the righteous. Both sides of the discussion of the role of GLBT persons in the church use the exhortation that good creation does not equate with good behavior. Of course, their arguments digress at that point, as to whether or not one’s sexual orientation is created, that is a static, unchanging characteristic, or a behavior, that is something under one’s own control and free will.

But its ironic, isn’t it, that we in the church refer to one’s call as a divine institution. We honor God’s call for our lives in our vocation, our actions, our families. Submission to this call is the behavior, but the call is summoned by God. (See Jonah 1)

Behavior is a result of free will. God has endowed God’s human creation with the ability to choose for itself, the knowledge of what is good and honorable against that which is evil and degrading. (Cf. Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-19) Behavior results in God’s pleasure or necessitates our repentance. Using theological terms, one might say behavior is acts of the flesh, separate from actions of the soul.

Creation, however, cannot be modified by behavior. (For anyone who doubts such things, I present the draining of humanmade Lake Delton in central Wisconsin early last month.) It can only be masked, to varying degrees of human success.

One who is created heterosexual in God’s image, who makes a lifelong commitment to a person of the opposite sex, has certain endowed blessings given to them. Likewise, one who is created homosexual in God’s image, who makes a lifelong commitment to a person of the same sex, has certain endowed blessings given to them, but not the same as those who are heterosexual.

One who is created heterosexual who forces an action of behavior over their creation and desires a homosexual relationship will likely succumb to actions of infidelity to their lover. It is the same with a homosexual person, yet God’s word of love for God’s creation has been misinterpreted toward the homosexual person, and indeed the action of behavior over and above the glory of creation is stressed.

A so-called clobber passage, used to support the religious persecution of GLBT Christians, comes from the purity laws of Leviticus — chapter 18, verse 22 says, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman, it is an abomination.” It is surrounded by commands against incest and bestiality and admonitions against sex during a woman’s period. One fails to recognize, however, that the purity laws are not designed as the social code for contemporary, modern society. The purity laws compose the Old Covenant with Israel, God’s people.

A sampling of other purity laws include restrictions on burnt offerings, apparel, dietary restrictions, and more. In fact, one is unclean for a period following sexual relations of any kind, and according to the purity law should be segregated from the rest of society so as not to defile their purity for a period of one day. (Leviticus 15:18, 31-32)

I can’t speak for anyone other than myself. I can’t attest to the accuracy or validity of the latest research efforts, the most recent discoveries, the progression of studies surrounding human sexuality. I can only speak for what I know, which is my own experience. I can point to no time in my life since puberty — and really not having any reason to reach into the depths of my memory before then — that I did not fully and consciously recognize my homosexuality. Likewise, I can point to no life-shattering event in my past that would affect my attraction today. My parents enjoy a healthy, loving relationship and celebrated 25 years of marriage earlier this year. Performances, games and meets, any event was a family function growing up, even minor ones, and with few exceptions both of my parents and my sister would be in the audience — that is, if they weren’t involved in some way themselves.

I was never abused. Except for the “standard” friction between a 23-year-old man and his mother and father, I enjoy a healthy relationship with my family. I excelled in most things, and while I was a loner throughout much of my elementary and middle school careers, I deeply cherish a number of strong, close friendships and an even wider range of great acquaintances.

My life has not been without its share of problems, but I will not go into them here, if only for the reason that they are no longer relevant and simply contributed to the shaping and molding of my personal strength of who I am today.

In short: I am convinced that I am God’s creation as I am, for I have made no behavioral change to cover up something that is completely natural — created in God’s image — for me.

Jesus loves me, this I know. Love God. Love your neighbor. This is my simple belief.

The differences that divide believers are deep and the Holy Spirit has worked to convict people to come to different conclusions in God’s living, stillspeaking word. I can do no thing but speak to my conviction, to my conclusion, to my belief. In love, I commend those who approach God’s word with a differing set of values than my own. I appreciate their conclusions are as real and powerful to them as they are to myself.

Spirituality and religion is not a vacuum. One of the greatest disservices to the life of religion was in the 17th and 18th Centuries and the social belief that religion can be separated from one’s life and action and compartmentalized in a fashion as to sterilize the actions of a government. God creates and endows each person with their own, internal values and through the gift of free will and intelligence, each person will achieve unique beliefs. “You’re only as unique as everyone else.”

Luther’s role in the Christian Reformation was as important then as it is today. His conclusions, his approach to faith, were just as true for the congregations that centered around his theology in the 1500s as in the 2000s. But just as then, not everyone agrees, and I discovered that my disagreement with the Lutheran church extended beyond its inhospitality toward me.

Nowhere is this disagreement more apparent than in sacramental theology. Most Protestant churches subscribe to two sacraments, Holy Baptism and Holy Communion/the Eucharist. The basic belief for those who subscribe to sacramental identity is that through these actions, the direct presence and blessing of God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit is among the believers assembled. In the waters of Baptism, a new covenant is established between God and the baptized. Through the bread and wine of Communion, Jesus’ life and death is made real through the celebration of the meal. (Please note, these are vastly wide overviews, and each denomination holds differing reasons why and how each happens.)

The Lutheran church, in the area of Communion, teaches consubstantiation — although it is important to note that Lutherans themselves abhor the term and factor it as ineffective to fully describe the presence of the Divine through the meal. In contrast to the Roman Catholic belief in transubstantiation, that the bread and wine fully and wholly become Jesus Christ’s literal body and blood and that the remnants of bread and wine in the celebration are mere accidents of physicality, consubstantiation teaches that Jesus Christ is fully present “in, with, and under” the elements of bread and wine.

This never sat well with me. Jesus Christ died already. His death and resurrection as the atonement for humankind was for all time. It felt like on the second and fourth Sundays of the month, in St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church, Jesus was dying and living again, over and over.

Likewise, the traditional Lutheran view on baptism is as a prerequisite for salvation. One’s soul is joined with Jesus Christ through the “magic words” and the water. It is this reason that Lutherans traditionally baptize infants, rather than participating in believer’s baptism.

But Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God — not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” This view of baptism as the means of salvation seems like both a work and a new law in place. It was either the work of my parents on my behalf when they brought me in front of the font in February of 1985, or maybe it was my own work in May of 2000 when I stood in front of the congregation and was confirmed. Either way, this didn’t sit well with me.

But how important is the theology and doctrine? Where does this fit in my simple conviction of Jesus’ love for me?

Over the past two years, God has been working great things in my heart, softening me and equipping me for God’s call to serve as minister in God’s church. And that call is to serve not in the church that enabled me to know God, to embrace Jesus, to be brought up in the faith that shapes and molds how I view the world. That church is now my neighbor. My call brought me to the United Church of Christ, first out of an issue of practicality, second out of an eventuality of belief, but above all out of love.

I love my new church. I can’t pretend I know everything about it. Our relationship is young, and just as my earliest years in the ELCA, we must have the time where I’m causing chaos and leaving a trail of destruction, because we don’t quite know how to act around each other just yet.

I love the people. Amazing people who are responding to God’s work upon their hearts. People who act out of love for all of God’s creation and serve as cheerleaders in equipping servant leaders for ministry. People moved by God’s prophetic work toward a more just, merciful world. People who simply are looking for a place to belong, a community to call their own.

I love the promise: compelled by Jesus’ prayer that all may be one (John 17:21), the UCC vows itself that no matter who comes into our community, no matter where that person is in their life of faith, they will be welcomed, embraced, accepted and affirmed for who they are as a daughter or son of God.

But it is a love for my home church that compels me to pray for it daily, that its promise may be fulfilled. For all practical purposes, I will fully separate from the ELCA on September 23, 2008, my last day of employment with the Greater Milwaukee Synod. My ties with the ELCA after that date will no longer be outwardly apparent, but in my heart they will exist forever.

It is out of love that I plan to attend the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Minneapolis, to be a presence with those working for full inclusion of GLBT persons in the life of the ELCA. It is out of love that I hope I witness there the affirmation for all people in God’s creation.

After all, the Christian faith is a simple one with powerful ramifications:

Jesus loves me, this I know. Love God. Love your neighbor.

The watch is being issued because of the forecast for elevated levels of ground level ozone. Ground level ozone is formed when pollution from power plants, factories and other industrial sources, vehicle exhaust, and volatile organic compounds chemically reacts with hot temperatures, high humidity and atmospheric stagnation.

As always, we’re recommended to stay indoors and/or cut back on strenuous outdoor activity.  That’s all fine and good, since today I was planning on spending a majority of my time cleaning, packing and the like — even though it is a beautiful day outside.

But here’s the problem: these things are issued as a result of pollution, originating from “power plants.”  So my question is, is it better to stay indoors with your windows open, further exposing yourself to the hazardous levels of ozone, or to turn your air conditioning on, thus contributing to the problem by increasing the load on the power grid?

If I keep my windows open, and I’m indoors today doing moderate activity (cleaning, lifting, laundry, etc), I’m still breathing in the polluted air from the outdoors.  (Additionally, at some point my body would much prefer the cooler air the a/c brings!)

But I feel somewhat responsible turning my air on.  The increased loads in the summertime are brutal on the energy grid to begin with, so adding more isn’t necessarily working in the right direction.

I feel like I need solar panels on top of my apartment building…

While we’d show our age differently at 232, in terms of countries and nations, that’s mere adolescence.  Take, for comparison, the earliest known rule of mainland China, dating between 2100-1600 BCE.  The Thirteen United States declared their independence from a nation that dates back to 410 CE.

Of course, we’re older than some others we hang out with: Canada just turned 141 years old a couple days before us; New Zealand is a little wet behind the ears at 101.

Its a fun, mid-summer’s day to take a break — do some relaxing on the beach, camp out in the woods, take out the boat and jetskis, do a bit of shopping, and otherwise relax from the stresses of everyday life for a day.  At the end, take in the celebratory fireworks and get hyped up about kicking British ass!

Yes, it is the one day when patriotic nationalism gets to take center stage, when we get to be proud of who we are and what we have and horde it above everyone else.

I’m proud to be an American.  Sure, I could wax poetic about freedom and liberty and all that.  Equally, I could use this as a platform to decry the government’s abuses of power and oppression of groups and peoples through the years.  But the positives and the negatives combine to contribute to that pride I hold.

You see, it is because of that combination that we are able, as a society, to challenge ourselves, to grow to even greater heights of human accomplishment and inginuity.  Its easy to focus on one’s shortcomings, but turning them around and into something positive: that’s the stuff history is made of.

As Americans, we must never settle for the status quo.  There are always opportunities ahead of us to ensure life, liberty and the persuit of happiness for our people and those who wish to join us.  There are always opportunities to right wrongs we have made — and nay, more opportunities to make more wrongs in our teenage years.  But today, we rest and celebrate our accomplishments.  We take a break to engage in all sorts of activities, ready tomorrow to go back to perfecting our union.  We take a break from divisions that separate us and join together as citizens of the UNITED States.

So happy birthday, America.  May God continue to bless you and your people with all creation.

Arthur Brooks, professor of business and government policy in Syracuse’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, is author of the new release “Gross National Happiness: Why Happiness Matters for America - And How We Can Get More of It.”  He maintains that those who actively practice their faith commit fewer crimes, more likely to contribute (financially and sweat equity) to causes, or get divorced.

But with everything, there are exceptions to the rules:

Brooks said there is an exception to his benchmark for happiness: people who view God as a condemning deity, and those who believe, but infrequently practice, their faith. They end up fearing death the most, he said