Stuff

Stream of consciousness:
I’ve started working at the Church Medical Trust as a fall back if I do not get a position over the summer. A part-time position and I am making more money than I have ever made. Of course, it is in New York, but…
Time is moving so quickly. I have a “get acquainted” meeting this past week in Ohio with a campus ministry organization. I’m encouraged.
Ashton did not do as well as he would have liked to have done at the IHSA nations in Ohio. I don’t care; I am still rather fond of him! He so hoped to be a champion because his family all came to watch him. I think they were just happy to be able to see him!
The closer I get to moving away, the more I realize how much I am going to miss Ashton. I really do not want to be in a long-distance relationship, but I do not know what else to do at this point.
There is a very interesting job possibility on the horizon. It would be really out-side the box. Who knows?
I just feel like writing one-liners.
Nathan and his friend Amelia were watching a rerun of “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In” when I got home. Remember that? I loved that show.
So much to do.
Another campus ministry position will be opening up here in the Big Apple.
Something has to be done about the Religious Right. Nationalism and patriotism have become their gods. Homosexuals have become their scapegoats. With their focus on both of these things, the can avoid dealing with the profound sins and hypocrisy in their own camp. So much easier to attempt to pull the splinter out of one’s neighbor’s eye than to deal with the plant in one’s own eye!
The very sad part concern the above is that so many unchurched people in this country are beginning to equate the very concept and presence of Christianity with these fundamentalists. The cause of Christ is so harmed.
My friend Amy never did come and visit in NYC. Boy is she going to get it!
I do love Ashton.
I have no idea where I will be living come May 31st. How about that!
My “practice mass,” my final project for my seminary career, went fairly well, except for the two major blunders I committed. I recovered well, however, and that is what counts – well, to some degree that is.
Toledo Campus Ministry Fellowship really has a lot going for it. I’m impressed.
There will soon be an exodus away from the politicized Religious Right associated churches. People will soon realize that “The United States of American” is not paradise, not God’s special spot on the planet, and certainly not worth the millions and millions of dollars being wasted on waging a campaign against perceived evils (which happen to be anything that the Religious Right disagrees with).
I am fairly conservative in most of my theology (I find it easy to believe the Nicene Creed!). I am quite moderate on a good number of social issues. I want to know Truth, not dogma. I would be considered quite liberal on the whole gay issue. Well, I guess also with regard to my belief that everything I consider Truth right now could be completely wrong! I’m not a relativist, but I do not question the fact that I do not know everything, nor could I.
We, as in American, need to be humbled. We are not the world’s salvation. We are not the world’s glorious standard. Even our Christian sub-culture (with the conservative elements claiming that America is just those things) is rife with hypocrisy, gluttony, pride, arrogance, and a complete disregard for the calling to love God first, and neighbor as ourselves. The United States may have a set of principles that do prove to bring hope to many in the world, but those principles are being so overshadowed by our bullying and arrogance that they have a difficult time being translated into a world which is breading religious and social fundamentalism.
The judiciary is not designed to be a rubber stamp of the executive or legislative branches of government. They are meant to be an independent check to both of those branches. The judiciary is meant to be a safeguard from the tyranny of the majority. The cries to “bring the judiciary under control” come from those who either do not understand our form of government, or who are cynically attempting to circumvent the Constitution to seize power. We do not live in a democracy! We have a representative form of government which functions within democratic principles. If we must – we live within a representative-democracy. India is more of a democracy than we are.
I cannot believe that the people I have so closely spent the last three years of my life during this profoundly significant time are all about ready to disperse into all parts of this country. Through the good and the bad, I love these people and have loved this experience.
Enough…