My Awesome Week

I seem to be having the best luck lately. I s'pose I'll start with the beginning of last week.

My college, like the rest of the world, is very low on funds. It is an extremely small college, and therefore tuition/room/board have all gone up. Faculty and staff salaries have been cut and cut and cut. Finally, they made the decision to let some faculty members go. They did this without consulting or even notifying the students.

My involvement with this bull**** started way back in February or March when one of the Sisters, formerly the president of the college, died, and no one notified us (the only way I found out was because Hillary got an email about it, since she is a staff member). I was so rip**** thatI bitched and bitched until they sent out a student and alum-wide email (I felt particularly strongly about this because this particular Sister, besides being a sweet woman whom I had seen many times in the gym and the cafeteria, was the president of the college when my mother attended). Then the Dean of the School of the Arts and Sciences resigned, to move on to a new position elsewhere, and students again were not notified. This time I did everything I could to spread the news and alert students to the fact that we were all, basically, being lied to by omission. Then I found out about the professors being laid off and s**t really hit the fan. Last Monday I helped organise a student run protest/forum to start spreading the information that was being with held. I really pissed a lot of people off, but I feel that, we are paying enough money to go to college that we should be told the truth and kept informed about decisions made regarding our education and the college itself. One of the people who helped organise it with me got fired from his on-campus job and lost his housing. Another person was threatened that, if she attended to event, she would not receive the award she was schedulued to receive at baccalaureate. Another person was told that if she wanted to keep her position as president of the senior class, she would not allow the event to go on. They tried to get to me through Hillary. These people are monsters, and I will do everything in my power to make their lives miserable. Threatening 20 year olds, really mature. The event was very successful, and we are well on our way to open communication. But as long as the slimeballs who run this college are still employed, I still have work to do.

I connected with an alum of the college, who lives in the same town as the college, who also has beef with the "big 4" (the big admins of the school). She's very intelligent, and also very funny, and she graduated a year after my mother, which is really cool. She offered me a job this summer helping her out with office stuff and working with the GSA in the town, which she started and runs. I am SO pumped! This happened on Tuesday.

I've been applying to tons of jobs lately. I recently got a call from one place, and I had my interview yesterday and I basically have the job. It's in retail, and I have no retail experience but I'm pretty friendly and it will be great to have something to do this summer (and to be saving money for grad school).

I got a call the other night from the new pastor of my church (she's the temporary pastor, but she's a really nice lady) and she wants me to be one of three representatives (voting members) of our church who attend this year's Synod Assembly. It's basically this huge church meeting that takes three days. I think churches from six states will be attending (the New England Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America), so there will be lots of people and it's a really big deal. I am so honored, and unfortunately it's the weekend right before my 21st birthday so I won't be able to have beers with the rest of the New England Lutherans, but I will totally be there and it's going to be amazing.

Tomorrow is my last final exam, and then at 5:30 tomorrow night I'm flying to Florida. I'll be there until Saturday, enjoying the 2010 Flower and Garden Festival in Disney. We're going to see Dave Matthews Band on June 8th, Brandi Carlile on July 30th and LILITH FAIR in HARTFORD on August 1. And, of course, I turn 21 on June 12, which happens to coincide with the Boston Pride Parade. Oh it's going to be a great summer.

Hope everyone else has had a good week!

A Giant Leap for Equality

I was at church this evening for my last service before heading across the pond. I gave my pastor a great big hug, knowing how much we're going to miss each other and how much I'm going to miss the church community. Pastor is a wonderful man who has taught me so much about living my life as a spiritual person, his retirement in February is going to be one of the hardest losses of my life. He can't step foot in the church for five years after he retires, which is a church rule in order for the new pastor to become familiar with the congregation. I sure am going to miss him though, but when I get back from London I'll be church shopping near the new apartment. Hopefully I'll be lucky enough to find a congregation as warm as the one I am leaving behind, but no one will ever be able to replace pastor.

It took me a while to get out of church tonight, as everyone was talking with me about London and wishing me well and I was saying my goodbyes. Mom said she thought pastor was getting a little misty when he was saying his goodbyes to me, and I wouldn't doubt it because I was too. I cried like a baby as I drove myself home tonight. I haven't gone four months without going to church since I was baptised.

However, I wasn't so much crying because I am going to miss pastor, the congregation, the feeling I get when I sing a hymn or look up at the cross in the pulpit. Pastor told me, as I was leaving, that the church (the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America) recently (this week!!) voted to stop discriminatory practices in regard to sexual orientation. That means that gays and lesbians are now able to be married in the church by an ordained Lutheran minister, gays and lesbians can serve openly as ordained ministers AND be in committed relationships with their spouses. Previously, gays and lesbians could serve as ordained ministers BUT they had to be abstinant, and church policy was that gay and lesbian commitment ceremonies or weddings wouldn't be church sponsored.

This is the. best. news. EVER! I'm so happy for the church, it literally made me weepy, so my tears were a mix of sadness at leaving and happiness that the church is finally entering the 21st century (they skipped right over the 19th and 20th and moved right into the 21st! big steps for a conservative, old fashioned organization). This bodes very well for my interest in becoming a pastor, something I need to discuss with my pastor when I get back from London. I love research and psychology but I've always felt called to serve God and it's not something I can deny. I'm just glad I no longer have to choose between serving God as an ordained individual and being true to myself. I'm also relieved that, if I want to, I can be married in my own church by my own pastor and have a marriage recognized by my church.

It's a wonderful feeling to be accepted. Somewhere in heaven Jesus is saying "now stop persecuting the homos and start feeding the hungry!"