AI...my new BFF

Last night was our one night to relax before the real intensity of GA began. We had a big picnic and watched fireworks on the Mississippi River which was absolutely breath-taking. We had some pretty wacky entertainment preceding the fireworks including the Westminster High School Belly-Dancing Club, a ventriloquist with his puppet named Dudley, and some intense Christian rapping. The picnic was actually a lot of fun and I ended up walking back to the hotel through downtown Minneapolis with a few friends which was an experience of its own. The streets were crowded with everyone who had come downtown to watch the fireworks display.

After we got back to the hotel, I met up with more friends and we walked to a nearby gas station to buy Arizona Iced Tea and a deck of cards. We played hearts till super late, all sitting around a table in the Hyatt lobby and listening to a man play his banjo on the couch right next to us.

Then I woke up and entered the real world of GA. I spent 10 hours in committee today! Woooo!!!!

Let me just begin with a phrase that I have become well-acquainted with over the past 24 hours:

Authoritative Interpretation (AI)- an interpretation of The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) that carries the authority of the General Assembly and is binding on the governing bodies of the church.

Harry Young warned me about the overabundance of AIs which I would be dealing with in committee and he even gave me a printout with the definition of Authoritative Interpretation before leaving home...I had no idea what I was in for.

The committee which I am on is called Church Polity and we basically have a hundred orders of business referred to us from presbyteries all over the country regarding sections of the Book of Order which may need amending. We can recommend to the General Assembly to either approve or disapprove the overtures presented to us, with or without amendments or comments. Before each overture is presented, an advocate addresses the committee on behalf of the overture and a representative from the ACC (Advisory Committee on the Constitution) reports her advice to the committee.

Are you lost yet? This is the least of it. At one point we were voting on whether or not to vote on disapproving the recommendation to recommend the approval of the amendment to the overture to the General Assembly. Trying to figure out what exactly I was voting for often seemed like some convoluted logic problem...

Over an hour was spent debating whether or not to use Authoritative Interpretation in regards to interpreting the rules of Authoritative Interpretation as they appear in the Book of Order...what?? Another tidbit I learned today was the difference between "shall" and "should"...something I vaguely remember Harry warning me of in the days before GA.

The GA is huge on acronyms. There is even a .pdf file made available for us to download which lists all the GA acronyms. The one which gave people in my committee the most trouble today was "GAPJC"- General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission. Even our unenthusiastic moderator (whom we must address as "Madame Moderator" at all times) stumbled over the acronym repeatedly, making the delegates feel a little better about themselves.

We found great ways to keep ourselves entertained in committee. When taking a vote, we were asked to put our hands up in the air so the moderator could count how many stood for or opposed to the motion on the floor. During one vote, one of the YAADs started humming Miley Cyrus's Party in the USA, and all the other YAADs joined in singing, "So I put my hands up, they're playing my song, the butterflies fly away." It only made sense, since we were putting our hands up and all, but the commissioners just looked at us like we were crazy. They must not have understood the reference.

The YAAD sitting to my right, Tory, was my partner for icebreakers on the first day. We became fast friends and entered into a vicious rivalry after the first official vote (on which we voted differently). Throughout the day, we kept track of how many times motions which each of us voted for passed, and kept a running count on our computer screens. By the time committee adjourned at 9:30 p.m., I was winning 12-6. Hopefully I can keep my lead tomorrow!

For lunch, the YAADs in my committee went to Hell's Kitchen (ironic, much?), then Panera for dinner. We were supposed to have a full two hours for dinner, but that got cut down to about one since we were dreadfully behind schedule as the night went on.

One item of business which the YAADs had a big part in was the definition of age categories with regards to representation on committees:

The Advisory Committee on the Constitution recommends that the 219th General Assembly (2010) answer the question with the following authoritative interpretation, adopted in 1991, of G-9.0105a(5)regarding “youth”:

“Different age groups are persons who are unlike each other due to the different stages of life they represent, such as youth, adulthood, or old age. In order to assure greater inclusiveness in the church, persons from all different age groups are needed. The age groups and ages they contain are as follows: Youth—25 and under; Young Adults—26–35; Adults—36–55; Senior Adults—56 and up” (Minutes, 1991, Part I, p. 402).

This stirred great controversy among the YAADs, since we are considered YOUNG ADULT advisory delegates and not YOUTH delegates, bringing forth some inconsistency in how our age group is defined. Tory and I drafted several motions before he finally presented one which would create five categories:

• Youth- 18+under
• Young Adults- 19-25
• Middle Adults- 26-45
• Upper Adults- 46-64
• Senior Adults- 65+up

We figured these categories made a little more sense so 25-year-olds weren't grouped with 5-year-olds and the term "Young Adult" would remain consistent with the "Young Adult Advisory Delegates." Well either way, the motion failed, so I'm still considered a youth. Oh well. Another commissioner (not a YAAD) presented a similar motion and that failed, too. Another loss for the YAADs.

What else...
-The commissioners from South Dakota Presbytery, Washington Presbytery and New Covenant Presbytery are all supercool.
-Beatles music was blasting from the room connected to ours at one point.
-After committee let out a half hour late, we got to go to a YAAD gathering for several hours and pretend that we still had energy.
-At one point we voted down a motion to disapprove a recommendation, then subsequently voted down a motion to approve the same recommendation, then had to vote on whether or not we wanted to reconsider the first motion, then voted to reconsider the first motion, then voted in favor of disapproving the original recommendation. Yay for hours of redundant discussion!