I don't know that I can summarize a whole year on here. As much as I do have a penchant for writing long things, I am invariably destined to leave things out. But I am going to do my best to hit the biggest things, if I can. Just a picture, is all, that I want to paint, and more for me than for you, but feel free to read...because I wouldn't put it here if I was opposed to having readers. All....3 of you or whatever it is.
New Years day (especially the part before I went to bed after the New Year began) might have been the hardest day of the year. To that end, I guess, perhaps, it was my most improved year ever....starting low. But it started low for purely sentimental reasons. Very painful, even still, sentimental reasons. I've already talked about that, in my post directly prior to this....but I thought I should start at the beginning.
In February, valentines day in fact, I learned about my placement at Hillsdale. That doesn't seem as long ago as it really was...it's coming up on a year now. I think I still feel about the same toward that piece of news now as I did then. I'm excited, but also a little sad to be leaving so much of everything and everyone here. That meant something different at the time, but the facts remain the same.
Most of my life has been centered on that little piece of information I recieved on Valentine's day. I've been raising support, sharing about the work, and preparing for my eventual departure from Ohio to that state up north. It's taken a lot longer to arrive at this time of readiness than I had ever anticipated, but I know beyond any shadow of any sort of doubt, that it has all been right...this long journey from Wooster to Hillsdale.
Finishing my I.S. in March remains my greatest single life accomplishment. I'm still a little shocked that I ever did it...but I did. And If you're a current Wooster student reading this, you can too. I'll never forget turning it in, and as much as it seems like a sort of haze, I'll forever remember I.S. Monday as well.
Did anything happen in April? Honestly, I'm not terribly sure.... I'm sure I read a lot and started slacking off in classes because I could....April happened.
Then May happened. And a lot happened in May.
Graduation day, or well, weekend, was one of the strangest experiences of my life and I'm still processing it bit by bit...more because of what it was than because of anything that happened. I remember shifting around from being really excited to be graduating and to have a free weekend with some of my best friends in the world, then falling to lows of sadness because I knew (and time has proven) that things would never be the same again. This was probably the time I started really convincing myself of a sort of motto for 2009: "keep walking forward." I feel like I stole that from a smattering of movies or other things, but whatever...it's been my guiding light all year, because this has been a year full of goodbyes and hellos and great excitement and great disappointment. But I've just got to keep walking forward in life.... it's all I can do.
Immediately after graduation, over a span of 3.5 days I decided that I hated my job as and IV staff then decided that it is the best job in the world and love doing it to death....I haven't had a chance to do it since, but Chapter Focus Week (the week-long, post-finals camp in which the next year is laid out in InterVarsity Chapters) with Hillsdale was the most emotionally jolting experience would could have when coupled with it's proximity to graduation and leaving Wooster. In the time it's been since, as I've been raising support, it's been digging deep in my memory back to those times of loving everything about working with students, even for so short a time, that has sustained me.
And it is good that I had something to sustain me, because this summer was one of the driest times of my life. Aside from two amazing wedding weekends peeking through the bleakness, as well as the Regional Staff Conference, it was indescribably difficult...and it's hard to even remember how hard it was. Fund raising, on it's own, is a roller coaster. Going from great joy and thankfulness as surprises and awesome acts of God's provision come in, and then to great disappointment as things don't fall into place and as people you love turn you down is hard....that, mixed with an incredibly blank social atmosphere in which I lived (4 years away makes that happen...) and less than supportive (at the time) parents....it was hard, if you haven't picked up on that quite yet....hard hard hard. God pulled me through though, and I learned a lot....I'm still learning a lot from those times and these times. His faithfulness is great and real and glorious.
Like I said though, there were two amazing wedding weekends that made for wonderful reprieves from it all....it's surreal, to see friends my own age (kind of...I'm young for my school-age...I have no idea how I'll ever catch up in life, or how life will catch up with me...) married and starting lives together. And it's an absolute blast to be in a wedding...celebrating love is the best thing we can do in life, I think...at least, often, the most enjoyable, and I was glad to be a part of these celebrations of love.
If you think about it, that's what life is all about...any marriage is an ongoing celebration of love (or should be). A life of worship is ultimately a life celebrating God's love for us...and no matter what are lives are, factually, ultimately, and at their best, we are to lead lives of worship.
While I'm on the topic of love, 2009 was the first complete calendar year I spent single since 2004. (fyi, 2003 is the year I was first in a relationship, so for those keeping score at home, my years of singleness are 1988-2002, 2004, and 2009....I don't know why I think any of you are interested in this, but I'm human so I feel the need to document and record dumb things like that). I kind of hope 2009 is my last year of complete singleness too, but I don't know, only God does. As I think about all of these "facts" I realize that 2004 and 2009 will probably go down as the two years that have, experientially, shaped much of my emotional mindset when it comes to dating.... a traumatic prom night experience in 2004 was the source of that...and 2009 was kind of a deluge of emotional let downs....but I have learned a lot through it all, and I'm sure it has not been for nothing. (and yes, again, for those of you really keeping track, I do dislike how much I focus on my love life...on here, mentally, in my prayer life, in time spent thinking about things....but no, I cannot help it)
Fast forward to the last month or so. It was November 22nd, and everything came into focus: I finally realized why the summer had been so hard....God wanted me here until the first of the year for a reason, and the reason has a lot to do with Curry. There's too much explanation to that for right now, but as I'm preparing for the end of the year and the end of my time in Ohio (for now at least...) I'm finally beginning to see that every moment, every event, every single second of every life is completely worthwhile. I have, perhaps unwittingly, made more than 19 new friends in the last month and I'm leaving them in just over a week...but it has been worth it...more than worth it... There is a sort of love that can just exist without conditions, without limits, and without expectations....and it is freedom.
the word that first comes to mind when I try to explain 2009 is weird...and the second is hard. But the third is glorious....because through it all and at the end of it all, I remember that there is a loving God who showers all of us with a love that never lets go...and more than anything else, that's what I've needed this year....love that won't let me go, even if I try to escape and even when it seems like everyone wants everything from me but offers nothing in return. Sometimes this year, I've felt like a ship dashed against the sharpest rocks...but after the collision, after the breaking, is a fall into an ocean that is nothing but eternal, boundless, and, most importantly, unconditional love.
-Zack
"And you're not thinking about tomorrow
Cause you were the same as me
But on your knees"
-Goo Goo Dolls
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
End of 2009 #2: What was and what will never be
This would probably come later in the week were I trying to be more dramatic and perhaps more correct, but I kind of just want to get this post over with so I can finally move on into what will actually be and what actually was (if you feel like thinking about those for a free preview of what I'll be writing about in the coming days...).
2010 was supposed to be different.
This week was supposed to be different.
As you hopefully know and are praying, this week is Urbana 09...Urbana is the tri-annual student missions conference InterVarsity puts on, and it changes a lot of lives. In 06, it certainly changed mine in many ways.... it was, for the purposes of this post, the week Meg and I started dating.
Fittingly, it was at Urbana at 09 that we were supposed to take the next step and get engaged....
2010, as I said, was supposed to be different.
It will probably always be a little hard, each new years, thanks to that relationship, at least while I'm still single.
Each year I have a secret resolution that I won't be single next new years...and the two new year's I've spent with Meg were the only times that's ever worked. That's probably how it's supposed to be though.
This year, well, even these last few weeks, have made for a strange shade to all of that, making the singleness (feel free to read that as loneliness but I hate sounding that pathetic, no matter how true it is) bite just slightly harder.
But it is what it is and it's that for a reason. Maybe next year will be different.
The last 3 days are 3 for 3 in my seeing friends get engaged via facebook. It's that time of year and that time of life (it has been for awhile now, and someday, I'll be one of those friends for others too....but not now, not yet)...but it's a piece of ice-cold irony, each time that shows up in my newsfeed, at least this week. But next week, indeed, this weekend, is a new year, and who knows what will come? That can be said of any year, but I used to know a lot more about what was coming in 2010 than I do now.
But I'm moving in just over a week, and beyond that, I know nothing, and that is exciting.
(editors note: I resisted the urge to tie a deconstruction of Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me" here, for many reasons)
-Zack
"If you let me, you won't regret me * if you let me, you won't forget me"
-Lil Wayne
2010 was supposed to be different.
This week was supposed to be different.
As you hopefully know and are praying, this week is Urbana 09...Urbana is the tri-annual student missions conference InterVarsity puts on, and it changes a lot of lives. In 06, it certainly changed mine in many ways.... it was, for the purposes of this post, the week Meg and I started dating.
Fittingly, it was at Urbana at 09 that we were supposed to take the next step and get engaged....
2010, as I said, was supposed to be different.
It will probably always be a little hard, each new years, thanks to that relationship, at least while I'm still single.
Each year I have a secret resolution that I won't be single next new years...and the two new year's I've spent with Meg were the only times that's ever worked. That's probably how it's supposed to be though.
This year, well, even these last few weeks, have made for a strange shade to all of that, making the singleness (feel free to read that as loneliness but I hate sounding that pathetic, no matter how true it is) bite just slightly harder.
But it is what it is and it's that for a reason. Maybe next year will be different.
The last 3 days are 3 for 3 in my seeing friends get engaged via facebook. It's that time of year and that time of life (it has been for awhile now, and someday, I'll be one of those friends for others too....but not now, not yet)...but it's a piece of ice-cold irony, each time that shows up in my newsfeed, at least this week. But next week, indeed, this weekend, is a new year, and who knows what will come? That can be said of any year, but I used to know a lot more about what was coming in 2010 than I do now.
But I'm moving in just over a week, and beyond that, I know nothing, and that is exciting.
(editors note: I resisted the urge to tie a deconstruction of Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me" here, for many reasons)
-Zack
"If you let me, you won't regret me * if you let me, you won't forget me"
-Lil Wayne
Friday, December 25, 2009
End of 2009 #1: Hear what I Hear
"Jesus spoke to them in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable"
-Matthew 13:34
I've always disliked the Christmas song "do you hear what I hear." It's just seemed kind of dumb and simplistic, repetitive and irrelevant. But that changed this year.
It's about perspective....it's all always about perspective.
The angels came to the shepherds, probably for a lot of reasons, but I think in part, at least, because they were in the place to believe.
Jesus shared things with his disciples he wouldn't share so explicitly with the crowds...because they could see and perceive things about him that other couldn't or didn't have the desire to believe.
I'm not a seminary student or graduate, so I won't begin to tackle the messianic mystery theology, but I do know something about words and symbols, and at least in part, it seems we can rely on God to always and only ever lead us and tell us as far or as much as we're ready to understand right now.
It seems easy to say that life would be easier if God just told us what we were supposed to do, who we are supposed to be or even to be with...but the truth is, we're bad at perception most of the time. Say God did tell me something exactly about the future that I'm not supposed to know now because it's too far off....how would or even, how could I take it? I'll jumpstart it, most certainly, and ruin the road I'm supposed to take to get there.
I've dated 5 girls in my life and, obviously, I haven't and won't be marrying any of them...and yet, I feel like, at the time, I was supposed to date each and every one of them....because they're all part of this road and key steps along the way to my eventuality.
If God had told me I was going to the College of Wooster during my freshman year of High School, I can only imagine how different my high school experience would have been...
And that's just one side of it....would I even believe him if he gave me the name of some woman I've probably not even met yet, or the name of a school I'd never heard of? I don't think I would....so even if I did believe him, I would probably mess my life up...and I probably wouldn't believe him anyway.
And perhaps, more than anything else, that's what I hear from God most often; "just trust me, you don't have to know right now for it to work out."
I hope you had a great Christmas and the new year is on it's way with joy and hope for you and yours.
As the title suggests, I will probably have a series of looking-forward and looking-back posts through the new year.....
Traditionally, New Year's is my favorite Holiday, and even though Christmas might have supplanted it this year, it will always hold a special place in my heart.
-Zack
"The Child, the Child sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light"
-Matthew 13:34
I've always disliked the Christmas song "do you hear what I hear." It's just seemed kind of dumb and simplistic, repetitive and irrelevant. But that changed this year.
It's about perspective....it's all always about perspective.
The angels came to the shepherds, probably for a lot of reasons, but I think in part, at least, because they were in the place to believe.
Jesus shared things with his disciples he wouldn't share so explicitly with the crowds...because they could see and perceive things about him that other couldn't or didn't have the desire to believe.
I'm not a seminary student or graduate, so I won't begin to tackle the messianic mystery theology, but I do know something about words and symbols, and at least in part, it seems we can rely on God to always and only ever lead us and tell us as far or as much as we're ready to understand right now.
It seems easy to say that life would be easier if God just told us what we were supposed to do, who we are supposed to be or even to be with...but the truth is, we're bad at perception most of the time. Say God did tell me something exactly about the future that I'm not supposed to know now because it's too far off....how would or even, how could I take it? I'll jumpstart it, most certainly, and ruin the road I'm supposed to take to get there.
I've dated 5 girls in my life and, obviously, I haven't and won't be marrying any of them...and yet, I feel like, at the time, I was supposed to date each and every one of them....because they're all part of this road and key steps along the way to my eventuality.
If God had told me I was going to the College of Wooster during my freshman year of High School, I can only imagine how different my high school experience would have been...
And that's just one side of it....would I even believe him if he gave me the name of some woman I've probably not even met yet, or the name of a school I'd never heard of? I don't think I would....so even if I did believe him, I would probably mess my life up...and I probably wouldn't believe him anyway.
And perhaps, more than anything else, that's what I hear from God most often; "just trust me, you don't have to know right now for it to work out."
I hope you had a great Christmas and the new year is on it's way with joy and hope for you and yours.
As the title suggests, I will probably have a series of looking-forward and looking-back posts through the new year.....
Traditionally, New Year's is my favorite Holiday, and even though Christmas might have supplanted it this year, it will always hold a special place in my heart.
-Zack
"The Child, the Child sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light"
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Sing we now of Christmas
Merry Christmas everyone. May the love of Christ our savior dwell with you today and tomorrow and always.
In coming to Earth, Jesus proved to all of us a divine promise: "I love you and I will do whatever it takes to be with you." Even, in the words of Paul "death on a cross."
Love like that today.
Love like that always.
Celebrate beauty, celebrate life. Celebrate the coming of a king who gave up everything for his people.
I pray you can love deeply this Christmas and into the next year.
My senior English teacher, as her sort of parting advice as we graduated, told us to "love strongly, and when it hurts, because it will hurt, keep loving." Jesus personified that sort of love..and I wish I could too. I wish you could too. I wish we all could.
But let us not speak of what is wrong with the world today, because although there is much wrong, and much of that stems from a lack of love, today we celebrate. We celebrate because Christ came and brought hope, and then he brought and is bringing change and love and peace and joy.
Rejoice with me, brothers and sisters, for Christ has come and the darkness has ended.
-Zack
"Good people all, this Christmas time,
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done
In sending his beloved son"
-The Wexford Carol
In coming to Earth, Jesus proved to all of us a divine promise: "I love you and I will do whatever it takes to be with you." Even, in the words of Paul "death on a cross."
Love like that today.
Love like that always.
Celebrate beauty, celebrate life. Celebrate the coming of a king who gave up everything for his people.
I pray you can love deeply this Christmas and into the next year.
My senior English teacher, as her sort of parting advice as we graduated, told us to "love strongly, and when it hurts, because it will hurt, keep loving." Jesus personified that sort of love..and I wish I could too. I wish you could too. I wish we all could.
But let us not speak of what is wrong with the world today, because although there is much wrong, and much of that stems from a lack of love, today we celebrate. We celebrate because Christ came and brought hope, and then he brought and is bringing change and love and peace and joy.
Rejoice with me, brothers and sisters, for Christ has come and the darkness has ended.
-Zack
"Good people all, this Christmas time,
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done
In sending his beloved son"
-The Wexford Carol
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Maybe
I've sat down the write something a couple of times in the past day or so. Each time, I never have the words to say, but one keeps coming back to me: intersection.
I don't mean a traffic intersection, but the intersecting of two things, two things of importance. The image I get is sort of an eclipse...where the moon intersects the sun's light (or whatever it is that happens during an eclipse....).
Maybe it's just a good word for Christmas.
It was, after all, the time when all of history intersected with all of the future. It was when God decided to intersect with the human story. It was when the Kingdom of God started coming...it was when the now and the not yet started...where the future perfection met and continues to meet our brokenness. These intersections, however, are not too similar to the eclipse I see in my mind. Because in these intersections, it was more like a merging. The Kingdom of God didn't come and leave; it came and continues in the same direction. Everything changed at Christmas.
And everything continues to change at Christmas. We all know it's not when Christ was born, but as far as I can tell, it's good that Christmas comes at the end of the year.
I'm much more obsessed with calendar years than most people and probably more than I ought to be, but the new hope that is Christmas is necessarily concurrent in the spiritual sense with the actual changing of the calendar year and therefore, the new hope that I at least feel from that.
All of that aside, I think I'll always remember this Christmas season because of all the intersections that have happened in my life. And just as the year ends and a new one begins, like the moon eventually passing beyond the sun's rays, things will change in my life and the intersections will become a part of my past.
But maybe that won't be totally true.
I know it could never be perfectly true. Lives don't intersect to any degree of meaning and come out as they were at the beginning....I said I'll always remember this Christmas season, and I will take that one step further and say that I will always fondly remember this Christmas season, because of the intersections and because of the better person I am thanks to them.
-Zack
"The only way to really know is to really let it go"
-Ingrid Michaelson
I don't mean a traffic intersection, but the intersecting of two things, two things of importance. The image I get is sort of an eclipse...where the moon intersects the sun's light (or whatever it is that happens during an eclipse....).
Maybe it's just a good word for Christmas.
It was, after all, the time when all of history intersected with all of the future. It was when God decided to intersect with the human story. It was when the Kingdom of God started coming...it was when the now and the not yet started...where the future perfection met and continues to meet our brokenness. These intersections, however, are not too similar to the eclipse I see in my mind. Because in these intersections, it was more like a merging. The Kingdom of God didn't come and leave; it came and continues in the same direction. Everything changed at Christmas.
And everything continues to change at Christmas. We all know it's not when Christ was born, but as far as I can tell, it's good that Christmas comes at the end of the year.
I'm much more obsessed with calendar years than most people and probably more than I ought to be, but the new hope that is Christmas is necessarily concurrent in the spiritual sense with the actual changing of the calendar year and therefore, the new hope that I at least feel from that.
All of that aside, I think I'll always remember this Christmas season because of all the intersections that have happened in my life. And just as the year ends and a new one begins, like the moon eventually passing beyond the sun's rays, things will change in my life and the intersections will become a part of my past.
But maybe that won't be totally true.
I know it could never be perfectly true. Lives don't intersect to any degree of meaning and come out as they were at the beginning....I said I'll always remember this Christmas season, and I will take that one step further and say that I will always fondly remember this Christmas season, because of the intersections and because of the better person I am thanks to them.
-Zack
"The only way to really know is to really let it go"
-Ingrid Michaelson
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Towers
If you're at all a fan of the Lord of the Rings (which I'm not so much anymore, but I have been.....but I have been many things), you're aware that the second installment in the series is called "The Two Towers." Everyone has probably wondered what the two towers are, and the answer is always that there are options.... they could be the two evil towers or they could be the good tower and the bad tower. My favorite part about that little discussion/debate is that Tolkien didn't care what two towers you picked, because he never titled anything The Two Towers. The publishers made him chop the book into three and they chose the titles for the three parts. There's something interesting about the fact that a debate exists to which there is clearly no clear answer. There is no answer. The towers in the title aren't even necessarily in the book because the author did not choose that title. For all we know, they could be the tower of London and the Eiffel tower, signifying the route between Britain and France that so many soldiers were forced to take in WWI....Tolkien was in that war, after all. But I'm slightly Derridian.
In Vertigo, by Alfred Hitchcock, he made his crew superimpose a large white tower in the background of shots from Jimmy Stewart's apartment. Hitchcock usually liked to use locations and keep them true to their real-world spacial placements, so this was out of the ordinary. When asked why he was so insistent on the placement of the tower, his reply was positively Freudian.... my advisor told me you couldn't trust anything Hitchcock actually said about his films though.....
One of my favorite songs is sung by a woman but from a male perspective. It's this: Recessional, Vienna Teng. I once wrote a paper about gendering narrative voice. My conclusion was that, for whatever reason, the totality of things written in the English language don't allow for as much imagery from the man's perspective as from the woman's. Even, it seems, as women enter a "non-gendered" third person narrative, the language must get more flowery (for lack of a better word). From the first person though, it seems rare that men are allowed to speak of the beautiful things in life. "Amelie," if you've seen it (this) was written by a man and directed by a man...but it's among the closest examples there are of a first-person narrative with the camera, and that first-person is female.
Sometimes, what we say, what we do, what we mean, and what we actually believe, are completely divergent and magically correlative.
-Zack
"She faded into that newborn crowd
Like a warning of what could be lost."
-Vienna Teng
In Vertigo, by Alfred Hitchcock, he made his crew superimpose a large white tower in the background of shots from Jimmy Stewart's apartment. Hitchcock usually liked to use locations and keep them true to their real-world spacial placements, so this was out of the ordinary. When asked why he was so insistent on the placement of the tower, his reply was positively Freudian.... my advisor told me you couldn't trust anything Hitchcock actually said about his films though.....
One of my favorite songs is sung by a woman but from a male perspective. It's this: Recessional, Vienna Teng. I once wrote a paper about gendering narrative voice. My conclusion was that, for whatever reason, the totality of things written in the English language don't allow for as much imagery from the man's perspective as from the woman's. Even, it seems, as women enter a "non-gendered" third person narrative, the language must get more flowery (for lack of a better word). From the first person though, it seems rare that men are allowed to speak of the beautiful things in life. "Amelie," if you've seen it (this) was written by a man and directed by a man...but it's among the closest examples there are of a first-person narrative with the camera, and that first-person is female.
Sometimes, what we say, what we do, what we mean, and what we actually believe, are completely divergent and magically correlative.
-Zack
"She faded into that newborn crowd
Like a warning of what could be lost."
-Vienna Teng
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
A Boute de Souffle
Not the movie.
It's translation.
"Breathless."
But not in quotes.
I don't know why I'm explaining all of that.... I don't know how familiar with French films, even the most famous of them, anyone reading this is or might be.
But sometimes life is exhilarating, and when I think of exhilarating, I think of being without breath in the best of ways. Without words in the best of ways. That's how I think of exhilarating. Speechlessness. And that's a big thing for me, at least when I'm writing.
I would describe it as saying that it's the feeling that I need to write, because there's something wonderful going on inside of me, but the words just can't come, they just don't come...I'm just stuck with a feeling I can't express...and that's the point...the good point...the best point.
I don't know if you ever feel like that. I don't know how you express yourself...I don't know if exhilaration means an inability to express...
But that's how I feel tonight.
For no single reason. But for many. For all of them.
And the most I can even say, the most I can even do, is to point out that this feeling allows me to stare at the future, the future that is so near but feels so far and is physically very far from where I am now and what I do now, and the feeling lets me feel alright. It lets me enjoy the moment and not worry about what is to come.
Because life is about moments like this.
Life is about moments.
-Zack
"We put on our winter skin and we walk"
-Jars of Clay
It's translation.
"Breathless."
But not in quotes.
I don't know why I'm explaining all of that.... I don't know how familiar with French films, even the most famous of them, anyone reading this is or might be.
But sometimes life is exhilarating, and when I think of exhilarating, I think of being without breath in the best of ways. Without words in the best of ways. That's how I think of exhilarating. Speechlessness. And that's a big thing for me, at least when I'm writing.
I would describe it as saying that it's the feeling that I need to write, because there's something wonderful going on inside of me, but the words just can't come, they just don't come...I'm just stuck with a feeling I can't express...and that's the point...the good point...the best point.
I don't know if you ever feel like that. I don't know how you express yourself...I don't know if exhilaration means an inability to express...
But that's how I feel tonight.
For no single reason. But for many. For all of them.
And the most I can even say, the most I can even do, is to point out that this feeling allows me to stare at the future, the future that is so near but feels so far and is physically very far from where I am now and what I do now, and the feeling lets me feel alright. It lets me enjoy the moment and not worry about what is to come.
Because life is about moments like this.
Life is about moments.
-Zack
"We put on our winter skin and we walk"
-Jars of Clay
Monday, December 14, 2009
Been Waiting for Tomorrow...
I still have no idea what I'm going to write, but I'm just going to start writing and we will see what happens. Usually that means I start theorizing or I start talking about sports. I'll do my best to avoid either possibility....
I think, this time of year, I end up writing some sort of ode to peppermint...or maybe I remember that happening from earlier in the year or something...but as I'm sitting here thinking about what I could say, the first thing that came to mind is how much I love this time of year because Peppermint is my all time favorite flavor. I'm alright with other types of mint (particularly wintergreen....whatever that even means, I like how it tastes), but nothing has anything on peppermint for me. It's just so good...and it tastes like Christmas...and who doesn't love Christmas?
Don't answer that.....because I know a lot of people don't like Christmas. There are a lot of things not to like about it. I should probably hate it because consumerism is among my least favorite things in all the world...but I don't think you should throw the season out with it's ills...it's not my fault others do things with Christmas that I hate.... just like the human body, many things happen to it, but it doesn't mean I should stop loving the miracle and beauty of the body. Okay, strange example...first one that came to mind though.
During this advent season, my church has been focusing on a new, three-part way to think about Christmas: Worshiping Fully, Spending Less, and Giving More. I don't know what to say about that, anymore than I just did... it's really what it should all be about. Really, it's what life should be about. It's been a very meditative season for me, as I've thought about how to rethink how I approach and deal with the holiday season. I don't think I'm in the boat of not giving gifts yet (which has a lot to do with the people for whom I shop, but also the not-so-bad theology behind giving gifts to loved ones to honor God's gift to us), but I've been thinking about how to make the gifts I give meaningful.... to actually, really, put thought into who the person is and how my gift can be something that makes them feel loved and allows them, in turn, to show more love.
I don't know what that means yet...but it definitely doesn't mean spending more...it means thinking about how I'm spending and what I'm doing to show love with my gift...not just to fill the expected obligation of buying gifts (which, quite frankly, has been what it has felt like from time to time in the past).
Hillsdale's second semester starts a week from yesterday. That means, in less than 1 month, I'll be working on campus. That's a surreal thought and it feels like forever away...but it's coming and it's coming quickly....maybe too quickly.
And semesters always fly by....and I won't even be taking classes. I don't know how ready I am for the life that is waiting for me. But it's where I'm headed...and I know I'll meet it head on and do my best...and God won't just do the rest, even thought that would rhyme, but he'll sustain me through it all...and he'll work it out and he'll do great things. That's what he does...great things. And he loves too...it's the sort of sustaining, constant love I know I'll need... I know I do need now...
I haven't watched a movie in weeks. It's incredible really, considering I was once watching 5/week for class plus usually one or two for fun.
I also learned today that video games just don't mean much to me anymore. I had nothing to do tonight and the house to myself, and my brother has a ton of PS3 games that I haven't even touched (and a PS3 that I've barely played at all, for that matter)....and I even moved it out to the living room. I played for maybe 1.5 hours, then used it to watch DVDs for the next couple of hours. There was nothing wrong with the games....very fun and all... I just don't have the drive to devote time to it. It feels like a waste of time, even though I spent the time watching Gilmore Girls instead, so it's not like I had something better to do. And they were even sequels to games that I have spent probably hundreds of hours on in my lifetime....and good sequels too...but I just didn't have it in me.
That probably doesn't mean much to anyone that reads this, but that's because I don't think any of my high school friends read this.... before college, video games were my thing...my very passionate, often argumentative thing (and I was more argumentative then than I am now, if you can at all believe that...).
I don't know when it all changed... I mean, I certainly spent less time with video games during college than I did before, for a ton of reasons, but even as late as spring break my junior year, I still remember being able to play hours of video games at a time (because we were snowed in, and I remember doing just that one of the days we couldn't leave campus). Maybe the love was just supplanted...maybe old habits don't die as hard as they seem to and I replaced my former love with other things that at least seem like a better use of my time.
Whatever it is...I used to think I would be playing video games regularly on into my old age...but that's definitely not going to be the case. I'll probably always want to play the newest Zelda and if I have a chance, I could probably still devote hours to it....but I don't know if that's true of anything else (Zelda has been my thing for as long as I can remember...like, honestly, my earliest memories are playing the first one.... much of my love for the series is pure nostalgia). But for whatever reason it, as it began 22 years ago, now ends with Zelda. Actually, that is my last memory of devoting real time to a game; last Christmas, my brother bought me a Zelda game I hadn't played. I finished it before going back to Wooster for second semester...
There is, however, a degree of social value for my particular age group that comes from playing video games with friends... I'll probably always acknowledge and be able to enjoy things like that.
I am excited for 2010. Every new year is exciting as it is (it is my favorite holiday for all the reasons Christmas should be...), but there are some cool things happening.... I finally get to start staffing Hillsdale, the winter Olympics, I get to be in another wedding (which, by the way, is a top 10 life experience...do it if you get the chance!), all of my favorite sporting events return (they've all happened for the year, save for Christmas Day NBA basketball), the Rose Bowl featuring Ohio State for the first time in the Tressel Era, I'm sure there will be many more engagement announcements (that just happens at this point in my life...but it's got to dry up eventually right, as everyone gets married?) and who knows, maybe I'll get back on the track to be one of those engagement announcements too. I'm hopeful for the new year in a way I've not been for awhile. It's also the second of my new tri-annual traditions of reading the Bible in a year. I actually did it by September last time... I'm looking forward to it, because that remains one of the most impacting experiences of my life so far, and I'm looking forward to doing it again. It's a simple system: read 3 chapters of the Old Testament, one of the new, and one psalm each day. you could probably even drop it to 2 chapters of the old Testament and still finish by 2011. But I won't... I like the studious feeling that comes from absorbing that much text in a single sitting..... if you're going to do it, be sure you keep track of where you are in writing each day....some old testament chapters blur together so just bookmarks don't always work....but bookmarks are helpful when you're trying to find the second chapter of Amos or something like that....
Well, I kind of patched together something there. I hope there was something there that was at least a little fun to read!
Until next time!
-Zack
"I'm not in it to win it, I'm in it for you"
-Train
I think, this time of year, I end up writing some sort of ode to peppermint...or maybe I remember that happening from earlier in the year or something...but as I'm sitting here thinking about what I could say, the first thing that came to mind is how much I love this time of year because Peppermint is my all time favorite flavor. I'm alright with other types of mint (particularly wintergreen....whatever that even means, I like how it tastes), but nothing has anything on peppermint for me. It's just so good...and it tastes like Christmas...and who doesn't love Christmas?
Don't answer that.....because I know a lot of people don't like Christmas. There are a lot of things not to like about it. I should probably hate it because consumerism is among my least favorite things in all the world...but I don't think you should throw the season out with it's ills...it's not my fault others do things with Christmas that I hate.... just like the human body, many things happen to it, but it doesn't mean I should stop loving the miracle and beauty of the body. Okay, strange example...first one that came to mind though.
During this advent season, my church has been focusing on a new, three-part way to think about Christmas: Worshiping Fully, Spending Less, and Giving More. I don't know what to say about that, anymore than I just did... it's really what it should all be about. Really, it's what life should be about. It's been a very meditative season for me, as I've thought about how to rethink how I approach and deal with the holiday season. I don't think I'm in the boat of not giving gifts yet (which has a lot to do with the people for whom I shop, but also the not-so-bad theology behind giving gifts to loved ones to honor God's gift to us), but I've been thinking about how to make the gifts I give meaningful.... to actually, really, put thought into who the person is and how my gift can be something that makes them feel loved and allows them, in turn, to show more love.
I don't know what that means yet...but it definitely doesn't mean spending more...it means thinking about how I'm spending and what I'm doing to show love with my gift...not just to fill the expected obligation of buying gifts (which, quite frankly, has been what it has felt like from time to time in the past).
Hillsdale's second semester starts a week from yesterday. That means, in less than 1 month, I'll be working on campus. That's a surreal thought and it feels like forever away...but it's coming and it's coming quickly....maybe too quickly.
And semesters always fly by....and I won't even be taking classes. I don't know how ready I am for the life that is waiting for me. But it's where I'm headed...and I know I'll meet it head on and do my best...and God won't just do the rest, even thought that would rhyme, but he'll sustain me through it all...and he'll work it out and he'll do great things. That's what he does...great things. And he loves too...it's the sort of sustaining, constant love I know I'll need... I know I do need now...
I haven't watched a movie in weeks. It's incredible really, considering I was once watching 5/week for class plus usually one or two for fun.
I also learned today that video games just don't mean much to me anymore. I had nothing to do tonight and the house to myself, and my brother has a ton of PS3 games that I haven't even touched (and a PS3 that I've barely played at all, for that matter)....and I even moved it out to the living room. I played for maybe 1.5 hours, then used it to watch DVDs for the next couple of hours. There was nothing wrong with the games....very fun and all... I just don't have the drive to devote time to it. It feels like a waste of time, even though I spent the time watching Gilmore Girls instead, so it's not like I had something better to do. And they were even sequels to games that I have spent probably hundreds of hours on in my lifetime....and good sequels too...but I just didn't have it in me.
That probably doesn't mean much to anyone that reads this, but that's because I don't think any of my high school friends read this.... before college, video games were my thing...my very passionate, often argumentative thing (and I was more argumentative then than I am now, if you can at all believe that...).
I don't know when it all changed... I mean, I certainly spent less time with video games during college than I did before, for a ton of reasons, but even as late as spring break my junior year, I still remember being able to play hours of video games at a time (because we were snowed in, and I remember doing just that one of the days we couldn't leave campus). Maybe the love was just supplanted...maybe old habits don't die as hard as they seem to and I replaced my former love with other things that at least seem like a better use of my time.
Whatever it is...I used to think I would be playing video games regularly on into my old age...but that's definitely not going to be the case. I'll probably always want to play the newest Zelda and if I have a chance, I could probably still devote hours to it....but I don't know if that's true of anything else (Zelda has been my thing for as long as I can remember...like, honestly, my earliest memories are playing the first one.... much of my love for the series is pure nostalgia). But for whatever reason it, as it began 22 years ago, now ends with Zelda. Actually, that is my last memory of devoting real time to a game; last Christmas, my brother bought me a Zelda game I hadn't played. I finished it before going back to Wooster for second semester...
There is, however, a degree of social value for my particular age group that comes from playing video games with friends... I'll probably always acknowledge and be able to enjoy things like that.
I am excited for 2010. Every new year is exciting as it is (it is my favorite holiday for all the reasons Christmas should be...), but there are some cool things happening.... I finally get to start staffing Hillsdale, the winter Olympics, I get to be in another wedding (which, by the way, is a top 10 life experience...do it if you get the chance!), all of my favorite sporting events return (they've all happened for the year, save for Christmas Day NBA basketball), the Rose Bowl featuring Ohio State for the first time in the Tressel Era, I'm sure there will be many more engagement announcements (that just happens at this point in my life...but it's got to dry up eventually right, as everyone gets married?) and who knows, maybe I'll get back on the track to be one of those engagement announcements too. I'm hopeful for the new year in a way I've not been for awhile. It's also the second of my new tri-annual traditions of reading the Bible in a year. I actually did it by September last time... I'm looking forward to it, because that remains one of the most impacting experiences of my life so far, and I'm looking forward to doing it again. It's a simple system: read 3 chapters of the Old Testament, one of the new, and one psalm each day. you could probably even drop it to 2 chapters of the old Testament and still finish by 2011. But I won't... I like the studious feeling that comes from absorbing that much text in a single sitting..... if you're going to do it, be sure you keep track of where you are in writing each day....some old testament chapters blur together so just bookmarks don't always work....but bookmarks are helpful when you're trying to find the second chapter of Amos or something like that....
Well, I kind of patched together something there. I hope there was something there that was at least a little fun to read!
Until next time!
-Zack
"I'm not in it to win it, I'm in it for you"
-Train
Sunday, December 13, 2009
I'm not going to lie...
My posts have been superseded by another internet writing opportunity these days....but I'll get back to it some time.
I'm too tired right now...but I will tell you that I've got some half-baked thoughts about what it really means that Jesus is King...and I mean, specifically, King... not just Lord and Master...but King.
But they're half-baked, and I'm more than half asleep.
-Zack
"All this holding on can't be wrong"
-Train
I'm too tired right now...but I will tell you that I've got some half-baked thoughts about what it really means that Jesus is King...and I mean, specifically, King... not just Lord and Master...but King.
But they're half-baked, and I'm more than half asleep.
-Zack
"All this holding on can't be wrong"
-Train
Friday, December 11, 2009
I know I'm already kind of a day late...but I don't feel like I have anything to say right now. I might later. I'll try later. I even kind of know what I want to say this time... it's just not coming to me at the moment and I'm not too enthused about writing it.
-Zack
"I've been waiting, all that's left to do is run"
-Taylor Swift
-Zack
"I've been waiting, all that's left to do is run"
-Taylor Swift
Monday, December 7, 2009
There's a reason not to want this...but I forgot.
Beneath the layers of noise around us pervade whispers of the deepest truths. A beckoning, calm and soft; easily drowned out but impossible to silence. A constant rhythm of tranquility, lying beneath the immediate, beneath the easy. Nothing could be simpler but nothing could be more ethereal and yet completely real. A wholeness made complete by our deepest longings meeting their satisfaction in what has always been all around. Upon it all we build all we know. Monuments to us or even monuments to it. But nothing is more durable and nothing is more beautiful. Nothing is more satisfying and nothing is more fulfilling. It is from where we have come and it is to where we will one day return.
And sometimes, in the silence, you can still hear it.
Sometimes, in the noise, it can be louder.
If you are listening.
-Zack
"Who are you taking coffee with sugar, who are you echoing street signs?"
-Vienna Teng
And sometimes, in the silence, you can still hear it.
Sometimes, in the noise, it can be louder.
If you are listening.
-Zack
"Who are you taking coffee with sugar, who are you echoing street signs?"
-Vienna Teng
Thursday, December 3, 2009
100
This is my 100th post, and it is certainly fitting that it is coming at the standard Thursday time-slot. I've been writing a lot more lately, for better or worse, so I'm at 100 faster than I would have been at the pace at which I was going for most of the year. I am glad then, that 100 has fallen to the normal, traditional, Thursday time.
I was monstrously productive today. There were a couple of things I had to do that I thought would take a lot longer than they did. I slept in by like, 3 hours, by complete accident, and thought I might have to stay up later than expected tonight to accomplish what I needed to accomplish. But here I am....it's all accomplished (for the most part), and it's not even 5 p.m. yet.
Accomplishment feels good.
Maybe 100 posts is an accomplishment. I don't know. I know it took me less than 1 year to accomplish...so that says something, although I'm not sure what. It should be said though, that there are a lot less "fluff" posts on this than I have had on my past two personal "blogs" (www.xanga.com/dulacian and (from the summer of my 16th year) outridestorm.livejournal.com (read at your own risk.... I was a typical teenager and I can't stand to look at that one at all anymore) ). By fluff post, I mean things that I didn't really write or create... things like song lyrics or website links and things (of course, facebook didn't exist as the outlet for those sorts of things that it is today). I abhor looking back on my old writing because it's terrible.... but I enjoy looking back on it all to see how far I've come...as a writer, but more importantly, as a human being. Looking back on posts from the summer after my senior year (which would be on the xanga site) especially, it shows how much I have grown from then to now. I don't necessarily suggest you look back (but it's all there, if you insist), but it does, at least, show, to me, the growth I've undergone in the past, well, 7 years or so. It's strange that I've so well documented the last 7 years of my life (for the most part....there are definitely lags here and there in my "blogging" and long spans of time where, even though I post, none of it is of any consequence).
So anyway... this is 100 posts old as soon as I hit the "publish post" button. Kind of cool....
I've a big advocate of revisiting the whole life of Christ during Advent and Lent. It puts everything into perspective, and it means, right now, that I'm in the midst of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). I don't know if there are 3 more hard-hitting chapters in the Bible...
Honestly, I mostly don't know what to make of the Sermon on the Mount. I know it's all true... I know it's all seemingly impracticable. And I know it's the blueprint for an upside down world, but even so, it's not just that general that we shouldn't take it to heart in the specifics.
But it's not all just moral advice.
It's really beautiful imagery for a life lived by the grace of God and under the lordship of Christ. "how great is the grass of the field adorned and yet it is thrown to the thresher? How much more will the Lord provide for you?"
I don't know. Well, I do know. I know that I worry far too much about tomorrow...mostly endless tomorrows, not just Friday the 4th.
There's an intersection between the impracticable and the charge not to worry (at the end of chapter 6) that shapes the whole sermon and ought to shape our lives. It is all about perspective and, if you will, worldview. I worry about things, largely, because I neglect to realize that God is in control...that God is my provider even when I don't see how things are going to come together. I worry about things because I am constantly looking at them through the constraints of the world I live in, the world I know, the world in the order that sets itself up according to itself. But God is outside of that order...God is, indeed, above that order. It is clear, from the seemingly illogical advice of the sermon on the mount, that God turns that order upside down. And in that upside down world, by God's reckoning (and, by Jesus' advice, what should be our reckoning too), we don't have to worry about things, because the world isn't what it seems to us or even how we interpret it through our at best impartial understanding of God's order of the world.
God decenters (or ought to) our understanding of the world, and until we fully recenter it on him and through him, we're going to be imperfect, incomplete, incapable of the fullness of life we were intended to enjoy. But thank God for redemption, thank God for the journey He's established to have even parts of our lives placed under his Lordship, placed according to his order... thank God for his provision that, even though we waste time worrying, proves the worrying to be a waste because he always provides.
-Zack
"It's the season of cold making warmth a divine intervention
You are safe here you know now"
-Vienna Teng
I was monstrously productive today. There were a couple of things I had to do that I thought would take a lot longer than they did. I slept in by like, 3 hours, by complete accident, and thought I might have to stay up later than expected tonight to accomplish what I needed to accomplish. But here I am....it's all accomplished (for the most part), and it's not even 5 p.m. yet.
Accomplishment feels good.
Maybe 100 posts is an accomplishment. I don't know. I know it took me less than 1 year to accomplish...so that says something, although I'm not sure what. It should be said though, that there are a lot less "fluff" posts on this than I have had on my past two personal "blogs" (www.xanga.com/dulacian and (from the summer of my 16th year) outridestorm.livejournal.com (read at your own risk.... I was a typical teenager and I can't stand to look at that one at all anymore) ). By fluff post, I mean things that I didn't really write or create... things like song lyrics or website links and things (of course, facebook didn't exist as the outlet for those sorts of things that it is today). I abhor looking back on my old writing because it's terrible.... but I enjoy looking back on it all to see how far I've come...as a writer, but more importantly, as a human being. Looking back on posts from the summer after my senior year (which would be on the xanga site) especially, it shows how much I have grown from then to now. I don't necessarily suggest you look back (but it's all there, if you insist), but it does, at least, show, to me, the growth I've undergone in the past, well, 7 years or so. It's strange that I've so well documented the last 7 years of my life (for the most part....there are definitely lags here and there in my "blogging" and long spans of time where, even though I post, none of it is of any consequence).
So anyway... this is 100 posts old as soon as I hit the "publish post" button. Kind of cool....
I've a big advocate of revisiting the whole life of Christ during Advent and Lent. It puts everything into perspective, and it means, right now, that I'm in the midst of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). I don't know if there are 3 more hard-hitting chapters in the Bible...
Honestly, I mostly don't know what to make of the Sermon on the Mount. I know it's all true... I know it's all seemingly impracticable. And I know it's the blueprint for an upside down world, but even so, it's not just that general that we shouldn't take it to heart in the specifics.
But it's not all just moral advice.
It's really beautiful imagery for a life lived by the grace of God and under the lordship of Christ. "how great is the grass of the field adorned and yet it is thrown to the thresher? How much more will the Lord provide for you?"
I don't know. Well, I do know. I know that I worry far too much about tomorrow...mostly endless tomorrows, not just Friday the 4th.
There's an intersection between the impracticable and the charge not to worry (at the end of chapter 6) that shapes the whole sermon and ought to shape our lives. It is all about perspective and, if you will, worldview. I worry about things, largely, because I neglect to realize that God is in control...that God is my provider even when I don't see how things are going to come together. I worry about things because I am constantly looking at them through the constraints of the world I live in, the world I know, the world in the order that sets itself up according to itself. But God is outside of that order...God is, indeed, above that order. It is clear, from the seemingly illogical advice of the sermon on the mount, that God turns that order upside down. And in that upside down world, by God's reckoning (and, by Jesus' advice, what should be our reckoning too), we don't have to worry about things, because the world isn't what it seems to us or even how we interpret it through our at best impartial understanding of God's order of the world.
God decenters (or ought to) our understanding of the world, and until we fully recenter it on him and through him, we're going to be imperfect, incomplete, incapable of the fullness of life we were intended to enjoy. But thank God for redemption, thank God for the journey He's established to have even parts of our lives placed under his Lordship, placed according to his order... thank God for his provision that, even though we waste time worrying, proves the worrying to be a waste because he always provides.
-Zack
"It's the season of cold making warmth a divine intervention
You are safe here you know now"
-Vienna Teng
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Remembered.
There is much weight to that word (the title of this, that is) in my life right now.
Perhaps there always has been.
Indeed, there always has been.
Someone told me today, that Zachary is a great name, and I should live up to it. I'm not quite sure what she meant...but I agree that it's not a bad name, and I had to assume she knows what it means. It's not her husbands name and she didn't say anything about having a kid or anything named Zachary...she said it was a great name...and that I should live up to it.
Zachary means "The Lord hath Remembered" I'm not sure the hath is necessary...but I prefer "th" to "v" whenever I get a chance to do the swap.
I'm not quite sure what to think about being randomly told to live up to my name, but if that was at all from God, it has to mean that I ought to live up to the meaning of my name.
And I don't even know how to live up to being remembered. Is there even anything to live up to? It's just something I am right?
But I think there is more to it than that. Certainly, at face value, it's just a fact. The Lord has remembered me...and I know that from a long life of pain, let downs, and glorious redemption mixed in with great joy, sorrow, happiness, laughter, and victories. It would seem that if God has done anything in my life, it has been to remember me.
Maybe I'm just reading my life into the meaning of my name. Thankfully, I'm not named Cassandra (which means "she who entagles men").... names don't always mean much, so why should mine be applicable?
Because it does mean something, and it means something great...and it means something true for all of us...but it's still my name.
Forgive my lack of post-modernity in claiming a name, but when we're recentering on God, that's when all post-modernism falls to the wayside (sorry Lacan).
There's something to being remembered. Something of an absence. Not that I think God is ever absent from our lives... but I know I've been absent from God many times in my life. In order to be remembered, there has to be an absence. I can't remember writing this post right now...because I'm still writing it. There must be space. Sometimes (horrible times....looking back) I put that space between God and I. But he never let go. He always "remembered" me. And He always will.
It's a past-tense name that comes with a promise. The Lord has remembered me....and He always will.
I remember too. It's one of my defining qualities... I actually suppress it a lot of the time because one of my other defining (and least desirable) qualities is a sort of "know-it-allism" So I act like I forget things a lot of the time when I don't...because I don't want to destroy a conversation through recitation or by making myself look better than someone else. In high school, people used to tell me that they wished they were as smart as I was...my smartness was just a good memory, and there's nothing all that appealing about it, because it's remarkably easy to alienate people when you know too much or just remember too much....especially with facebook, because I can know and remember, even unwillingly, things about people that I've no real need, desire, or right to know. Of course, I've never been on the other side of my memory... I don't know what it's like to actually have to memorize things and study for more than an hour for even the longest of tests. Maybe I wouldn't like it, but if I've learned anything in the 22 years and 12 days that I've walked the Earth, it's that people are far more important than facts. I would rather not have alienated most of my high school class by "knowing everything." But this is where I am.
And I like where I am...for the first time in awhile.
I remembered someone (who (although I believe erroneously) claims to be "hard to remember") in October from years (like 10) ago. I don't know how much the remembering had to do with anything, but that set a path out before me that has, after 6 months, finally made life here more than just bearable, but an utter joy. I've almost kind of stumbled into many new sparking and sparkling friendships, just within a week or so, and I don't want to leave so much now, as I've finally fallen into a situation that could only get better and more beautiful with time. But the remembrance is a promise. Just because I'll be leaving soon doesn't mean I'm losing anything. God's still going to remember me, and I've got to figure out what that means....no, I don't have to...I'm going to, and it won't be me figuring it out, it's going to be me seeing it...seeing how he will remember this time...and how I will too. Part of me feels like part of me is dying at the end of the month, when I move... But that isn't true. Part of me is reawakening or even coming alive...nothing happening now it lost...just transformed.
And I don't know what that means yet...but I hope to find out and I hope it's good...and if it is not, it just means that the next step will be, because that's what it means to be remembered. It means sometimes, the absence is felt, but never real.
And that is why memories can be painful. It is why memories can get us through lonely nights. It is why Taylor Swift fans have a hard time forgiving Kanye. It is why break-ups with the worst significant others require time to heal. Memories fade and dull in time but I don't think they ever quite die... they just silently internalize and shape who we become.
But we cannot live on memories alone.
-Zack
"I'll become what you became to me"
-Goo Goo Dolls
Perhaps there always has been.
Indeed, there always has been.
Someone told me today, that Zachary is a great name, and I should live up to it. I'm not quite sure what she meant...but I agree that it's not a bad name, and I had to assume she knows what it means. It's not her husbands name and she didn't say anything about having a kid or anything named Zachary...she said it was a great name...and that I should live up to it.
Zachary means "The Lord hath Remembered" I'm not sure the hath is necessary...but I prefer "th" to "v" whenever I get a chance to do the swap.
I'm not quite sure what to think about being randomly told to live up to my name, but if that was at all from God, it has to mean that I ought to live up to the meaning of my name.
And I don't even know how to live up to being remembered. Is there even anything to live up to? It's just something I am right?
But I think there is more to it than that. Certainly, at face value, it's just a fact. The Lord has remembered me...and I know that from a long life of pain, let downs, and glorious redemption mixed in with great joy, sorrow, happiness, laughter, and victories. It would seem that if God has done anything in my life, it has been to remember me.
Maybe I'm just reading my life into the meaning of my name. Thankfully, I'm not named Cassandra (which means "she who entagles men").... names don't always mean much, so why should mine be applicable?
Because it does mean something, and it means something great...and it means something true for all of us...but it's still my name.
Forgive my lack of post-modernity in claiming a name, but when we're recentering on God, that's when all post-modernism falls to the wayside (sorry Lacan).
There's something to being remembered. Something of an absence. Not that I think God is ever absent from our lives... but I know I've been absent from God many times in my life. In order to be remembered, there has to be an absence. I can't remember writing this post right now...because I'm still writing it. There must be space. Sometimes (horrible times....looking back) I put that space between God and I. But he never let go. He always "remembered" me. And He always will.
It's a past-tense name that comes with a promise. The Lord has remembered me....and He always will.
I remember too. It's one of my defining qualities... I actually suppress it a lot of the time because one of my other defining (and least desirable) qualities is a sort of "know-it-allism" So I act like I forget things a lot of the time when I don't...because I don't want to destroy a conversation through recitation or by making myself look better than someone else. In high school, people used to tell me that they wished they were as smart as I was...my smartness was just a good memory, and there's nothing all that appealing about it, because it's remarkably easy to alienate people when you know too much or just remember too much....especially with facebook, because I can know and remember, even unwillingly, things about people that I've no real need, desire, or right to know. Of course, I've never been on the other side of my memory... I don't know what it's like to actually have to memorize things and study for more than an hour for even the longest of tests. Maybe I wouldn't like it, but if I've learned anything in the 22 years and 12 days that I've walked the Earth, it's that people are far more important than facts. I would rather not have alienated most of my high school class by "knowing everything." But this is where I am.
And I like where I am...for the first time in awhile.
I remembered someone (who (although I believe erroneously) claims to be "hard to remember") in October from years (like 10) ago. I don't know how much the remembering had to do with anything, but that set a path out before me that has, after 6 months, finally made life here more than just bearable, but an utter joy. I've almost kind of stumbled into many new sparking and sparkling friendships, just within a week or so, and I don't want to leave so much now, as I've finally fallen into a situation that could only get better and more beautiful with time. But the remembrance is a promise. Just because I'll be leaving soon doesn't mean I'm losing anything. God's still going to remember me, and I've got to figure out what that means....no, I don't have to...I'm going to, and it won't be me figuring it out, it's going to be me seeing it...seeing how he will remember this time...and how I will too. Part of me feels like part of me is dying at the end of the month, when I move... But that isn't true. Part of me is reawakening or even coming alive...nothing happening now it lost...just transformed.
And I don't know what that means yet...but I hope to find out and I hope it's good...and if it is not, it just means that the next step will be, because that's what it means to be remembered. It means sometimes, the absence is felt, but never real.
And that is why memories can be painful. It is why memories can get us through lonely nights. It is why Taylor Swift fans have a hard time forgiving Kanye. It is why break-ups with the worst significant others require time to heal. Memories fade and dull in time but I don't think they ever quite die... they just silently internalize and shape who we become.
But we cannot live on memories alone.
-Zack
"I'll become what you became to me"
-Goo Goo Dolls
Monday, November 30, 2009
End of November
If the first 11 days of being 22 are any indication, it's in the running for the best age ever.
But that's probably mostly happenstance.
Details potentially forthcoming.
Have a happy last day of November. It's traditionally my favorite month, and of 2009, I think it ended the best of the 12 thus far. Here's to December being even better (?).
-Zack
"Kind of like missionary week, without the food"
-Veggie Tales
But that's probably mostly happenstance.
Details potentially forthcoming.
Have a happy last day of November. It's traditionally my favorite month, and of 2009, I think it ended the best of the 12 thus far. Here's to December being even better (?).
-Zack
"Kind of like missionary week, without the food"
-Veggie Tales
Saturday, November 28, 2009
They had to count them all....
Come into the liminal. It's impossible to live here, but it's impossible to leave. It's the only firm ground in our decentered existence. And it's the place I find myself, tonight. I almost titled this "conflicted" but I wasn't sure what I'm conflicted on, beside the fact that so much of me is conflicted on so much of everything. And that is liminal.
this is liminal.
The beautiful and impossible thing about liminality is that the moment you've sufficiently determined how something is liminal...it isn't anymore. It's a feeling.
A postmodern feeling.
And a feeling is the most tangible reality of post-modern thought anyway...
Welcome to my Ph.D dissertation, if I ever write one.
But we're leaving that.
My life is interesting, but my life is beautiful too...and it's mostly beautiful because I get to spend it with beautiful people...and this isn't even a prayer letter where I would be getting paid to say that no matter how true it is.
Well...kind of paid. Payment is sort of post-modern with InterVarsity...
Okay, I feel like I should say something.
I learned, from a friend tonight, of a song by Garth Brooks about a guy being thankful that he didn't end up with his high school sweetheart because of how much more he loved his wife....apparently, this was a realization brought on by seeing said high school sweetheart years later. Moments before finding this out, I kind of had that reverse thing happen to me... I saw a picture (okay, the picture above, if you haven't figured that out....) of a former girlfriend with her new boyfriend...and it's a weird feeling, but it's a feeling of peace too...because they just look more right together than she and I ever did. I don't know how or why or why so often God does it, but it seems that people look right when they end up together (the only married couple (to my knowledge) that read this would be example #1 in a case study on the topic). Of course, I don't know that this former girlfriend is going to marry this new boyfriend, but they look right together, so I wouldn't be surprised. It's strange though, to see her, even in a picture, with someone else. But it's right.
Part of me feels a little jaded... I lost the race to the next relationship, but that's a dumb feeling that I don't really have... I just kind of talk about having it because it's something at which I can kind of laugh. I don't think I'd ever been beat before though...well, maybe once, but she never really told me about it so I can't quite count it and it was before facebook so there's no proof. It doesn't matter, and if anything, it just means I've grown up a lot since I started this whole dating thing 7 or so years ago. (as a slight aside, it looks like I'll probably be beat to marriage by all of them, and, if nothing else, it's the case that all of them are in relationships right now and I'm not....forever proving the tortoise right in the face of my hare's lifestyle)
I don't know why I always circle back to relationships on this thing...it just happens, and I guess it's where my mind is a lot of the time.
But there are pages to my life's story right now that I'm just kind of leaving out...and I think I'm going to keep it that way for now.
December is going to be interesting, I hope and pray.
But right now, I mostly just hope and pray people leave my house by 9:30 tomorrow night...
-Zack
"I take everything I learn and teach myself some disregard"
-Relient K
this is liminal.
The beautiful and impossible thing about liminality is that the moment you've sufficiently determined how something is liminal...it isn't anymore. It's a feeling.
A postmodern feeling.
And a feeling is the most tangible reality of post-modern thought anyway...
Welcome to my Ph.D dissertation, if I ever write one.
But we're leaving that.
My life is interesting, but my life is beautiful too...and it's mostly beautiful because I get to spend it with beautiful people...and this isn't even a prayer letter where I would be getting paid to say that no matter how true it is.
Well...kind of paid. Payment is sort of post-modern with InterVarsity...
Okay, I feel like I should say something.
I learned, from a friend tonight, of a song by Garth Brooks about a guy being thankful that he didn't end up with his high school sweetheart because of how much more he loved his wife....apparently, this was a realization brought on by seeing said high school sweetheart years later. Moments before finding this out, I kind of had that reverse thing happen to me... I saw a picture (okay, the picture above, if you haven't figured that out....) of a former girlfriend with her new boyfriend...and it's a weird feeling, but it's a feeling of peace too...because they just look more right together than she and I ever did. I don't know how or why or why so often God does it, but it seems that people look right when they end up together (the only married couple (to my knowledge) that read this would be example #1 in a case study on the topic). Of course, I don't know that this former girlfriend is going to marry this new boyfriend, but they look right together, so I wouldn't be surprised. It's strange though, to see her, even in a picture, with someone else. But it's right.
Part of me feels a little jaded... I lost the race to the next relationship, but that's a dumb feeling that I don't really have... I just kind of talk about having it because it's something at which I can kind of laugh. I don't think I'd ever been beat before though...well, maybe once, but she never really told me about it so I can't quite count it and it was before facebook so there's no proof. It doesn't matter, and if anything, it just means I've grown up a lot since I started this whole dating thing 7 or so years ago. (as a slight aside, it looks like I'll probably be beat to marriage by all of them, and, if nothing else, it's the case that all of them are in relationships right now and I'm not....forever proving the tortoise right in the face of my hare's lifestyle)
I don't know why I always circle back to relationships on this thing...it just happens, and I guess it's where my mind is a lot of the time.
But there are pages to my life's story right now that I'm just kind of leaving out...and I think I'm going to keep it that way for now.
December is going to be interesting, I hope and pray.
But right now, I mostly just hope and pray people leave my house by 9:30 tomorrow night...
-Zack
"I take everything I learn and teach myself some disregard"
-Relient K
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Giving Thanks (and the inverted word adventures! Okay...not really)
I might not have much time to post tomorrow, so I wanted to say something tonight, even though I feel exhausted.
This is, of course, the second straight night that I've felt exhausted and been incapable of sleeping. Last night was the second straight night of weird dreams...who knows what will happen tonight. I know I just can't sleep much right now. It's a rhythm I get into sometimes...where I get too much sleep for awhile, then I just don't need so much sleep for a few days..then it catches up with me and I manage to get "normal" for awhile...it's kind of bi-yearly, but I'll probably never be great at normal sleeping.... among various groups of people I'm known for both staying up later than everyone and getting up earlier.... it just depends.
Anyway...
This is officially my thanksgiving post, because right now, it's officially thanksgiving.
I have a lot to be thankful for this year:
College Graduation.
Friends, family, and other faithful donors that have committed to giving more than $13,000 toward ministry at Hillsdale
The sovereignty of God despite our own life plans (and indeed, sometimes, in line with them)....
And other things too, I'm sure.
I think my least favorite nickname for any Holiday is "Turkey Day" for thanksgiving.
Gratitude, it seems to me, is one of the most sacred acts in which we can partake...to God and to others. Removing the meaning from Thanksgiving is almost as egregious as taking the meaning from Christmas or Easter, but I don't think we think about it like that all that often. It is, afterall, one of our most "irreligious" of Holidays. Ironically though, I think it is the Holiday we can, by its very nature, do the most "Christian" action through... giving thanks is a charge given in the Bible a lot more than going to church at midnight or 6 am.
Far too often, indeed, much of the time, we make Thanksgiving into a feast for feastings sake...like it exists for the turkey, like it's an excuse for something or other...but there's more to that, at least reflectively.
At that, it's also one of our must individual and reflective holidays, and I like that...although there is something altogether wonderful about the "other-centeredness" that at least should be a large part of Christmas.
Anyway, this is something of a tangent... I guess I'm just asking that, if you're reading this, you're' remembering that giving thanks is important....moreso than it may seem.
I've got other things to be thankful for too...
I'm thankful for love. Well, that's misleading, at least in the cultural context through which most of you are reading this... I mean, more directly, that I'm thankful for all of the love that seems to have caught hold of so many of my closest friends this year. Marriages and engagements abound, and new and reconciled relationships aren't non-existent either. Perhaps the most memorable moments of 2009 are couched in those events.... Mike and Elyssa's wedding weekend, the night Paul and Alicia called me to tell me about their engagement, the news that both Audrey and Meg have sufficiently moved into happy relationships.... I guess if you don't know all or any of those people, that's kind of meaningless to you...but it makes me happy, and I am thankful, to be a member of a sort of group of people that is good at finding love. It's kind of ironic and maybe a tad refreshing, that I'm something of an odd-one-out at the moment, when, in the past 4 years, I had been pretty good at being in relationships. Actually, I'm thankful, too, that I can say I'm thankful for the happiness in these areas for others.... I haven't always been.... oftentimes, indeed, my least favorite thing in the world has been seeing people happily in love... but I'm happily past that now.
Okay, this is getting remarkably self-indulgent....
Sorry about that..
I am also thankful for curry...perhaps, at the moment, most immediately, out of everything else.
And although I am leaving soon, I'm thankful that it seems the end of my time in Ohio (for now that is.... I have a strong suspicion I'll be back before too long) is going to be full of reasons to want to stay..... that hadn't been the case at all since graduation.
Okay, still with the self-indulgence. I'm truly sorry for that....especially because I'm self-indulgent and ambiguous. But last night was one of those nights that makes me want to reach out and hug the world and scream the end of "In My Life" from Les Miserables from every rooftop. And now, I've swung from self-indulgent and ambiguous to over-the-top and ambivalent.
It seems I don't control my styles so well around midnight...and I most certainly don't control much of anything so well, when so much of what I want to say is so wordless deep inside of me.
Some people write because they have something to say... I write because I need to discover what it is I have to say...and sometimes, things are just too complex or at least too unclear inside of me for any sort of description to take shape.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving....as a day, and as an act.
-Zack
"Truth is given by God to us all, in our time, in our turn"
-Les Miserables
This is, of course, the second straight night that I've felt exhausted and been incapable of sleeping. Last night was the second straight night of weird dreams...who knows what will happen tonight. I know I just can't sleep much right now. It's a rhythm I get into sometimes...where I get too much sleep for awhile, then I just don't need so much sleep for a few days..then it catches up with me and I manage to get "normal" for awhile...it's kind of bi-yearly, but I'll probably never be great at normal sleeping.... among various groups of people I'm known for both staying up later than everyone and getting up earlier.... it just depends.
Anyway...
This is officially my thanksgiving post, because right now, it's officially thanksgiving.
I have a lot to be thankful for this year:
College Graduation.
Friends, family, and other faithful donors that have committed to giving more than $13,000 toward ministry at Hillsdale
The sovereignty of God despite our own life plans (and indeed, sometimes, in line with them)....
And other things too, I'm sure.
I think my least favorite nickname for any Holiday is "Turkey Day" for thanksgiving.
Gratitude, it seems to me, is one of the most sacred acts in which we can partake...to God and to others. Removing the meaning from Thanksgiving is almost as egregious as taking the meaning from Christmas or Easter, but I don't think we think about it like that all that often. It is, afterall, one of our most "irreligious" of Holidays. Ironically though, I think it is the Holiday we can, by its very nature, do the most "Christian" action through... giving thanks is a charge given in the Bible a lot more than going to church at midnight or 6 am.
Far too often, indeed, much of the time, we make Thanksgiving into a feast for feastings sake...like it exists for the turkey, like it's an excuse for something or other...but there's more to that, at least reflectively.
At that, it's also one of our must individual and reflective holidays, and I like that...although there is something altogether wonderful about the "other-centeredness" that at least should be a large part of Christmas.
Anyway, this is something of a tangent... I guess I'm just asking that, if you're reading this, you're' remembering that giving thanks is important....moreso than it may seem.
I've got other things to be thankful for too...
I'm thankful for love. Well, that's misleading, at least in the cultural context through which most of you are reading this... I mean, more directly, that I'm thankful for all of the love that seems to have caught hold of so many of my closest friends this year. Marriages and engagements abound, and new and reconciled relationships aren't non-existent either. Perhaps the most memorable moments of 2009 are couched in those events.... Mike and Elyssa's wedding weekend, the night Paul and Alicia called me to tell me about their engagement, the news that both Audrey and Meg have sufficiently moved into happy relationships.... I guess if you don't know all or any of those people, that's kind of meaningless to you...but it makes me happy, and I am thankful, to be a member of a sort of group of people that is good at finding love. It's kind of ironic and maybe a tad refreshing, that I'm something of an odd-one-out at the moment, when, in the past 4 years, I had been pretty good at being in relationships. Actually, I'm thankful, too, that I can say I'm thankful for the happiness in these areas for others.... I haven't always been.... oftentimes, indeed, my least favorite thing in the world has been seeing people happily in love... but I'm happily past that now.
Okay, this is getting remarkably self-indulgent....
Sorry about that..
I am also thankful for curry...perhaps, at the moment, most immediately, out of everything else.
And although I am leaving soon, I'm thankful that it seems the end of my time in Ohio (for now that is.... I have a strong suspicion I'll be back before too long) is going to be full of reasons to want to stay..... that hadn't been the case at all since graduation.
Okay, still with the self-indulgence. I'm truly sorry for that....especially because I'm self-indulgent and ambiguous. But last night was one of those nights that makes me want to reach out and hug the world and scream the end of "In My Life" from Les Miserables from every rooftop. And now, I've swung from self-indulgent and ambiguous to over-the-top and ambivalent.
It seems I don't control my styles so well around midnight...and I most certainly don't control much of anything so well, when so much of what I want to say is so wordless deep inside of me.
Some people write because they have something to say... I write because I need to discover what it is I have to say...and sometimes, things are just too complex or at least too unclear inside of me for any sort of description to take shape.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving....as a day, and as an act.
-Zack
"Truth is given by God to us all, in our time, in our turn"
-Les Miserables
Thursday, November 19, 2009
So, I'm 22
And I'm glad my age is alliterative again. It's one of the best things that happens in one's life ever 11 years.
22 is a randomly significant number to me....
But that's not important at the moment.
Well, I guess if I was ever going to talk about it, now would be the time. I'm probably not ever going to talk about it.
One year ago today was one of the most eventful and exciting Birthdays I've ever had.
Today has been....lower key.
But that doesn't mean it has been bad.
Last year, I went to Chipotle with Mark and Audrey for dinner.... they paid for me even though I didn't ask them to do so. Tonight, my parents are taking me to dinner, paying, expectedly.
Last year, I had like, 5 drinks that I didn't pay for.
This year, I doubt I'll have any drinks, and if I did, I would most definitely be paying for them myself....of course, that probably won't happen because I had to pay for license plates today...and they are not cheap. That, and I'm not sure I would just go buy a bottle of wine or something and drink it in my room by myself after the office...because that's probably what would be happening.
It's a big week for Ohio State athletics.....it's one of those weeks where I kind of wish I went to Ohio State.... tonight, we've got a basketball game against North Carolina, in which Ohio State wins because they have experience and UNC doesn't, although UNC will probably be better at the end of the year.... it should make for a good ranking til sometime in January though.
Saturday is, of course, the Michigan game. It's the Michigan game about which I'm least enthused in recent memory. The only thing that matters is that it's Michigan...which is important, BUT there usually so much more, and it's that so much more that crafted this rivalry. Ohio State can lose and will still make the Rose Bowl. Last year, they were playing for the BCS berth at least. Actually, I'm going to go out on a limb and pick Michigan in a close upset.... it pains me to say it, but they're playing for everything, Ohio State is playing for nothing, and it's in Michigan. Rich Rodriguez won't get fired after next year's 3rd straight bad season thanks to the squeaker over the Big Ten champs that happens this Saturday.
While I'm on the subject of sports, I should mention that I will be surprised if the Cavs don't make the finals this year. They will probably have the 3rd or 4th best record in the East, but that team is too deep... if everyone is playing for everything, like happens in the playoffs, they aren't going to be beat. That does, de facto, mean I'm picking them to win it all. There's no way whoever comes out of the quickly-becoming-a-joke western conference, where the College of Wooster would be the best defensive team in the conference, is going to win it all this year.
I don't know if anyone who reads this cares about sports at all....but I do, and sometimes, I just need to say something, if you haven't noticed.
I won't say anything about the NFL, because the only thing I like about that league is the fact that they football and I like football. I hate the media surrounding it, I hate the rules, I hate the personalities, and I hate the passing game. I hate Brett Favre because he's a Viking. I love the Packers, but I hate that they don't have a running game. I started loving them because of their tradition and because Brett Favre was always as good as he was atop a true smash-mouth rushing attack. But now, they get less than 100 yards a game on the ground...and it's infuriating. My NFL version of "love the sinner, hate the sin" is "love the sport, hate the league."
But I love the game of basketball to the point that I could watch two small high schools from West Virginia play and I would probably enjoy it to some degree.
Some day, I'll either write an essay or a long blog post about hip hop. Or maybe a series of posts.
But I love that too.
-Zack
"I'm the reason Dre feel comfortable retirin"
-The Game
22 is a randomly significant number to me....
But that's not important at the moment.
Well, I guess if I was ever going to talk about it, now would be the time. I'm probably not ever going to talk about it.
One year ago today was one of the most eventful and exciting Birthdays I've ever had.
Today has been....lower key.
But that doesn't mean it has been bad.
Last year, I went to Chipotle with Mark and Audrey for dinner.... they paid for me even though I didn't ask them to do so. Tonight, my parents are taking me to dinner, paying, expectedly.
Last year, I had like, 5 drinks that I didn't pay for.
This year, I doubt I'll have any drinks, and if I did, I would most definitely be paying for them myself....of course, that probably won't happen because I had to pay for license plates today...and they are not cheap. That, and I'm not sure I would just go buy a bottle of wine or something and drink it in my room by myself after the office...because that's probably what would be happening.
It's a big week for Ohio State athletics.....it's one of those weeks where I kind of wish I went to Ohio State.... tonight, we've got a basketball game against North Carolina, in which Ohio State wins because they have experience and UNC doesn't, although UNC will probably be better at the end of the year.... it should make for a good ranking til sometime in January though.
Saturday is, of course, the Michigan game. It's the Michigan game about which I'm least enthused in recent memory. The only thing that matters is that it's Michigan...which is important, BUT there usually so much more, and it's that so much more that crafted this rivalry. Ohio State can lose and will still make the Rose Bowl. Last year, they were playing for the BCS berth at least. Actually, I'm going to go out on a limb and pick Michigan in a close upset.... it pains me to say it, but they're playing for everything, Ohio State is playing for nothing, and it's in Michigan. Rich Rodriguez won't get fired after next year's 3rd straight bad season thanks to the squeaker over the Big Ten champs that happens this Saturday.
While I'm on the subject of sports, I should mention that I will be surprised if the Cavs don't make the finals this year. They will probably have the 3rd or 4th best record in the East, but that team is too deep... if everyone is playing for everything, like happens in the playoffs, they aren't going to be beat. That does, de facto, mean I'm picking them to win it all. There's no way whoever comes out of the quickly-becoming-a-joke western conference, where the College of Wooster would be the best defensive team in the conference, is going to win it all this year.
I don't know if anyone who reads this cares about sports at all....but I do, and sometimes, I just need to say something, if you haven't noticed.
I won't say anything about the NFL, because the only thing I like about that league is the fact that they football and I like football. I hate the media surrounding it, I hate the rules, I hate the personalities, and I hate the passing game. I hate Brett Favre because he's a Viking. I love the Packers, but I hate that they don't have a running game. I started loving them because of their tradition and because Brett Favre was always as good as he was atop a true smash-mouth rushing attack. But now, they get less than 100 yards a game on the ground...and it's infuriating. My NFL version of "love the sinner, hate the sin" is "love the sport, hate the league."
But I love the game of basketball to the point that I could watch two small high schools from West Virginia play and I would probably enjoy it to some degree.
Some day, I'll either write an essay or a long blog post about hip hop. Or maybe a series of posts.
But I love that too.
-Zack
"I'm the reason Dre feel comfortable retirin"
-The Game
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
I'll be 22 in 2 days.
It will be thanksgiving but one week after that.
Then, Christmas starts, and I'm excited about that.
I've been putting together my Christmas music library for awhile now, and it's going to be great.
I find that I read a lot more around Christmas, and I think a lot of that has to do with how well reading and listening to music go together for me. I want to listen to Christmas music, so I do that, and read while I do it. A few years back (well, sort of every year since but never as much as the first time) I listened to the Veggie Tales "A Very Veggie Christmas" about 8 times per day between Thanksgiving and Christmas..and that was when I had it on cassette and had to flip it half way through each time. I'm sure I'll listen to it quite a bit this year too, but it will be joined by Christmas music hopefully as diverse as my music library, ranging from the Benedictine chants from Christmas to a free CD of Holiday favorites Speedway gave out years ago when you filled your gas tank (to top it off, it was sponsored by Coca-Cola).
I can't wait to start seeing Christmas specials on t.v. again either.
It's going to be a good month.
And it's going to be topped off by finally getting to move to Hillsdale.
-Zack
"While you were building your empire, I was still sleeping"
-Vienna Teng
It will be thanksgiving but one week after that.
Then, Christmas starts, and I'm excited about that.
I've been putting together my Christmas music library for awhile now, and it's going to be great.
I find that I read a lot more around Christmas, and I think a lot of that has to do with how well reading and listening to music go together for me. I want to listen to Christmas music, so I do that, and read while I do it. A few years back (well, sort of every year since but never as much as the first time) I listened to the Veggie Tales "A Very Veggie Christmas" about 8 times per day between Thanksgiving and Christmas..and that was when I had it on cassette and had to flip it half way through each time. I'm sure I'll listen to it quite a bit this year too, but it will be joined by Christmas music hopefully as diverse as my music library, ranging from the Benedictine chants from Christmas to a free CD of Holiday favorites Speedway gave out years ago when you filled your gas tank (to top it off, it was sponsored by Coca-Cola).
I can't wait to start seeing Christmas specials on t.v. again either.
It's going to be a good month.
And it's going to be topped off by finally getting to move to Hillsdale.
-Zack
"While you were building your empire, I was still sleeping"
-Vienna Teng
Monday, November 16, 2009
Stained White
It seems like most people that read this probably fall into the group of people that have seen the second Chronicles of Narnia film: Prince Caspian. I've only seen it once in my life so far (which was while it was still in theatres), but I should probably think about seeing it again, because I remember it having the sort of beauty I've found only in Narnia. I once had a dream about the animated BBC production of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and that dream was about that beauty. As I think about it now (because, actually, of my random stumbling upon of "The Call" by Regina Spektor on Grooveshark last week), I realize that it's a sort of beauty that has had a profound impact upon my life.
The essence of the beauty is simple. Indeed, it is summed up in one word: special. There's a subtext to all of the Narnia books predicated on the hard back of the wardrobe. Narnia, as a non-allegory, lets itself be many things, and I think, what we all love about it, is the thing least often discussed, even if it comes out almost explicitly at times. The children do not simply love Narnia because of the great things that happen in the realm. Part of the glory of Narnia within each of the children from "our" world that get to go and come back, is how it is their own unique experience. It is something they know was real, but it is something that cannot simply be explained to be understood. It is something that, outside of their minds, might not exist at all. But it does, deep, somewhere, it does, although there is no proof. And that is a form of true beauty, at least to me. The most important, most wonderful, most impacting experiences of our lives are the irrational things we cannot explain to others...things we might, indeed, find embarrassing to talk about. But they are real. They are beautiful. They are, sometimes, more real than anything else..and I think that's how we relate to God, and how he relates to us. I can't verbalize the most important experiences I've had with God. The skeptics always chalk that up to his non-existence, but that is because they have no such experience. How can I expect them to understand?
And it's one of the most beautiful ways we can relate to one another. It happens on many levels, but the most basic, or, at least, most easily understood by the majority of the people that read this, is the sort of innate connection you might have felt, from time to time, with people you've never met, but, because you have both had a life-transforming encounter with God, you feel like you've already got something great in common. It goes deeper than that too, especially when you start talking about romance.
It is, perhaps, the most simplistic form of beauty in the world, but I think it's one we all recognize on some level, and I think it is, somehow, the beginning and ultimate end of love.
If any of that actually means something, then it means I've lived a hard 9 months moving toward learning it, or at least learning how to say it. The most scarring personal rejections, it seems, come from one side thinking more of that specialness and wanting to pursue it further...or perhaps seeing it when it does not exist. I've been there many times.
There's a second side to it all though, and that's the way it makes memories matter. Everyone has a past, and part of that past is probably a set of good memories. Take, for instance, one of the last nights before graduation in May. I went to see star trek with some good friends. No matter how many times I see that movie again, I doubt any of them will mean as much as that night did, because it had that set apart, special quality about it. It was more beautiful because of its specialness than any other viewing of that film could be. Even if I see it under wonderful circumstances (like, for whatever reason, I were to watch it on my honey moon or something like that...), that would then be a divergent memory, in which both would have their own special beauty....the complexity of it is such that both can be great, beautiful memories with similar circumstances, but, they will be different, and even with a similar sort of beauty, have a totally different beauty, because the beauty is based upon specialness. Even other times in life, where wonderful memories happen, like when I went to China, and sometimes never grow into anything (like all of the relationships in which I invested while I was there, with people I may never see or hear from again), it will always be something to me, thanks to its own special beauty.
I've been realizing, in the past two weeks, that that sort of beauty is good and even if it seems to be all anything ever amounts to, it is still a good thing to which something can amount. I need that right now, when everything is temporal, as I make new friends at church and have new experiences with old friends around here. I might be leaving soon and everything will change then, but it does not mean everything here is meaningless....even if that meaning is somewhat ethereal.
I don't know how Lewis captured that, but he did, and it's been shaping my life for years.
-Zack
"Shine with all the untold, hold the light given unto you, find the love to unfold, in this broken world we choose"
-Vienna Teng
The essence of the beauty is simple. Indeed, it is summed up in one word: special. There's a subtext to all of the Narnia books predicated on the hard back of the wardrobe. Narnia, as a non-allegory, lets itself be many things, and I think, what we all love about it, is the thing least often discussed, even if it comes out almost explicitly at times. The children do not simply love Narnia because of the great things that happen in the realm. Part of the glory of Narnia within each of the children from "our" world that get to go and come back, is how it is their own unique experience. It is something they know was real, but it is something that cannot simply be explained to be understood. It is something that, outside of their minds, might not exist at all. But it does, deep, somewhere, it does, although there is no proof. And that is a form of true beauty, at least to me. The most important, most wonderful, most impacting experiences of our lives are the irrational things we cannot explain to others...things we might, indeed, find embarrassing to talk about. But they are real. They are beautiful. They are, sometimes, more real than anything else..and I think that's how we relate to God, and how he relates to us. I can't verbalize the most important experiences I've had with God. The skeptics always chalk that up to his non-existence, but that is because they have no such experience. How can I expect them to understand?
And it's one of the most beautiful ways we can relate to one another. It happens on many levels, but the most basic, or, at least, most easily understood by the majority of the people that read this, is the sort of innate connection you might have felt, from time to time, with people you've never met, but, because you have both had a life-transforming encounter with God, you feel like you've already got something great in common. It goes deeper than that too, especially when you start talking about romance.
It is, perhaps, the most simplistic form of beauty in the world, but I think it's one we all recognize on some level, and I think it is, somehow, the beginning and ultimate end of love.
If any of that actually means something, then it means I've lived a hard 9 months moving toward learning it, or at least learning how to say it. The most scarring personal rejections, it seems, come from one side thinking more of that specialness and wanting to pursue it further...or perhaps seeing it when it does not exist. I've been there many times.
There's a second side to it all though, and that's the way it makes memories matter. Everyone has a past, and part of that past is probably a set of good memories. Take, for instance, one of the last nights before graduation in May. I went to see star trek with some good friends. No matter how many times I see that movie again, I doubt any of them will mean as much as that night did, because it had that set apart, special quality about it. It was more beautiful because of its specialness than any other viewing of that film could be. Even if I see it under wonderful circumstances (like, for whatever reason, I were to watch it on my honey moon or something like that...), that would then be a divergent memory, in which both would have their own special beauty....the complexity of it is such that both can be great, beautiful memories with similar circumstances, but, they will be different, and even with a similar sort of beauty, have a totally different beauty, because the beauty is based upon specialness. Even other times in life, where wonderful memories happen, like when I went to China, and sometimes never grow into anything (like all of the relationships in which I invested while I was there, with people I may never see or hear from again), it will always be something to me, thanks to its own special beauty.
I've been realizing, in the past two weeks, that that sort of beauty is good and even if it seems to be all anything ever amounts to, it is still a good thing to which something can amount. I need that right now, when everything is temporal, as I make new friends at church and have new experiences with old friends around here. I might be leaving soon and everything will change then, but it does not mean everything here is meaningless....even if that meaning is somewhat ethereal.
I don't know how Lewis captured that, but he did, and it's been shaping my life for years.
-Zack
"Shine with all the untold, hold the light given unto you, find the love to unfold, in this broken world we choose"
-Vienna Teng
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Still slacking, I know, but I've got a lot of ideas.... just no time to write right now.
I love homonyms.
Anyway, maybe tomorrow night at this point.... but here's the options:
1. the economy, which has two subsets, including communism and the two times I've had an idea that would be great for our economy
2. my relationship to LeBron James
3. What it means, exactly, to love Ohio State Football
4. My life recently and what it's meant for me internally
It will be about one of those.
Or something about all of those.
Maybe none of those...but I doubt that.
-Zack
"We will find illumination in unnatural light
You will travel a thousand miles without leaving my sight
We will find we never knew hatred ran so deep
Such a wide, wide chasm of faith to leap"
-Vienna Teng
I love homonyms.
Anyway, maybe tomorrow night at this point.... but here's the options:
1. the economy, which has two subsets, including communism and the two times I've had an idea that would be great for our economy
2. my relationship to LeBron James
3. What it means, exactly, to love Ohio State Football
4. My life recently and what it's meant for me internally
It will be about one of those.
Or something about all of those.
Maybe none of those...but I doubt that.
-Zack
"We will find illumination in unnatural light
You will travel a thousand miles without leaving my sight
We will find we never knew hatred ran so deep
Such a wide, wide chasm of faith to leap"
-Vienna Teng
Friday, November 13, 2009
I don't know how many people actually come around on Thursdays or Fridays to read my latest weekly posts.... but just in case there is anyone out there wondering what's up, there's something coming...probably tonight sometime.
I'm feeling terribly uninspired right now...that might not change, but, historically, I do most of my writing on Friday nights, so I'm counting on something coming through between now and then.
-Zack
"once, but not anymore"
-Glen Hansard
I'm feeling terribly uninspired right now...that might not change, but, historically, I do most of my writing on Friday nights, so I'm counting on something coming through between now and then.
-Zack
"once, but not anymore"
-Glen Hansard
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Eyes full of Tinsle and Fire
I had something to write about earlier in the week, but it's been resolved by people far better at that sort of thing than me...but the issue was at the heart of much of my heart... If you wonder enough, you can read through posts here and figure it all out: http://morethanservingtea.wordpress.com/
I love being on InterVarsity Staff....
I am a big seasonal candy fan. If you've known me during a December, you've probably heard me talk about my love for peppermint flavoring...you might even remember my adventures with peppermint whipped cream from Sophomore year.... I even once spoke at our large group about candy canes...But it doesn't end there...not at all! I'm also a big fan of candy corn...but I've heard a lot of people speak, quite disparagingly, about the stuff recently. It puzzles me as to why...but I guess all things can't be for all people, and that probably exhibits itself most often when it comes to food.
While we're on seasonal matters, I should mention that I've been thinking about Christmas and Thanksgiving a lot recently. Personally, they are the countdown days to my move to Hillsdale...and I can't wait for that. But even more, and probably on the national scale, I think we just need Christmas, as a country right now. More than ever before, I've heard comments (both passive and utterly lamenting) about the earliness of Christmas advertisement and products from stores this year. I'm somewhat in the middle on that; I never tire of Christmas, but I don't want to see that happen either. I know why it's all happening though, and the answer is simple; Christmas is giving the economy hope. That's not rocket science....it happens every year to an extent, but it's especially happening this year, wherein we've been in an economic struggle that killed Christmas or at least harmed it, from an economic standpoint, on all sorts of levels. Companies are trying to prevent that, and hoping to get it going as early as possible and, therefore, keep it going as long as possible. Unfortunately, I don't think it will actually work. Much like the Cotton Gin and the Civil War happening at the same time (and independence movements in Africa along with the dwindling colonialism's favorable economic model), the economy is steadily improving to the point that Christmas is going to do better, economically, than it did last year. That's going to give companies reason to believe that extending the season works....even if it doesn't. Christmas might be starting earlier than ever this year...but I'm predicting that it's never going to get later again...thanks to happenstance, not effort.
But I do love Christmas...quite a bit. It offers hope beyond the economic sense, of course...and even if it's mostly a veneer in some cases, people at least feel like they should love others more...maybe, with enough of that, they actually will. And I love Christmas T.V. specials of all sorts... they're all the same plot, but I don't care...there's just something about them... And I love christmas music. And I love Thanksgiving and New Years...probably more, as days, than Christmas itself...I consider them the bookends of the season though... And Egg Nog, and Ham....it's just a great season with great things. Presents are okay, but I love the life that is the Christmas season more than presents, definitely. I also love Midnight services on Christmas eve....the list goes on and on and on...and it all starts, modestly enough, with 47 cent boxes of candy corn from Wal Mart, thanks to the markdown from Halloween's departure. I'm not a huge halloween fan for a lot of reasons, but I love when it's over because the cheap candy means great things are coming (and I love candy corn...which shouldn't even get marked down...it should be a staple on ever coffee table at every Grandma's house for every Thanksgiving meal). I love Caroling too, which I'm going to miss immensely this year...even if I get to do it, it won't be in Wooster. Wooster is an amazing place for those couple of weeks between Thanksgiving and Winter breaks. Sure, finals is in there...but so are Lowry Christmas cookies and 25 Christmas parties the night following the last day of classes. If you're still in Wooster and reading this, put whipped cream on a lowry Christmas cookie..it's heavenly....especially if it's shaped like an angel.
But, until all of that comes...I've got to stick to the money-raising..well, even during all of that.
And I know God will sustain me.
In case you were wondering, I did not vote, nor am I altogether pleased, that the gambling issue passed in Ohio. I'm a pretty libertarian guy, but I'm not a fan of voter-condoned gambling and all that goes with the construction of casinos, especially in Cleveland....if you've got to build a casino, build it where the wealthy live, not the poor....at least it won't look so much like the exploitation that it is, if it's in Olmstead Falls.
Maybe it's foolish, to long for a perfect world...but maybe it's foolish to long for anything less.
-Zack
"They said I'm foolish
Fleeting hopes in borrowed dreams,
They said forget her,
The moon is far beyond your reach"
-Brave Saint Saturn
I love being on InterVarsity Staff....
I am a big seasonal candy fan. If you've known me during a December, you've probably heard me talk about my love for peppermint flavoring...you might even remember my adventures with peppermint whipped cream from Sophomore year.... I even once spoke at our large group about candy canes...But it doesn't end there...not at all! I'm also a big fan of candy corn...but I've heard a lot of people speak, quite disparagingly, about the stuff recently. It puzzles me as to why...but I guess all things can't be for all people, and that probably exhibits itself most often when it comes to food.
While we're on seasonal matters, I should mention that I've been thinking about Christmas and Thanksgiving a lot recently. Personally, they are the countdown days to my move to Hillsdale...and I can't wait for that. But even more, and probably on the national scale, I think we just need Christmas, as a country right now. More than ever before, I've heard comments (both passive and utterly lamenting) about the earliness of Christmas advertisement and products from stores this year. I'm somewhat in the middle on that; I never tire of Christmas, but I don't want to see that happen either. I know why it's all happening though, and the answer is simple; Christmas is giving the economy hope. That's not rocket science....it happens every year to an extent, but it's especially happening this year, wherein we've been in an economic struggle that killed Christmas or at least harmed it, from an economic standpoint, on all sorts of levels. Companies are trying to prevent that, and hoping to get it going as early as possible and, therefore, keep it going as long as possible. Unfortunately, I don't think it will actually work. Much like the Cotton Gin and the Civil War happening at the same time (and independence movements in Africa along with the dwindling colonialism's favorable economic model), the economy is steadily improving to the point that Christmas is going to do better, economically, than it did last year. That's going to give companies reason to believe that extending the season works....even if it doesn't. Christmas might be starting earlier than ever this year...but I'm predicting that it's never going to get later again...thanks to happenstance, not effort.
But I do love Christmas...quite a bit. It offers hope beyond the economic sense, of course...and even if it's mostly a veneer in some cases, people at least feel like they should love others more...maybe, with enough of that, they actually will. And I love Christmas T.V. specials of all sorts... they're all the same plot, but I don't care...there's just something about them... And I love christmas music. And I love Thanksgiving and New Years...probably more, as days, than Christmas itself...I consider them the bookends of the season though... And Egg Nog, and Ham....it's just a great season with great things. Presents are okay, but I love the life that is the Christmas season more than presents, definitely. I also love Midnight services on Christmas eve....the list goes on and on and on...and it all starts, modestly enough, with 47 cent boxes of candy corn from Wal Mart, thanks to the markdown from Halloween's departure. I'm not a huge halloween fan for a lot of reasons, but I love when it's over because the cheap candy means great things are coming (and I love candy corn...which shouldn't even get marked down...it should be a staple on ever coffee table at every Grandma's house for every Thanksgiving meal). I love Caroling too, which I'm going to miss immensely this year...even if I get to do it, it won't be in Wooster. Wooster is an amazing place for those couple of weeks between Thanksgiving and Winter breaks. Sure, finals is in there...but so are Lowry Christmas cookies and 25 Christmas parties the night following the last day of classes. If you're still in Wooster and reading this, put whipped cream on a lowry Christmas cookie..it's heavenly....especially if it's shaped like an angel.
But, until all of that comes...I've got to stick to the money-raising..well, even during all of that.
And I know God will sustain me.
In case you were wondering, I did not vote, nor am I altogether pleased, that the gambling issue passed in Ohio. I'm a pretty libertarian guy, but I'm not a fan of voter-condoned gambling and all that goes with the construction of casinos, especially in Cleveland....if you've got to build a casino, build it where the wealthy live, not the poor....at least it won't look so much like the exploitation that it is, if it's in Olmstead Falls.
Maybe it's foolish, to long for a perfect world...but maybe it's foolish to long for anything less.
-Zack
"They said I'm foolish
Fleeting hopes in borrowed dreams,
They said forget her,
The moon is far beyond your reach"
-Brave Saint Saturn
Thursday, October 29, 2009
A New Pace
I'm not sure what to write about right now, because I don't want to write about capitalism...but that's the most interesting thing I've come up with this week.
I don't know what it's like being you, (and I'm sure you don't know what it's like to be me...none of us really know what it's like to be anyone else) but I spend a lot of time just thinking, and I come up with things; sometimes theoretical, sometimes moral, sometime philosophical, and sometimes fictional. I've lost a lot of things that I just never wrote down and forget...usually, I figure that means it wasn't too important. But this capitalism thing has stuck with me for a couple of days, so it might be important. But this isn't the space for it, not right now.
I think I broke my finger last week....but it still seems to work alright, it just hurts if I press on it too hard, or it ends up the first finger on the bottom of the handle when I'm lifting a coffee mug by the handle. It had been swollen for the first few days, but it's back to normal size and it works alright. I don't even know why I'm talking about all of this.
I wonder what it's like for other people that read Salman Rushdie. Each and every time I read anything he's written, my literary world is blown to pieces and reassembled, all the while, I feel personally built up and enlightened. That might just be me though... You should read something by him though, if you ever get a chance. It will probably be long and you've got to have an at least somewhat open-minded approach, but it's the pinnacle of literature at the moment, even though most of this stuff isn't terribly new. I'm reading "The Ground Beneath her Feet" right now, which came out ten years ago. I've never read an author with so sure a grasp of both language and experimentation all at once, with a definite flair for the implicit post-modern. That's probably the most understated and misunderstood part of post-modernity: being explicit is particularly modern because it's assuming you can actually understand things from direct words about them. That's why some "emergent" churches, including the one I attend, seem a bit borish...They always have catchy names, but the names always carry direct meaning, when post-modernity is built upon the concept that words only have understood meaning, and the forcing of a definition upon a word (and, ergo, the word's user/hearer) is both impossible and an act of treason to the language. I'll admit though, that I'm probably the second least explicit person you could ever meet, and when I decide to get explicit, I usually bury it in words and commas. That's really why my I.S. is so long. The first least explicit person is the woman I hope to marry, because women, by our cultures establishment of gendered necessities in romantic relationships, at least in the reckoning of a man, will always be less explicit than men.
I think I talk about post-modernism so much because it's a less explicit (but ultimately more powerful) cultural critique than something more straightforward (like my new-found thoughts on capitalism).
Did I mention last week that I had bubble tea, last week? I don't know how available it might be where you are (it's not terribly available, in general, it seems), but it's my favorite dairy product. Okay, that might not be true, because I love some kinds of cheese to a great degree. It's definitely my favorite dairy beverage, which probably isn't saying much (but I am counting milkshakes and smoothies...) because it's probably the most complex dairy beverage (which is interesting in its own right, in that it originated from a culture with little dairy-consumption on the whole). This is, of course, predicated on thinking that it has always been made with non-soy milk...I guess I don't know if that's the case, but I would assume it is. I could probably use wikipedia, but I'd rather keep this blog free of non-college approved sources.
I didn't say that last part about wikipedia as "tongue-in-cheekly" as it might have sounded, or even, you wanted it to sound, depending on who you are. My roommate last year always talked about how he wished wikipedia was an acceptable source. His argument was that it must be, because so many people make sure the information is correct all the time. The better argument (against it) is that the trustworthy information is already linked to an acceptable source, so you can still use it anyway, and just cite (and hopefully read) the original source instead of the wikipedia page. Wikipedia doesn't even trust itself as a source....how many times have you seen "citation required" after some claim? That's there for a reason...
I've been all over the place in this, which is fitting, because I've not been physically all over the place this week, as I was last week. "All over the place" is a strange saying....look at the assumption it places on the unity of the world....
I haven't talked much about my getting-to-Hillsdale adventures on here for awhile...
Right now, I'm at 61%, and I need to get as close to 100% by the end of the year as I can, because I am definitely starting on campus at the start of second semester.
If nothing else, it's exciting that I've got a concrete piece of life to count on, which had certainly not been the case since graduation.
I'm out of words to say, even though I don't feel like I've said anything at all.
-Zack
"Can't wait forever is all that you said, before you stood up"
-Glen Hansard
I don't know what it's like being you, (and I'm sure you don't know what it's like to be me...none of us really know what it's like to be anyone else) but I spend a lot of time just thinking, and I come up with things; sometimes theoretical, sometimes moral, sometime philosophical, and sometimes fictional. I've lost a lot of things that I just never wrote down and forget...usually, I figure that means it wasn't too important. But this capitalism thing has stuck with me for a couple of days, so it might be important. But this isn't the space for it, not right now.
I think I broke my finger last week....but it still seems to work alright, it just hurts if I press on it too hard, or it ends up the first finger on the bottom of the handle when I'm lifting a coffee mug by the handle. It had been swollen for the first few days, but it's back to normal size and it works alright. I don't even know why I'm talking about all of this.
I wonder what it's like for other people that read Salman Rushdie. Each and every time I read anything he's written, my literary world is blown to pieces and reassembled, all the while, I feel personally built up and enlightened. That might just be me though... You should read something by him though, if you ever get a chance. It will probably be long and you've got to have an at least somewhat open-minded approach, but it's the pinnacle of literature at the moment, even though most of this stuff isn't terribly new. I'm reading "The Ground Beneath her Feet" right now, which came out ten years ago. I've never read an author with so sure a grasp of both language and experimentation all at once, with a definite flair for the implicit post-modern. That's probably the most understated and misunderstood part of post-modernity: being explicit is particularly modern because it's assuming you can actually understand things from direct words about them. That's why some "emergent" churches, including the one I attend, seem a bit borish...They always have catchy names, but the names always carry direct meaning, when post-modernity is built upon the concept that words only have understood meaning, and the forcing of a definition upon a word (and, ergo, the word's user/hearer) is both impossible and an act of treason to the language. I'll admit though, that I'm probably the second least explicit person you could ever meet, and when I decide to get explicit, I usually bury it in words and commas. That's really why my I.S. is so long. The first least explicit person is the woman I hope to marry, because women, by our cultures establishment of gendered necessities in romantic relationships, at least in the reckoning of a man, will always be less explicit than men.
I think I talk about post-modernism so much because it's a less explicit (but ultimately more powerful) cultural critique than something more straightforward (like my new-found thoughts on capitalism).
Did I mention last week that I had bubble tea, last week? I don't know how available it might be where you are (it's not terribly available, in general, it seems), but it's my favorite dairy product. Okay, that might not be true, because I love some kinds of cheese to a great degree. It's definitely my favorite dairy beverage, which probably isn't saying much (but I am counting milkshakes and smoothies...) because it's probably the most complex dairy beverage (which is interesting in its own right, in that it originated from a culture with little dairy-consumption on the whole). This is, of course, predicated on thinking that it has always been made with non-soy milk...I guess I don't know if that's the case, but I would assume it is. I could probably use wikipedia, but I'd rather keep this blog free of non-college approved sources.
I didn't say that last part about wikipedia as "tongue-in-cheekly" as it might have sounded, or even, you wanted it to sound, depending on who you are. My roommate last year always talked about how he wished wikipedia was an acceptable source. His argument was that it must be, because so many people make sure the information is correct all the time. The better argument (against it) is that the trustworthy information is already linked to an acceptable source, so you can still use it anyway, and just cite (and hopefully read) the original source instead of the wikipedia page. Wikipedia doesn't even trust itself as a source....how many times have you seen "citation required" after some claim? That's there for a reason...
I've been all over the place in this, which is fitting, because I've not been physically all over the place this week, as I was last week. "All over the place" is a strange saying....look at the assumption it places on the unity of the world....
I haven't talked much about my getting-to-Hillsdale adventures on here for awhile...
Right now, I'm at 61%, and I need to get as close to 100% by the end of the year as I can, because I am definitely starting on campus at the start of second semester.
If nothing else, it's exciting that I've got a concrete piece of life to count on, which had certainly not been the case since graduation.
I'm out of words to say, even though I don't feel like I've said anything at all.
-Zack
"Can't wait forever is all that you said, before you stood up"
-Glen Hansard
Friday, October 23, 2009
Inherent Necessity
Last year, wait, really, one year ago today, I went to a concert. It was the best concert I had ever been to; it was Anberlin headlining with some great opening acts, in one of my favorite places to see a show, the House of Blues in Cleveland. I have a lot of personal reasons for really loving everything about that night (one of them, rather innocuously, being that I caught a drumstick at show's end, and that was quite the thrill).
But it was at that show that I began to realize who many of the people in that crowd were, who, indeed, even I was,in the great cultural flow of the United States.
If you're not familiar with Anberlin, I can best describe their music as "post-punk, indie,with shades of emo." I don't really believe emo exists as a musical genre because, at this point, it's been applied to basically everything from hardcore punk bands that sing about relationships to the heavier side of soft rock (ala The Fray). But many would call Anberlin "Emo" so that might help you understand their musical style. Quite honestly, they're one of very few "rock bands" I like these days, at least current rock bands. This post isn't about Anberlin though...it's about their existence and the existence of bands like them.
Genre issues arise often in music; from questioning validity (pop vs. hardcore punk) to just simply having no idea what to call something (hence the radical diversity and even, the existence of, the "singer-songwriter genre"). But I noticed something, standing there in that glorious throng of concert goers, one year ago this evening, something that undid what I had always thought with regard to the arguments and perplexities of genre-pidgeon-holing. It just doesn't matter, at least not there, not at that Anberlin concert.
There were four bands that night and they each had their own differences. I could probably assign genres to each of them if pressed, but for that night, I just don't think it mattered. The music sounded different but the message was always at least a variation on the same theme: we want to belong, we want to belong somewhere, despite our flaws, we want to love, despite our past, we want to be loved. It comes out all over the places and in many different ways. It's prevalent in all forms of music, of course, but I had never realized it until that night, that the music I was listening to and seeing performed live, was the anthem of a generation of people (kids, really, most of them younger than me) with no rallying cry and very little cultural currency.
Another common thread? Nearly everyone in that room was white. Not just the crowd, not just the H.O.B. staff, but the bands too.
For the last 50 years, white culture has been maligned and entirely justifiably so. 3/4 of my ancestors, and, most likely nearly all of yours (although I don't know who really reads this..) has become the ethnic majority in much of the world through the lie of innate superiority. That was eventually revealed as a lie, and the public discourse at least tries to be racially friendly these days. That is great. But what now exists is an entire generation of people- white people- my age and younger (and probably older too) that have largely grown up ashamed of their past. Even after civil rights, we represent cultural imperialism and hidden racism; corruption and greed; venomous humanism and destructive concepts of sexuality. This is true of other races as well, to an extent, but in America, the majority culture represents the major mood of the country, and I'm finding that it has nowhere to fall for support. That's where the most important side of post-modernism comes in. We don't just strive for community and experiential truth because we have given up on absolute truth and sound. We strive for community and experiential truth because we just need something that makes us feel whole, makes us feel human, because the truth of the past says we've been wrong forever. If we don't live in the moment and the future (and if that future doesn't look right), then the world looks, quite rightfully and understandably abysmal, because we have seen time and again how great individuals fail. At least together, at least, even, in failing together, we are together, and there is something to be said for love that transcends failure. Celebrating success is natural, but loving despite certain failure is beautiful. That's a paraphrase of Jesus actually, and a post-modern idiom.
From Matthew 5: "44But I tell you: Love your enemiesi]"and pray for those who persecute you, 45that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?"
The Kingdom of God is about decentering the reality we see. Post-moderism is about decentering the reality we've created. Put the two together....you've got the Christian worldview in a nutshell. Christianity is, essentially, the filtering of all things through the knowledge that God is over all, through all, and in all, in light of both the world's fallen state and the redemption through Christ's death and resurrection. It is the decentering of the world we see, by claiming it to be truly God's, and the decentering of the world we've created, by realizing that we see it with fallen eyes, and we must recenter it on God to actually know anything....and anything we know we only know through God's decision to allow it.
All of this is to say that white people of my generation are necessarily post-modern because our shared history has left what has been held as cultural centers and points of meaning to be worthless and ultimately harmful to the larger world. That is good though; with white culture, the culture I'm a part of, acknowledging that it is not the center (Post-modernism being, in its purest, most succinct form, the decentering of conceptions of reality), actual reconciliation can take place. There is no longer the either-or dichotomy, wherein helping others comes at the power-cost of the helper, or the empowerment of the downtrodden at the cost of the untrodden. Certainly, equaility has its hardships and cost, but they are transparent; while a white CEO may need to lose much of his power over his corporation to enter a co-CEO partnership with a black partner in business, the reality is that diversity has true, intrinsic value in allowing for the true wholeness of all humanity to be expressed. This is the unity of Ephesians; this is the chorus of all nations from Revelation.
-Zack
"If you are thinking, you are winning"
-Flobots
But it was at that show that I began to realize who many of the people in that crowd were, who, indeed, even I was,in the great cultural flow of the United States.
If you're not familiar with Anberlin, I can best describe their music as "post-punk, indie,with shades of emo." I don't really believe emo exists as a musical genre because, at this point, it's been applied to basically everything from hardcore punk bands that sing about relationships to the heavier side of soft rock (ala The Fray). But many would call Anberlin "Emo" so that might help you understand their musical style. Quite honestly, they're one of very few "rock bands" I like these days, at least current rock bands. This post isn't about Anberlin though...it's about their existence and the existence of bands like them.
Genre issues arise often in music; from questioning validity (pop vs. hardcore punk) to just simply having no idea what to call something (hence the radical diversity and even, the existence of, the "singer-songwriter genre"). But I noticed something, standing there in that glorious throng of concert goers, one year ago this evening, something that undid what I had always thought with regard to the arguments and perplexities of genre-pidgeon-holing. It just doesn't matter, at least not there, not at that Anberlin concert.
There were four bands that night and they each had their own differences. I could probably assign genres to each of them if pressed, but for that night, I just don't think it mattered. The music sounded different but the message was always at least a variation on the same theme: we want to belong, we want to belong somewhere, despite our flaws, we want to love, despite our past, we want to be loved. It comes out all over the places and in many different ways. It's prevalent in all forms of music, of course, but I had never realized it until that night, that the music I was listening to and seeing performed live, was the anthem of a generation of people (kids, really, most of them younger than me) with no rallying cry and very little cultural currency.
Another common thread? Nearly everyone in that room was white. Not just the crowd, not just the H.O.B. staff, but the bands too.
For the last 50 years, white culture has been maligned and entirely justifiably so. 3/4 of my ancestors, and, most likely nearly all of yours (although I don't know who really reads this..) has become the ethnic majority in much of the world through the lie of innate superiority. That was eventually revealed as a lie, and the public discourse at least tries to be racially friendly these days. That is great. But what now exists is an entire generation of people- white people- my age and younger (and probably older too) that have largely grown up ashamed of their past. Even after civil rights, we represent cultural imperialism and hidden racism; corruption and greed; venomous humanism and destructive concepts of sexuality. This is true of other races as well, to an extent, but in America, the majority culture represents the major mood of the country, and I'm finding that it has nowhere to fall for support. That's where the most important side of post-modernism comes in. We don't just strive for community and experiential truth because we have given up on absolute truth and sound. We strive for community and experiential truth because we just need something that makes us feel whole, makes us feel human, because the truth of the past says we've been wrong forever. If we don't live in the moment and the future (and if that future doesn't look right), then the world looks, quite rightfully and understandably abysmal, because we have seen time and again how great individuals fail. At least together, at least, even, in failing together, we are together, and there is something to be said for love that transcends failure. Celebrating success is natural, but loving despite certain failure is beautiful. That's a paraphrase of Jesus actually, and a post-modern idiom.
From Matthew 5: "44But I tell you: Love your enemiesi]"and pray for those who persecute you, 45that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?"
The Kingdom of God is about decentering the reality we see. Post-moderism is about decentering the reality we've created. Put the two together....you've got the Christian worldview in a nutshell. Christianity is, essentially, the filtering of all things through the knowledge that God is over all, through all, and in all, in light of both the world's fallen state and the redemption through Christ's death and resurrection. It is the decentering of the world we see, by claiming it to be truly God's, and the decentering of the world we've created, by realizing that we see it with fallen eyes, and we must recenter it on God to actually know anything....and anything we know we only know through God's decision to allow it.
All of this is to say that white people of my generation are necessarily post-modern because our shared history has left what has been held as cultural centers and points of meaning to be worthless and ultimately harmful to the larger world. That is good though; with white culture, the culture I'm a part of, acknowledging that it is not the center (Post-modernism being, in its purest, most succinct form, the decentering of conceptions of reality), actual reconciliation can take place. There is no longer the either-or dichotomy, wherein helping others comes at the power-cost of the helper, or the empowerment of the downtrodden at the cost of the untrodden. Certainly, equaility has its hardships and cost, but they are transparent; while a white CEO may need to lose much of his power over his corporation to enter a co-CEO partnership with a black partner in business, the reality is that diversity has true, intrinsic value in allowing for the true wholeness of all humanity to be expressed. This is the unity of Ephesians; this is the chorus of all nations from Revelation.
-Zack
"If you are thinking, you are winning"
-Flobots
Thursday, October 22, 2009
The Long Road Home
I'm in Wooster today, for the first time since June, and on campus for the first time since graduation. It's good to be here, but it's at least slightly strange. Things are slightly different, but always somewhat the same. The people change and the place progresses...but there is a sort of unchanging undercurrent, and it makes it feel eerily like home while being a place I've not been for so long. Sometimes you might hear the expression "you can never go home again" and I mostly agree, because home, at least as a place, will never be the same when you return. But Wooster seems to deny that maxim to some extent. But not entirely..... they moved some chairs that I had always used for long periods of reading...essentially destroying one of my favorite spots on campus... and people are so important to places, and so much of my love for Wooster has so much to do with the people, that as the people change, the place will certainly mean less and less...but there is something about being here too....there's a certain wonderful peace and a definite feeling of familiarity, even in the face of what has changed since May, that are beautiful and lovely.
I've been away from home since Monday, and it is great. I had been in Ann Arbor (which, despite the football team, is becoming one of my favorite cities) for an InterVarsity training event until yesterday, when I came to Wooster. I like being away from home, but it's a high-function sort of life right now (to a degree. today is definitely more relaxed) and I'll probably crash when I get home. But I do love seeing people I definitely do not see as much of as I would like or used to (and indeed both). It's strange, because sometimes I think of my life as transitional right now (and it is), but sometimes, I think of that as the reason that I don't see good friends with any degree of regularity. The reality of it all though, is that I'm not going to transition to a life where everyone lives close and I see everyone all the time or anything like that. In reality, I'm transitioning further away from everyone and everything than I already am. Life is a pulsing ball of energy.... it builds up then releases over and over and over. It builds up for 18 years, then releases everyone to college....then it builds up once more for 4 years, and releases everyone into the real world. Maybe that's why marriage is such a great thing...finally, in life, you find someone you want to keep for more than the building up of that energy ball, because for our entire lives, we're learning that eventually, that ball is going to release and you stand a good chance at losing everyone for long periods of time, and even then, it's never the same. Or maybe it's more... it's not just that you've found someone you want to keep around, but indeed, it's someone you feel like you must keep them around, like the scattering that comes with the next pulsation will be too much to bear, like it will destroy you if it flings that person too far from you.
That's how I feel about my life right now. It was a slight pulse I had no capacity to avoid, but the flinging was destructive and I'm doing what I can to put it back together, if I can.
I think I'm going to walk around campus a bit, because that sounds fun.
-Zack
"If love feels right
You work it out
You don't give it up"
-Tracy Chapman
I've been away from home since Monday, and it is great. I had been in Ann Arbor (which, despite the football team, is becoming one of my favorite cities) for an InterVarsity training event until yesterday, when I came to Wooster. I like being away from home, but it's a high-function sort of life right now (to a degree. today is definitely more relaxed) and I'll probably crash when I get home. But I do love seeing people I definitely do not see as much of as I would like or used to (and indeed both). It's strange, because sometimes I think of my life as transitional right now (and it is), but sometimes, I think of that as the reason that I don't see good friends with any degree of regularity. The reality of it all though, is that I'm not going to transition to a life where everyone lives close and I see everyone all the time or anything like that. In reality, I'm transitioning further away from everyone and everything than I already am. Life is a pulsing ball of energy.... it builds up then releases over and over and over. It builds up for 18 years, then releases everyone to college....then it builds up once more for 4 years, and releases everyone into the real world. Maybe that's why marriage is such a great thing...finally, in life, you find someone you want to keep for more than the building up of that energy ball, because for our entire lives, we're learning that eventually, that ball is going to release and you stand a good chance at losing everyone for long periods of time, and even then, it's never the same. Or maybe it's more... it's not just that you've found someone you want to keep around, but indeed, it's someone you feel like you must keep them around, like the scattering that comes with the next pulsation will be too much to bear, like it will destroy you if it flings that person too far from you.
That's how I feel about my life right now. It was a slight pulse I had no capacity to avoid, but the flinging was destructive and I'm doing what I can to put it back together, if I can.
I think I'm going to walk around campus a bit, because that sounds fun.
-Zack
"If love feels right
You work it out
You don't give it up"
-Tracy Chapman
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Walking Further
These weeks get long, when progress doesn't come and I'm not sure what to even do to move forward and work toward more progress. Sometimes it feels like I might never get to move on with my life.
But I know that isn't true, and prayerful patience is a good, appropriate, and productive response, when times get hard.
Lately, I've been reading a book that chronicles the history of InterVarsity. Technically, it was assigned for what will be the most refreshing three days of training I've ever experienced next week, but I have enjoyed greatly learning the past of the organization I work for and love so much. There are problems I never knew about and pieces of the past that I would have never guessed. There are also instances of ideas I've had already being tried and failing or succeeding, which is interesting in its own right. Throughout it all though, it has become remarkably clear that God wants a voice on campus, and no amount of organizational or administrative (or financial) hardship is going to prevent that. Before InterVarsity were organizations that did great things before falling apart in the face of theological uncertainty and a release of the gospel from the center of their purpose. Even so, it was not long thereafter that InterVarsity came along. Even if and after InterVarsity falls away (which I pray does not happen in my lifetime), God is going to raise up a new witness on campus. I've always considered the campus among the most important missionfields on Earth, and it is clear, from the history of InterVarsity, that, on that point, God agrees.
(if only I could find more people that decide to agree with their finances as well....)
I still have some snacks from the Urban Plunge. They're those little (well, maybe I shouldn't assume anything you might know about Chinese snacks...) individually packaged gelatin snacks that taste somewhere between the exact same, flavor to flavor, and remarkably strong. I like them passably, I guess... but I always forget and don't eat them too often. That, and no one else ever seems to want one. That's why I have so many.... someone bought them on the scavenger hunt then about no one else ate any of them during the week and no one else was willing to take them home.
Ah, the Urban Plunge reminds me of many great things....almost none of them have to do with the events of the plunge, but those were great too. If I ever get a choice to move back to an Ohio campus, I might let the Cleveland Urban Plunge swing my decision back to the Buckeye state. But I haven't even got to do anything in Michigan yet... I know I'm speaking too soon.
I feel like this is the political part of a blog-post from me, where I'll say something, usually ending in some kind of scathing remark about right-wing bigotry. But I've got nothing today. Nothing original at least.
My parents are spending the night in Toledo tonight because my mom has her State Nurses Board test at 8 a.m., and she, quite understandably, wants to be well rested. If you think about it, I'm sure she would appreciate your prayers, even if she doesn't know you're praying for her. I have been for awhile, but I've never told her, and I don't know if I could. I don't know why, but there's a sort of spiritual screen between my parents and I. It's not that we believe too many different things (well, we do differ here and there, definitely, but the essentials are essentially the same), but there's a sort of hierarchy of spirituality within my family that I definitely broke out of at college and now I'm not sure what to do with it at home. It's common, in IV circles, to say that a student has "made his or her faith his or her own," and that definitely happened to me, but I don't think my parents are all that enthused about it. I'm an un(and under)stated rebel against and unstated level of control they want to have over the spiritual lives of our family. They don't really go to church anymore on the excuse (and I call it that although it might be more legitimate than I am willing to give it credit) that they can't find a good church around here (the church they were going to dissolved and became a small group, which either dissolved as well, or they had to stop attending when my dad found a job), and I definitely feel a bit of resentment, week to week, when I ask them for the keys so I can go to church. Thankfully, they don't feel like they can really say anything all that disparaging about the fact that I'm regularly attending church, but I definitely feel resented for it. That's just part of the total spiritual environment at home, wherein it feels like mom and dad are spiritual enough for the rest of us, and they like it that way. Of course, the end result has been two other siblings that have turned, quite sharply, from faith, and me, who has transcended their "rule," which should be a good thing, but they treat it like a bad thing. Their attitude is reflected in their reaction to anything I have to say about InterVarsity. It's as if they resent the fact that I have been able (and heck, I'm just going to say it: called) to ministry then neither of them has; it's as if, in their mind(s), I think I'm better than them, when, in reality, in their eyes, that's impossible because they are the spiritual leaders of the house and everyone "beneath" must stay that way. That's probably a more accurate reason as to why they'll probably never give any financial support and why my mom always wants me to "put InterVarsity in the right place in my life; not as most important, but as something that might happen and focus on other things until it can." It's frustrating. I feel like I can't be myself at all because anything I could have to say about God is going to be taken as a challenge of their spiritual authority. My family has huge authority problems... if there is ever a question about something my mom says, it's automatically an affront to her place of authority. And there's definitely a trickle down....my sister is the same way, because "she's older." I just ignore it and move on the best I can. It's going to be hard to come back once I finally get to move, but hopefully time away can heal relationships.
I don't mean to make my family sound terrible. They aren't that bad.
Have a wonderful weekend, and watch the Office tonight!
-Zack
"The little cracks they escalated
And before you know it is too late
For making circles and telling lies"
-Glen Hansard (Once)
But I know that isn't true, and prayerful patience is a good, appropriate, and productive response, when times get hard.
Lately, I've been reading a book that chronicles the history of InterVarsity. Technically, it was assigned for what will be the most refreshing three days of training I've ever experienced next week, but I have enjoyed greatly learning the past of the organization I work for and love so much. There are problems I never knew about and pieces of the past that I would have never guessed. There are also instances of ideas I've had already being tried and failing or succeeding, which is interesting in its own right. Throughout it all though, it has become remarkably clear that God wants a voice on campus, and no amount of organizational or administrative (or financial) hardship is going to prevent that. Before InterVarsity were organizations that did great things before falling apart in the face of theological uncertainty and a release of the gospel from the center of their purpose. Even so, it was not long thereafter that InterVarsity came along. Even if and after InterVarsity falls away (which I pray does not happen in my lifetime), God is going to raise up a new witness on campus. I've always considered the campus among the most important missionfields on Earth, and it is clear, from the history of InterVarsity, that, on that point, God agrees.
(if only I could find more people that decide to agree with their finances as well....)
I still have some snacks from the Urban Plunge. They're those little (well, maybe I shouldn't assume anything you might know about Chinese snacks...) individually packaged gelatin snacks that taste somewhere between the exact same, flavor to flavor, and remarkably strong. I like them passably, I guess... but I always forget and don't eat them too often. That, and no one else ever seems to want one. That's why I have so many.... someone bought them on the scavenger hunt then about no one else ate any of them during the week and no one else was willing to take them home.
Ah, the Urban Plunge reminds me of many great things....almost none of them have to do with the events of the plunge, but those were great too. If I ever get a choice to move back to an Ohio campus, I might let the Cleveland Urban Plunge swing my decision back to the Buckeye state. But I haven't even got to do anything in Michigan yet... I know I'm speaking too soon.
I feel like this is the political part of a blog-post from me, where I'll say something, usually ending in some kind of scathing remark about right-wing bigotry. But I've got nothing today. Nothing original at least.
My parents are spending the night in Toledo tonight because my mom has her State Nurses Board test at 8 a.m., and she, quite understandably, wants to be well rested. If you think about it, I'm sure she would appreciate your prayers, even if she doesn't know you're praying for her. I have been for awhile, but I've never told her, and I don't know if I could. I don't know why, but there's a sort of spiritual screen between my parents and I. It's not that we believe too many different things (well, we do differ here and there, definitely, but the essentials are essentially the same), but there's a sort of hierarchy of spirituality within my family that I definitely broke out of at college and now I'm not sure what to do with it at home. It's common, in IV circles, to say that a student has "made his or her faith his or her own," and that definitely happened to me, but I don't think my parents are all that enthused about it. I'm an un(and under)stated rebel against and unstated level of control they want to have over the spiritual lives of our family. They don't really go to church anymore on the excuse (and I call it that although it might be more legitimate than I am willing to give it credit) that they can't find a good church around here (the church they were going to dissolved and became a small group, which either dissolved as well, or they had to stop attending when my dad found a job), and I definitely feel a bit of resentment, week to week, when I ask them for the keys so I can go to church. Thankfully, they don't feel like they can really say anything all that disparaging about the fact that I'm regularly attending church, but I definitely feel resented for it. That's just part of the total spiritual environment at home, wherein it feels like mom and dad are spiritual enough for the rest of us, and they like it that way. Of course, the end result has been two other siblings that have turned, quite sharply, from faith, and me, who has transcended their "rule," which should be a good thing, but they treat it like a bad thing. Their attitude is reflected in their reaction to anything I have to say about InterVarsity. It's as if they resent the fact that I have been able (and heck, I'm just going to say it: called) to ministry then neither of them has; it's as if, in their mind(s), I think I'm better than them, when, in reality, in their eyes, that's impossible because they are the spiritual leaders of the house and everyone "beneath" must stay that way. That's probably a more accurate reason as to why they'll probably never give any financial support and why my mom always wants me to "put InterVarsity in the right place in my life; not as most important, but as something that might happen and focus on other things until it can." It's frustrating. I feel like I can't be myself at all because anything I could have to say about God is going to be taken as a challenge of their spiritual authority. My family has huge authority problems... if there is ever a question about something my mom says, it's automatically an affront to her place of authority. And there's definitely a trickle down....my sister is the same way, because "she's older." I just ignore it and move on the best I can. It's going to be hard to come back once I finally get to move, but hopefully time away can heal relationships.
I don't mean to make my family sound terrible. They aren't that bad.
Have a wonderful weekend, and watch the Office tonight!
-Zack
"The little cracks they escalated
And before you know it is too late
For making circles and telling lies"
-Glen Hansard (Once)
Friday, October 9, 2009
The Facebook Status I was afraid to post.
"By being an American President that considers peace, goodwill, and humanity more important than cultural imperialism, Barak Obama is worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize. Being the most powerful man in the world and caring at all about the rest of the world is both rare (see the last 150 years...) and important... more so than we might realize from within the United States. Thankfully, the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded, primarily, by non-Americans. "
If I weren't facebook friends with my parents, I would probably have posted it.
If I weren't on staff at Hillsdale, I would probably have posted it.
But I am both of those things, so I did not.
-Zack
"Tonight I'm gonna break away, just you wait and see"
-Poco
If I weren't facebook friends with my parents, I would probably have posted it.
If I weren't on staff at Hillsdale, I would probably have posted it.
But I am both of those things, so I did not.
-Zack
"Tonight I'm gonna break away, just you wait and see"
-Poco
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Issues with Prepositions
I recently started following another staff-member's blog... she's actually in my area, at Albion College. When I get to Hillsdale, she'll be the closest staff, geographically, and at the other "small, liberal arts school" in the mid-michigan area. When I first saw her blog, I thought "that's funny, we have the same title." But we don't. Her's is titled "Pursuing the Kingdom" while mine, as you can see, is in the passive voice and uses two prepositions (well, inasmuch as "in" is a preposition... it's sort of a shadow word that floats between grammatical designations without much regard for "used-as" denominations). That probably reflects on how stilted my writing style is; on one hand, it drips of legal proceeding and long, feels-like-run-on-if-they-aren't (but often are...) sentences, and on the other hand, I have a high regard for the usefulness and legitimacy of the vernacular. And I say things like "legitimacy of the vernacular...."
I don't know if I have much to share today. Well, I don't know if I have much to write today. I just know I was sitting at my computer, as I do, seeing what I can do to further the Kingdom of God (which, still, means raising money), when it came into my mind that "it is time to write." Because it's Thursday, that meant writing my only regular entry into this blog. I think I spoke of my aversion to the word "blog" in one of the earliest posts since I switched to blogspot after xanga, but it's really grown on me in the past few months. I don't know if that's an example of such an event or not, but it reminds me of how the best way to get God to convince you of something is to tell him how much you're against it. One of my colleagues, the colleague many of you know best (and the colleague I know best) once said he went to China in part because he had written out a veritable checklist of reasons he didn't want to or couldn't go. Unfortunately, telling God how much I love raising money and would hate to get to campus hasn't yielded any results thus far... Of course, God knows our hearts, and I haven't actually prayed that prayer because I know it would be a lie. I do enjoy Fund Development more than I ever thought I would, but it's gotten long, and arduous at this point, and sometimes it feels hopeless. But all in God's time...all in God's time. That's the phrase that repeats in my mind more than any other at this point in my life.
I have recently realized that there is an Urbana this year. I've known that for years, I've been registered for months, but it finally seems real again. I think Urbana '06 is such a mental, emotional, and spiritual signpost and romanticized artifact in my personal history that it's hard to believe something like that could ever happen again. After all, there is no clear time when I'll be going back to China (but I cannot wait to do so), and I will never be at SLT as a student again. Indeed, no one will, as it's now The InterVarsity Leadership Institute: IVLI. But Urbana is coming, and I will be staffing it, but so much of the magic, well, that's probably exactly the wrong word to use, but I would love to reclaim magic as an emotion instead of a demonic thing that I'll use it, of Urbana is seeing all of the people there to worship the Lord and allow him to guide their lives. That's not going to change no matter my role.... that, and it's so large that staffing it isn't going to change my own perception of it unless I end up leading worship, speaking, or directing it (which I would be amazed if God ever allowed me to even think about doing one of those things...), because it is so large and there are so many staff that my small part isn't going to be big enough to overtake the larger perception of Urbana... not like at SLT or a conference, where you're very much behind the scenes and in front of the crowd for much of the time. But, I haven't recieved my assignment yet... I could get something that greatly changes how I experience Urbana. Of course, at this point, I probably won't be having my travel reimbursed, and I don't know if that also means I won't actually be staffing it... if that's the case, I'm still going. Missing Urbana is not just the equivalent, but the absolute epitome of missing the biggest party of the triannum.
I've been told, recently, that my open honesty without much prodding or reason to be so open was interesting and unusual. Maybe that's true, I don't know. As far as I can tell, if I weren't open, I wouldn't be alive. I guess that just goes along with who I am, and probably who many of you are, and maybe even with the level of trust that builds itself into personal confidence that comes with a Wooster education. I know who I am enough, and what I can do enough, and what is off-limits enough, to be able to allow the rest of everything to flow freely without much fear. That, and with about 6-7 years of blogging experience at this point, I'm pretty good at sharing relatively inconsequential things with anyone who will take the time to read them. Of course, if you were to plunge the depths of other blogs, perhaps specifically xanga.com/dulacian, you'd find that I have had my issues with saying too much sometimes...
I watched a brilliant film yesterday. It's called "Once." Maybe you've heard of it, maybe you haven't. It's an Irish film about a street performer and an effort to make it big. But it's about a lot more than that too, and it's beautiful. It will take a lot to list anything else as my favorite movie of the year, come January 1st.
I've also been reading an atrocious book; 2die4, by Ryan Dobson, and yes, his dad is who you think he is. Perhaps that should have tipped me off to begin with, but my issues are less with why I dislike his father's ministry and more with the fact that Ryan Dobson should not have a public life, or he should try to have one that is actually Ryan Dobson. Why do Christians look hypocritical? Because there's nothing real about people like Dobson jr. His book is less than 100 pages of the most manufactured "hard-core, extreme sports, thousand-foot-krutchified" garbage I've ever encountered. I am a book snob and when it comes to Christianity mixed with books, I get pretty high-brow. But there's no reason to believe that's the only reason no one should spend money on "2die4." It's not even theologically sound or anything short of troubling, which is absolutely preposterous considering it's basically offering a k-2nd grade understanding of spirituality. Here's a paraphrase (far better written than the book is apparently capable of producing:) "It's a good thing that Christians are dying for their faith because that means Jesus will be back as soon as possible." It's the old "the world's not perfect so the only moral issues we should care about are homosexuality and abortion" argument. He basically says that because the Bible says martyrs are always going to exist, we should do all we can to die for our faith too and let Jesus come back sooner. I'm sorry Mr. Dobson, but wrong is still wrong and we are unequivocally called to come out against injustice. That's like saying Judas was in the moral right. No, he wasn't, it doesn't matter. Of course he had to do what he did, but that doesn't make betrayal right. It's like saying Nebuchadnezzer was right for throwing Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into the furnace because it led to greater faith in God in Babylon. No, that's just not the case. Just because God can and will redeem bad actions and injustice for the better, doesn't make them right from the beginning. It's spiritual "ends justifies the meansing" and it's preposterous. Yeah, technically the a-bomb that killed hundreds of thousands in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have saved a raw number of lives, but that doesn't make killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians right (especially since we don't actually know the casualty count that "might" have happened had the war stayed non-nuclear).
Pray, act, and strive for peace and justice.
-Zack
"Fight with our hopes and our hearts and our hands
we're the architects of our last stand"
-Flobots
I don't know if I have much to share today. Well, I don't know if I have much to write today. I just know I was sitting at my computer, as I do, seeing what I can do to further the Kingdom of God (which, still, means raising money), when it came into my mind that "it is time to write." Because it's Thursday, that meant writing my only regular entry into this blog. I think I spoke of my aversion to the word "blog" in one of the earliest posts since I switched to blogspot after xanga, but it's really grown on me in the past few months. I don't know if that's an example of such an event or not, but it reminds me of how the best way to get God to convince you of something is to tell him how much you're against it. One of my colleagues, the colleague many of you know best (and the colleague I know best) once said he went to China in part because he had written out a veritable checklist of reasons he didn't want to or couldn't go. Unfortunately, telling God how much I love raising money and would hate to get to campus hasn't yielded any results thus far... Of course, God knows our hearts, and I haven't actually prayed that prayer because I know it would be a lie. I do enjoy Fund Development more than I ever thought I would, but it's gotten long, and arduous at this point, and sometimes it feels hopeless. But all in God's time...all in God's time. That's the phrase that repeats in my mind more than any other at this point in my life.
I have recently realized that there is an Urbana this year. I've known that for years, I've been registered for months, but it finally seems real again. I think Urbana '06 is such a mental, emotional, and spiritual signpost and romanticized artifact in my personal history that it's hard to believe something like that could ever happen again. After all, there is no clear time when I'll be going back to China (but I cannot wait to do so), and I will never be at SLT as a student again. Indeed, no one will, as it's now The InterVarsity Leadership Institute: IVLI. But Urbana is coming, and I will be staffing it, but so much of the magic, well, that's probably exactly the wrong word to use, but I would love to reclaim magic as an emotion instead of a demonic thing that I'll use it, of Urbana is seeing all of the people there to worship the Lord and allow him to guide their lives. That's not going to change no matter my role.... that, and it's so large that staffing it isn't going to change my own perception of it unless I end up leading worship, speaking, or directing it (which I would be amazed if God ever allowed me to even think about doing one of those things...), because it is so large and there are so many staff that my small part isn't going to be big enough to overtake the larger perception of Urbana... not like at SLT or a conference, where you're very much behind the scenes and in front of the crowd for much of the time. But, I haven't recieved my assignment yet... I could get something that greatly changes how I experience Urbana. Of course, at this point, I probably won't be having my travel reimbursed, and I don't know if that also means I won't actually be staffing it... if that's the case, I'm still going. Missing Urbana is not just the equivalent, but the absolute epitome of missing the biggest party of the triannum.
I've been told, recently, that my open honesty without much prodding or reason to be so open was interesting and unusual. Maybe that's true, I don't know. As far as I can tell, if I weren't open, I wouldn't be alive. I guess that just goes along with who I am, and probably who many of you are, and maybe even with the level of trust that builds itself into personal confidence that comes with a Wooster education. I know who I am enough, and what I can do enough, and what is off-limits enough, to be able to allow the rest of everything to flow freely without much fear. That, and with about 6-7 years of blogging experience at this point, I'm pretty good at sharing relatively inconsequential things with anyone who will take the time to read them. Of course, if you were to plunge the depths of other blogs, perhaps specifically xanga.com/dulacian, you'd find that I have had my issues with saying too much sometimes...
I watched a brilliant film yesterday. It's called "Once." Maybe you've heard of it, maybe you haven't. It's an Irish film about a street performer and an effort to make it big. But it's about a lot more than that too, and it's beautiful. It will take a lot to list anything else as my favorite movie of the year, come January 1st.
I've also been reading an atrocious book; 2die4, by Ryan Dobson, and yes, his dad is who you think he is. Perhaps that should have tipped me off to begin with, but my issues are less with why I dislike his father's ministry and more with the fact that Ryan Dobson should not have a public life, or he should try to have one that is actually Ryan Dobson. Why do Christians look hypocritical? Because there's nothing real about people like Dobson jr. His book is less than 100 pages of the most manufactured "hard-core, extreme sports, thousand-foot-krutchified" garbage I've ever encountered. I am a book snob and when it comes to Christianity mixed with books, I get pretty high-brow. But there's no reason to believe that's the only reason no one should spend money on "2die4." It's not even theologically sound or anything short of troubling, which is absolutely preposterous considering it's basically offering a k-2nd grade understanding of spirituality. Here's a paraphrase (far better written than the book is apparently capable of producing:) "It's a good thing that Christians are dying for their faith because that means Jesus will be back as soon as possible." It's the old "the world's not perfect so the only moral issues we should care about are homosexuality and abortion" argument. He basically says that because the Bible says martyrs are always going to exist, we should do all we can to die for our faith too and let Jesus come back sooner. I'm sorry Mr. Dobson, but wrong is still wrong and we are unequivocally called to come out against injustice. That's like saying Judas was in the moral right. No, he wasn't, it doesn't matter. Of course he had to do what he did, but that doesn't make betrayal right. It's like saying Nebuchadnezzer was right for throwing Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into the furnace because it led to greater faith in God in Babylon. No, that's just not the case. Just because God can and will redeem bad actions and injustice for the better, doesn't make them right from the beginning. It's spiritual "ends justifies the meansing" and it's preposterous. Yeah, technically the a-bomb that killed hundreds of thousands in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have saved a raw number of lives, but that doesn't make killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians right (especially since we don't actually know the casualty count that "might" have happened had the war stayed non-nuclear).
Pray, act, and strive for peace and justice.
-Zack
"Fight with our hopes and our hearts and our hands
we're the architects of our last stand"
-Flobots
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