There is a chapter in a book about fundraising, Getting Sent about why people give. It gives some pretty valid reasoning, and the basic point is that people are more prone to give to causes and belief structures than they are people. That's true. I've seen that exhibited as true.
But even so, there is something positively unpredictable about it all when you start thinking about who people are. It's true, they might be giving to the cause rather than to the person (in my case, that, of course, means me), but sometimes it still doesn't make sense...and that's part of the glorious faith-experience that is fund raising for the work of the Lord. There's a lot to it, when it comes to ability and amount, and it just doesn't make sense on that level a lot of the time. But I do know that God is faithful, and His upside down Kingdom is certain upside down for a reason. And, seemingly intangibly, I kind of know when it's going to be a good fund raising day/week and when it isn't. Part of what was most discouraging about last week was the ever-present feeling that it was going to be a bad week, then it was. Perhaps that's just me being pessimistic...but even without results, I felt like this would be a good week, and it kind of has been...perhaps just being better than the last two weeks makes it a good week too. That's unimportant really...I don't understand things, I just watch them happen and praise the Lord in the good times and the bad.
Fund Raising is a lot of work I have to do in faith...then it always seems like the work isn't the part that pays off, but the faith. Really, I am making progress, but it seems rare that that comes from a result of my phone-calls....most of the people I call are graciously uninterested, or simply not home. Then results come in from unexpected places...it's just the kooky rhythm of this whole thing...but it's working out.
I was a best man over the weekend, and it was a lot of fun. There are a few responsibilities to it that weren't too terribly hard. I imagine it could be worse, but I had about the calmest groom in the history of the world on my side, so it wasn't anything but wonderful. If you get or have a chance to be the member of a wedding party, look forward to it...it's awesome. I think this particular bride and groom probably enjoyed that day more than anyone else though...really, it was about the most smooth running event in which I have ever been at all involved. Nothing went wrong...really...nothing. And things just go wrong, I'm totally used to that. But not for this, and that was good. Certainly, the Lord was with even the execution of the days plans. It was great.
I think this blog would be a lot more interesting if I had a digital camera...oh well.
I probably use it too often, but facebook interests me so much...in an almost academic sense. Back when it all began in my life, we used to joke about how a relationship wasn't official until it was on facebook...now, I think that's probably true, as long as a relationship status is listed. It's just incredibly intersting that we get so much social info from an image of someone that that person basically honestly puts forth about him or herself...and I think facebook is capable of belying the truth about someone even if they try to hide it. I don't know why, but it does not seem myspace has that ability. There's just something I don't understand about how facebook works that elicits honesty and semi-integrity from people. I feel like I could pull of being someone else on myspace...I don't think I could do that so well on facebook...it's like the toality of society that is open but closed just enough around facebook substantiates things. I honestly feel like something being on facebook makes it more true than nearly every other way of finding it out...I don't know why, that's just something that goes with the territory. There's a culture, a style to facebook, but the scandal of it all is that it's not at all isolated; that culture is just a reflection, a very real and true reflection, of reality. I don't know...
If it comes down to dichotomies, most internet areas have an on-off switch, while facebook has an absence-presence structure...which I guess makes sense, because all of our being really is predicated, on this side of eternity, around absence-presence dichotomies.
-Zack
"Sometimes I get nervous when I see an open door. Close your eyes, clear your heart, cut the cord"
-The Killers
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
A Slow Tumble Upward
And I'm satisfied in the waiting, just knowing something is happening somewhere, even when I don't see it.
That means a lot, specifically because it is ambiguous, and means nothing, all at once.
Long live the spirit of Jacques Derrida.
It's finally wedding weekend number 1.
The bigger of the two.
I wrote a best-man toast tonight. I'm not too sure of it's quality...It's not like I've got much experience with the form. It's not hard though right? And honestly, it's one of those just put effort into it and it can't be too bad sorts of things.....
I have the perfect number of Facebook friends: 777.
Slow week #2.
Let's hope it's the last stand of the slow FD weeks.
But patience is my number one need right now. Pray for that for me. And it's patience of the highest sort in just about every aspect of my life...yipee. But it's not something God will accept me not learning, I do believe.
I used to really care an argue about music....good or bad, I had an opinion and I wanted others to know what it was. But I heard fallout boy on the radio yesterday and listened all the way through, even enjoying it a bit. I think I'm a total music pluralist these days....depending on my mood, I know I can enjoy just about anything.
Even maybe Kathy Trocolli.
One of my favorite things about InterVarsity as of right now is the Xining Global Project. I went on it two years, and for two years running now, I've got good friends going. I don't know if it's right to pick favorite things to pray for...but if I had to, right now, I would pick that....not that anything is any less or more important, but the bond is there, and I am so excited to see what God does this year. Last year, while I was at SLT, my entire family group from China the year before was back in China...Lucia and Ben on the trip again, Laura spending the year there working. This year, Ben, Laura and I are back in the U.S., and Lucia is in Germany...and she has been for awhile and will be for awhile yet. Someday, I think, hopefully this fall, we can have a reunion of sorts. At least most of us...hopefully and maybe even probably all of us...we'll all be in Michigan. It's wonderful how God makes that happen.
I really don't have much to say...I just keep saying things because I say things.
My life feels like some kind of independent film ala Garden State. Living at home is weird...it's weird being in Ottawa and even just being with my parents, and seeing old friends...but its' all uncanny valley and what have you, wherein everything is so similar but so different, and that includes me. It's not bad...but it's weird.
It's very isolated feeling sometimes, and I'm not sure what to do about it...I have friends, and I do my best to talk to them...but at the end of the day, I do feel like I'm undertaking something sysiphusian in my FD efforts. I know that's not actually the case...but it's slow slow slow somedays, and I wake up to a day not too dissimilar to the day before, every day it seems. Someday, that won't be the case, I know, but right now, it is.
There are a couple of randomly occurring lights that have flickered on and off, in the predictablility of my day to day life...things like last night, where I caught up with a few friends I hadn't seen in years and learned to play bridge, or the night before, where I watched Nacho Libre with Peter....or random and amazing facebook messages or chats with people not around here....those really keep me going, so thanks to all of you that are any of those things...the cyclical life is the life I lead right now, and I'm not a huge fan. But it's not bad...it's just mundane sometimes. I do, indeed, love getting to see God move, however, and that's basically just part of my job...right now. I can't wait til it's part of my job and that means getting to see him transform lives. But I'll take miracles, no matter how "major" or "minor" they may be, or with whatever they involve.
I listen to a lot of non-English music these days. I think I just enjoy not having to think about lyrics sometimes...
-Zack
"When I sing a song of peace
It soothes a savage beast
Even it understands that I understand at least."
-Gnarls Barkley
That means a lot, specifically because it is ambiguous, and means nothing, all at once.
Long live the spirit of Jacques Derrida.
It's finally wedding weekend number 1.
The bigger of the two.
I wrote a best-man toast tonight. I'm not too sure of it's quality...It's not like I've got much experience with the form. It's not hard though right? And honestly, it's one of those just put effort into it and it can't be too bad sorts of things.....
I have the perfect number of Facebook friends: 777.
Slow week #2.
Let's hope it's the last stand of the slow FD weeks.
But patience is my number one need right now. Pray for that for me. And it's patience of the highest sort in just about every aspect of my life...yipee. But it's not something God will accept me not learning, I do believe.
I used to really care an argue about music....good or bad, I had an opinion and I wanted others to know what it was. But I heard fallout boy on the radio yesterday and listened all the way through, even enjoying it a bit. I think I'm a total music pluralist these days....depending on my mood, I know I can enjoy just about anything.
Even maybe Kathy Trocolli.
One of my favorite things about InterVarsity as of right now is the Xining Global Project. I went on it two years, and for two years running now, I've got good friends going. I don't know if it's right to pick favorite things to pray for...but if I had to, right now, I would pick that....not that anything is any less or more important, but the bond is there, and I am so excited to see what God does this year. Last year, while I was at SLT, my entire family group from China the year before was back in China...Lucia and Ben on the trip again, Laura spending the year there working. This year, Ben, Laura and I are back in the U.S., and Lucia is in Germany...and she has been for awhile and will be for awhile yet. Someday, I think, hopefully this fall, we can have a reunion of sorts. At least most of us...hopefully and maybe even probably all of us...we'll all be in Michigan. It's wonderful how God makes that happen.
I really don't have much to say...I just keep saying things because I say things.
My life feels like some kind of independent film ala Garden State. Living at home is weird...it's weird being in Ottawa and even just being with my parents, and seeing old friends...but its' all uncanny valley and what have you, wherein everything is so similar but so different, and that includes me. It's not bad...but it's weird.
It's very isolated feeling sometimes, and I'm not sure what to do about it...I have friends, and I do my best to talk to them...but at the end of the day, I do feel like I'm undertaking something sysiphusian in my FD efforts. I know that's not actually the case...but it's slow slow slow somedays, and I wake up to a day not too dissimilar to the day before, every day it seems. Someday, that won't be the case, I know, but right now, it is.
There are a couple of randomly occurring lights that have flickered on and off, in the predictablility of my day to day life...things like last night, where I caught up with a few friends I hadn't seen in years and learned to play bridge, or the night before, where I watched Nacho Libre with Peter....or random and amazing facebook messages or chats with people not around here....those really keep me going, so thanks to all of you that are any of those things...the cyclical life is the life I lead right now, and I'm not a huge fan. But it's not bad...it's just mundane sometimes. I do, indeed, love getting to see God move, however, and that's basically just part of my job...right now. I can't wait til it's part of my job and that means getting to see him transform lives. But I'll take miracles, no matter how "major" or "minor" they may be, or with whatever they involve.
I listen to a lot of non-English music these days. I think I just enjoy not having to think about lyrics sometimes...
-Zack
"When I sing a song of peace
It soothes a savage beast
Even it understands that I understand at least."
-Gnarls Barkley
Friday, June 12, 2009
Just another way to survive....
I often sit thinking about titles for a long time...usually, I have a few I turn down. This time (but not last time) I had a few, then went with a line from a song as I'm listening to it...so much for thinking about things beforehand.
My fourth week of full time fund development is at a close. It was the worst week yet...not usually something you want to say after week one. Well...I don't know, maybe it wasn't worse than week one...but it has nothing on weeks 2 and three. I think I just thought I was on a roll after last week, but I wasn't, apparently....and this week was kind of a setback it would seem.
Anyway, I'm pressing on. That's all I can do.
And I'm probably not getting a job in the meantime. I had two interviews at Meijer(two of three...yeah, they think their barely above minimum wage job is that much better than most far better paying jobs...)...just to find out after the second interview that they were looking for someone permanent. That brings up two questions: why didn't they say that when I told them why I'm fund raising and why I can't work evenings, and why in the world is Meijer that adamant about getting permanent empolyees? Sure, it makes business sense...but do something for the community for crying out loud, and hire people in between places....Meijer should, by design, create jobs as stepping stones to better things....it's like a college saying it's looking for students that will be around more than 4 years....that's a terrible model. I'm really wrong on all sorts of economic levels about this, but I think it would be better for everyone if places like meijer, McDonalds, Wal Mart, places in malls, etc. would set up most of their jobs as stepping stones...not as careers. I don't mind that much...sure, I'll be pretty broke all summer, but that's alright...I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing if I cared that much about money.
My mom has finally graduated and been pinned as a nurse. That's really wonderful...it's been a long road.
That's part of why I had a slow week on the FD trail, but it's worth it, to celebrate once in a lifetime things with my family.
I'm going to a VBS program tonight. Apparently, there will be puppets. Mostly though, I'm going to meet Peter's girlfriend, whom I've heard tons about, but never met. They have either a very tame relationship or a very off-of-facebook relationship, because other than the status that declares their togetherness, I don't see much of the obligatory wall posts or the sort...which, if anything, is pretty refreshing, because I feel like I'm meeting a new person tonight...and that's almost rare these days, if you know anything about someone.
I've been thinking a lot about the "emerging Church" these days...I found a blog all about how wrong it is to try to be post-modern to embrace the post-modern...I've got a lot of problems with this, philosophical, theological, and emotional...but that's not for right now...don't believe anything you read about post-modernism on a blog or by a Christian especially if it's a critique...I know I write a lot about the topic, but you can take that or leave it...the problem with the post-modern really is that it's true to it's own nature...it can't be grasped because nothing can. And I believe that Post-modern thought is much closer to the Biblical model of truth than Modernism ever was or could be. All Post-modernism really is is the acknowledgment that as humans, we need God to know anything at all...that's my spin (and Berkley's, oddly enough...), but it's the Christian version of how without a center existence really is....God is the center, but we, as humans, can only know God through God, so he's locked out to us unless he chooses to reveal himself to us...existence, as we know it, as we experience it, is based on subjectivity to each thing or thought...apart from what God steps in from outside to reveal or comment on....and you can say God isn't "outside" and sure, that's kind of true...but he's perfect, this world and us, are not...so he's separate, sanctified, even if not outside but I'm using outside much differently than we would normally define it....
Anyway, I don't want to ramble too much about that. I was talking about the "Emerging Church." I think we should scrap that name, when applying it to particular places or bodies of people. There can be The Emerging Church, which is, the young, post-modern group that acknowledge Christ as Lord and Saviour. But it can't be emerging forever, and part of my goal in being in ministry is to take it from emerging to prevalent and bigger...I think we should call places we now call "emerging churches," places usually with catchy names (707, journey, community of hope), "post-modern churches" if we have to use the word church (which we probably do for awhile yet). The Emerging Church seems too big a term and concept to relegate to small pockets around the country....it's also the case that places like Hip-Hop churches get left out, when I would arguing they are the exact same idea as "emerging churches", just not so white (or not so culturally white...the only one I've been to has a white pastor). The Emerging Church is the post-modern movement to decenter tradition and cut to the core of the gospel to do real, hands on ministry and not think so highly of ourselves...and I'm down with that. I honestly think calling the particular places "emerging churches" is a power move on the part of the bigger denominations and churches to keep them small, to keep them on the periphery (ala calling Malcolm X or MLK Jr. a radical), and not acknowledge that they are something pertinent and something powerful. If we start calling them "post-modern," that's a linguistic nod to the fact that it's the future of Christianity being born, because we live in a post-modern world. Bigger churches want to feel like they have something to offer...and yeah, they do...but the use of powerball linguistic tactics to accomplish it is not right. Calling the places "emerging churches" ties that movement to a particular style and place, but it's not at all a descriptive name, and it's not a name with which I've ever heard one such congregation self-identify. By removing description, we remove acknowledgement. When the movement can be emerging and the churches post-modern, I think we'll have taken a step in the right direction.
I once wrote an essay, my sophomore year, descrying political correctness in the name of free speech. I still believe in free speech...but I'm not at all against "political correctness," but I do know that the inclusion of "political" in that name is a way to say, not really correct. But I think what it's signfying, the sign it's giving off to reader and listeners, is correct...I think it's right to use words to create the most correct and right and non-discriminatory signal for something or someone. So let's drop political and just be correct. I'm not against free speech...say what you want...but you can be wrong.
Facing a Task Unfinished gets me through a lot of things.
Check it out sometime.
It's #174 in Hymns II
-Zack
" Take me for anyone but me
All that you feel is never true"
-The Smashing Pumpkins
My fourth week of full time fund development is at a close. It was the worst week yet...not usually something you want to say after week one. Well...I don't know, maybe it wasn't worse than week one...but it has nothing on weeks 2 and three. I think I just thought I was on a roll after last week, but I wasn't, apparently....and this week was kind of a setback it would seem.
Anyway, I'm pressing on. That's all I can do.
And I'm probably not getting a job in the meantime. I had two interviews at Meijer(two of three...yeah, they think their barely above minimum wage job is that much better than most far better paying jobs...)...just to find out after the second interview that they were looking for someone permanent. That brings up two questions: why didn't they say that when I told them why I'm fund raising and why I can't work evenings, and why in the world is Meijer that adamant about getting permanent empolyees? Sure, it makes business sense...but do something for the community for crying out loud, and hire people in between places....Meijer should, by design, create jobs as stepping stones to better things....it's like a college saying it's looking for students that will be around more than 4 years....that's a terrible model. I'm really wrong on all sorts of economic levels about this, but I think it would be better for everyone if places like meijer, McDonalds, Wal Mart, places in malls, etc. would set up most of their jobs as stepping stones...not as careers. I don't mind that much...sure, I'll be pretty broke all summer, but that's alright...I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing if I cared that much about money.
My mom has finally graduated and been pinned as a nurse. That's really wonderful...it's been a long road.
That's part of why I had a slow week on the FD trail, but it's worth it, to celebrate once in a lifetime things with my family.
I'm going to a VBS program tonight. Apparently, there will be puppets. Mostly though, I'm going to meet Peter's girlfriend, whom I've heard tons about, but never met. They have either a very tame relationship or a very off-of-facebook relationship, because other than the status that declares their togetherness, I don't see much of the obligatory wall posts or the sort...which, if anything, is pretty refreshing, because I feel like I'm meeting a new person tonight...and that's almost rare these days, if you know anything about someone.
I've been thinking a lot about the "emerging Church" these days...I found a blog all about how wrong it is to try to be post-modern to embrace the post-modern...I've got a lot of problems with this, philosophical, theological, and emotional...but that's not for right now...don't believe anything you read about post-modernism on a blog or by a Christian especially if it's a critique...I know I write a lot about the topic, but you can take that or leave it...the problem with the post-modern really is that it's true to it's own nature...it can't be grasped because nothing can. And I believe that Post-modern thought is much closer to the Biblical model of truth than Modernism ever was or could be. All Post-modernism really is is the acknowledgment that as humans, we need God to know anything at all...that's my spin (and Berkley's, oddly enough...), but it's the Christian version of how without a center existence really is....God is the center, but we, as humans, can only know God through God, so he's locked out to us unless he chooses to reveal himself to us...existence, as we know it, as we experience it, is based on subjectivity to each thing or thought...apart from what God steps in from outside to reveal or comment on....and you can say God isn't "outside" and sure, that's kind of true...but he's perfect, this world and us, are not...so he's separate, sanctified, even if not outside but I'm using outside much differently than we would normally define it....
Anyway, I don't want to ramble too much about that. I was talking about the "Emerging Church." I think we should scrap that name, when applying it to particular places or bodies of people. There can be The Emerging Church, which is, the young, post-modern group that acknowledge Christ as Lord and Saviour. But it can't be emerging forever, and part of my goal in being in ministry is to take it from emerging to prevalent and bigger...I think we should call places we now call "emerging churches," places usually with catchy names (707, journey, community of hope), "post-modern churches" if we have to use the word church (which we probably do for awhile yet). The Emerging Church seems too big a term and concept to relegate to small pockets around the country....it's also the case that places like Hip-Hop churches get left out, when I would arguing they are the exact same idea as "emerging churches", just not so white (or not so culturally white...the only one I've been to has a white pastor). The Emerging Church is the post-modern movement to decenter tradition and cut to the core of the gospel to do real, hands on ministry and not think so highly of ourselves...and I'm down with that. I honestly think calling the particular places "emerging churches" is a power move on the part of the bigger denominations and churches to keep them small, to keep them on the periphery (ala calling Malcolm X or MLK Jr. a radical), and not acknowledge that they are something pertinent and something powerful. If we start calling them "post-modern," that's a linguistic nod to the fact that it's the future of Christianity being born, because we live in a post-modern world. Bigger churches want to feel like they have something to offer...and yeah, they do...but the use of powerball linguistic tactics to accomplish it is not right. Calling the places "emerging churches" ties that movement to a particular style and place, but it's not at all a descriptive name, and it's not a name with which I've ever heard one such congregation self-identify. By removing description, we remove acknowledgement. When the movement can be emerging and the churches post-modern, I think we'll have taken a step in the right direction.
I once wrote an essay, my sophomore year, descrying political correctness in the name of free speech. I still believe in free speech...but I'm not at all against "political correctness," but I do know that the inclusion of "political" in that name is a way to say, not really correct. But I think what it's signfying, the sign it's giving off to reader and listeners, is correct...I think it's right to use words to create the most correct and right and non-discriminatory signal for something or someone. So let's drop political and just be correct. I'm not against free speech...say what you want...but you can be wrong.
Facing a Task Unfinished gets me through a lot of things.
Check it out sometime.
It's #174 in Hymns II
-Zack
" Take me for anyone but me
All that you feel is never true"
-The Smashing Pumpkins
Saturday, June 6, 2009
And we all roll on...
Help me to dream these dreams...because I don't have a clue.
-Mae.
-Zack
.situationally backwards perhaps,
siht ekil eb dluow ti meard I dluow reven tub.
Fast slow.
Slow fast.
Either or.
Both and.
And the always already.
If I ever write a book about post-modernism, the title may be Both and and the Always Already. Mostly because I love that.
And because I love the intersection between Derrida and Bhabha...I found Christ there once, afterall.
Sometimes I feel like I speak mostly in code...perhaps I do.
Or perhaps I just don't tell full things...really, ever. I just tell things, and don't explain...then I say I can't...oftentimes "right now."
But what is "right now" anyway, but a bowing to time? And what is time but a contrivance? It's linear...and I don't much want to believe in the linear, at least not as it applies to true reality. Linearity is a punishment, not a fact.
Good Will Hunting is far better than I ever expected. As is War and Peace...but it's still a slow read. And I actually am reading it...it's a great translation...but I don't know if I'll finish it in time...it's the library's. Here's to hoping nobody puts it on hold and I can renew it enough to finish it this summer....it's currently outweighing the speed with which I finished books thanks to Children as readers, and making up for the page deficiency. That, I can explain. Every year, I keep track of the amount of pages and books that I read each year...I always strive to read at least one more book and one more page. Both goals may be acheived at once...but it's rare, because book length varies so much. The longest book I've read this year, so far, is Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, with the second longest being it's prequel (although I think prequel implies a later release, I prefer a single word for that particular book....even with this explanation, I feel resistent to typing the title). Last year, Don Quixote was the longest book (actually longer than War and Peace...at least in pages...maybe because it's a very large book and the Cervantes was quite small as book dimensions go...well, it was thick, of course) The second longest was Ulysses, as Nancy Grace ruined it for me, and I had even one more over 600 pages. This year, my top is 341 so far...thus, the War and Peace. I've got spreadsheets of equations that tell me how much I have to read each day, with a factored in day off each week. That being said, I'm not meeting that goal at all for War and Peace, and not even close for its due date.
I don't know why I think you at all care about that...maybe I don't think it and I just like saying things.
I had my first real FD disapointment today, by way of a close family friend requesting to _not_ be updated. Whatever...I'm over it because I know God is faithful. It was more an emotional hit thanks to what I thought was a strong relationship, when I was either wrong, or she really hates InterVarsity....she at least used to be a Christian. I'm not sure how I feel about that even being a possibility....but I don't know how she feels right now, let's just say that, about the savior.
Even though it's about never all that much percentage wise, I love getting gifts from people still in college. It's a testament to faithfulness. More than raising funds, I want to raise a group of faithful partners...and that's what underclassmen giving 5-10 dollars a month are, to an absolute tee. Faithfulness is my word of the week...and mostly my lifetime.
Today was probably very important, in the long scheme of this summer.
And I don't plan on expalining that. I am SO vague sometimes...all the time. I learned from the best though, especially recently...and I won't explain that either.
I think Embers and Envelopes by Mae might be the best all around song ever composed. I know I use too many superlatives....but there's something basically perfect about it. Not in a sum of its parts sort of way (those are always ultimately unfulfilling), but in a holistic, inner-being sort of way.
Let's look ahead and then we'll see the one who's glory never ends.
My only complaint is that the song might rhyme too much....
Welcome to the Grand Illusion, where Renoir reminds us why he might even be underrated.
Don't worry about everything I write...and much less figuring it out. Much of it is just a copy, from something written inside me...deep or not is debatable, movement to movement, thought to thought.
I wish I had loved pop-entertainment more all throughout college. I could have written a far more interesting I.S. Probably not something so academically charged (it's hard to top 100 pages of absolutely unrelenting analysis, wherein I never even took a breath to quote a peer...which hurt me in the end, but I have no regrets because I passed)...but comparing Watchmen to Dickens might have been awesome. Probably not as clean an application as the cloak of serialization sounds....but it would be fun.
Speaking of Watchmen, it took me awhile to accept the exploding man narrative in Heroes as a reference to, not a direct rip from Watchmen.
I actually don't think Watchmen, pound for pound, was anywhere near as good as its billing. It isn't deep, it isn't philosophical. It's got the very typical, very chic sci-fi depth to it, like a "good" video game, anime, or, well, sci-fi. But it's not deep because it's utterly inhuman and unrelatable. But then, it keeps coming back to me...because even so, it's remarkably well done....especially if it's a comic book. And it is. Calling it a novel makes it bad. I don't care if it's a "graphic novel." That's like saying a film with terribly dialogue is as good as a passably written book because you added something visual. No. That's why sum-of-its parts greatness is a facade we have got to stop accepting as a culture. I love a good guitar solo, but that does not make Molly Hatchet a good band or Flirting with Disaster a good song.
Anyway...I could out-reference a quiz bowl team....sorry about that.
And all I can do is drive.
Because home just is somewhere else. It has to be.
It's entries like this that make me wonder if it's a good idea to be so public with this...but the people I could alienate probably don't read blogs much, if at all.
I do worry though...which is a new thing for me, caring about my readership.
More than that, I care about maintaing something that honors the Father in everything, and I doubt I'm all that consistent with that goal. Indeed, I know I am not. Just telling you that I'm reading War and Peace is so ridiculously prideful, and I apologize. But it's real...it's human..I'm human, and I know I'm full of mistakes. Like a good piece of swiss cheese, sometimes I might be mostly holes...but the holes are not the cheese.
Don't want it back, don't want it back.
Give it all, gave it all.
Give more.
Walking a line.
Welcome
here
there
everywhere.
There isn't anywhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be. And John Lennon said he didn't believe in God. Hah...he didn' know how much he did.
And that's why God has to exist.
There is danger in saying too much...always and forever and maybe ever already.
Art is a veiling...but it is an unveling of what cannot be clear to unveiled eyes.
Such is love, I guess.
I can't say I know much more about love than anyone probably. Failed experience isn't really experience at all, right?
Maybe, I don't know.
I sometimes sit and think about how much better I am than everyone else at anything, if I want to be. At least non-athletically. That's very wrong...very, very wrong on my part. And it is very fitting that right now, I have so much less than so many others that have and do meant and mean so much to me. It's right. It's here. It's what it all is.
Fill the air, fill the air, take a map and point to anywhere, miles from there.
Our NSO theme last year, at least in theory and things we ordered from InterVarsity was "be prepared for life on the road." It probably meant, specifically, college. But more than that, I know it means life with the Father. It is more than a good image when Christ says to leave everything and follow...and follow implies movement til the end. It is the road, and where I'm at on it, I've left everything and everyone behind to follow...or will be soon enough. And in doing so, I know that, on the other side, is so much more than I ever had here. It's already becoming more and more clear, from this distance.
The Everglow.
The Singularity.
The Beautiful Destination.
It just fits, even if it's a bit grating on you.
All deliberate speed....it just never ends.
Well you and me, yeah we could change the world.
Mae and Anberlin are the two most recent concerts I attended, and that is by no means a mistake. Where they intersect I can narrate my life.
It is, probably, my own construction...but God made me to be certain, and God made me who I am, how I am, bent on unending construction of my reality through him...it's just who I am and what I do.....
The only thing on which I've got to insist is know that unless the father built it, it will always be but a construction. It is a construction, however, through which the Lord wants me to view reality right now...and I have got to be willing for that to come apart and be reconstructed from time to time, or maybe even all the time, maybe even always already deconstructed and reconstructed, it can't set because there is no findable unity apart from santification and redemption in Christ, and that is something I will not be while I am flawed and on this Earth. So I do construct my view of some things in life through songs and lyrics and words. I think it's alright..I know it's alright...for me.
And I'm going on staff at Hillsdale.
Where we're going is where we've never been, but once we've come out on the otherside, we'll feel like doing it, all over again.
Oh, there she was.
Oh, there she is.
Just believe.
kcaZ-
"niaga sdrawkcab og ot emit yalp dna dniwer"
-eaM
-Mae.
-Zack
.situationally backwards perhaps,
siht ekil eb dluow ti meard I dluow reven tub.
Fast slow.
Slow fast.
Either or.
Both and.
And the always already.
If I ever write a book about post-modernism, the title may be Both and and the Always Already. Mostly because I love that.
And because I love the intersection between Derrida and Bhabha...I found Christ there once, afterall.
Sometimes I feel like I speak mostly in code...perhaps I do.
Or perhaps I just don't tell full things...really, ever. I just tell things, and don't explain...then I say I can't...oftentimes "right now."
But what is "right now" anyway, but a bowing to time? And what is time but a contrivance? It's linear...and I don't much want to believe in the linear, at least not as it applies to true reality. Linearity is a punishment, not a fact.
Good Will Hunting is far better than I ever expected. As is War and Peace...but it's still a slow read. And I actually am reading it...it's a great translation...but I don't know if I'll finish it in time...it's the library's. Here's to hoping nobody puts it on hold and I can renew it enough to finish it this summer....it's currently outweighing the speed with which I finished books thanks to Children as readers, and making up for the page deficiency. That, I can explain. Every year, I keep track of the amount of pages and books that I read each year...I always strive to read at least one more book and one more page. Both goals may be acheived at once...but it's rare, because book length varies so much. The longest book I've read this year, so far, is Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, with the second longest being it's prequel (although I think prequel implies a later release, I prefer a single word for that particular book....even with this explanation, I feel resistent to typing the title). Last year, Don Quixote was the longest book (actually longer than War and Peace...at least in pages...maybe because it's a very large book and the Cervantes was quite small as book dimensions go...well, it was thick, of course) The second longest was Ulysses, as Nancy Grace ruined it for me, and I had even one more over 600 pages. This year, my top is 341 so far...thus, the War and Peace. I've got spreadsheets of equations that tell me how much I have to read each day, with a factored in day off each week. That being said, I'm not meeting that goal at all for War and Peace, and not even close for its due date.
I don't know why I think you at all care about that...maybe I don't think it and I just like saying things.
I had my first real FD disapointment today, by way of a close family friend requesting to _not_ be updated. Whatever...I'm over it because I know God is faithful. It was more an emotional hit thanks to what I thought was a strong relationship, when I was either wrong, or she really hates InterVarsity....she at least used to be a Christian. I'm not sure how I feel about that even being a possibility....but I don't know how she feels right now, let's just say that, about the savior.
Even though it's about never all that much percentage wise, I love getting gifts from people still in college. It's a testament to faithfulness. More than raising funds, I want to raise a group of faithful partners...and that's what underclassmen giving 5-10 dollars a month are, to an absolute tee. Faithfulness is my word of the week...and mostly my lifetime.
Today was probably very important, in the long scheme of this summer.
And I don't plan on expalining that. I am SO vague sometimes...all the time. I learned from the best though, especially recently...and I won't explain that either.
I think Embers and Envelopes by Mae might be the best all around song ever composed. I know I use too many superlatives....but there's something basically perfect about it. Not in a sum of its parts sort of way (those are always ultimately unfulfilling), but in a holistic, inner-being sort of way.
Let's look ahead and then we'll see the one who's glory never ends.
My only complaint is that the song might rhyme too much....
Welcome to the Grand Illusion, where Renoir reminds us why he might even be underrated.
Don't worry about everything I write...and much less figuring it out. Much of it is just a copy, from something written inside me...deep or not is debatable, movement to movement, thought to thought.
I wish I had loved pop-entertainment more all throughout college. I could have written a far more interesting I.S. Probably not something so academically charged (it's hard to top 100 pages of absolutely unrelenting analysis, wherein I never even took a breath to quote a peer...which hurt me in the end, but I have no regrets because I passed)...but comparing Watchmen to Dickens might have been awesome. Probably not as clean an application as the cloak of serialization sounds....but it would be fun.
Speaking of Watchmen, it took me awhile to accept the exploding man narrative in Heroes as a reference to, not a direct rip from Watchmen.
I actually don't think Watchmen, pound for pound, was anywhere near as good as its billing. It isn't deep, it isn't philosophical. It's got the very typical, very chic sci-fi depth to it, like a "good" video game, anime, or, well, sci-fi. But it's not deep because it's utterly inhuman and unrelatable. But then, it keeps coming back to me...because even so, it's remarkably well done....especially if it's a comic book. And it is. Calling it a novel makes it bad. I don't care if it's a "graphic novel." That's like saying a film with terribly dialogue is as good as a passably written book because you added something visual. No. That's why sum-of-its parts greatness is a facade we have got to stop accepting as a culture. I love a good guitar solo, but that does not make Molly Hatchet a good band or Flirting with Disaster a good song.
Anyway...I could out-reference a quiz bowl team....sorry about that.
And all I can do is drive.
Because home just is somewhere else. It has to be.
It's entries like this that make me wonder if it's a good idea to be so public with this...but the people I could alienate probably don't read blogs much, if at all.
I do worry though...which is a new thing for me, caring about my readership.
More than that, I care about maintaing something that honors the Father in everything, and I doubt I'm all that consistent with that goal. Indeed, I know I am not. Just telling you that I'm reading War and Peace is so ridiculously prideful, and I apologize. But it's real...it's human..I'm human, and I know I'm full of mistakes. Like a good piece of swiss cheese, sometimes I might be mostly holes...but the holes are not the cheese.
Don't want it back, don't want it back.
Give it all, gave it all.
Give more.
Walking a line.
Welcome
here
there
everywhere.
There isn't anywhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be. And John Lennon said he didn't believe in God. Hah...he didn' know how much he did.
And that's why God has to exist.
There is danger in saying too much...always and forever and maybe ever already.
Art is a veiling...but it is an unveling of what cannot be clear to unveiled eyes.
Such is love, I guess.
I can't say I know much more about love than anyone probably. Failed experience isn't really experience at all, right?
Maybe, I don't know.
I sometimes sit and think about how much better I am than everyone else at anything, if I want to be. At least non-athletically. That's very wrong...very, very wrong on my part. And it is very fitting that right now, I have so much less than so many others that have and do meant and mean so much to me. It's right. It's here. It's what it all is.
Fill the air, fill the air, take a map and point to anywhere, miles from there.
Our NSO theme last year, at least in theory and things we ordered from InterVarsity was "be prepared for life on the road." It probably meant, specifically, college. But more than that, I know it means life with the Father. It is more than a good image when Christ says to leave everything and follow...and follow implies movement til the end. It is the road, and where I'm at on it, I've left everything and everyone behind to follow...or will be soon enough. And in doing so, I know that, on the other side, is so much more than I ever had here. It's already becoming more and more clear, from this distance.
The Everglow.
The Singularity.
The Beautiful Destination.
It just fits, even if it's a bit grating on you.
All deliberate speed....it just never ends.
Well you and me, yeah we could change the world.
Mae and Anberlin are the two most recent concerts I attended, and that is by no means a mistake. Where they intersect I can narrate my life.
It is, probably, my own construction...but God made me to be certain, and God made me who I am, how I am, bent on unending construction of my reality through him...it's just who I am and what I do.....
The only thing on which I've got to insist is know that unless the father built it, it will always be but a construction. It is a construction, however, through which the Lord wants me to view reality right now...and I have got to be willing for that to come apart and be reconstructed from time to time, or maybe even all the time, maybe even always already deconstructed and reconstructed, it can't set because there is no findable unity apart from santification and redemption in Christ, and that is something I will not be while I am flawed and on this Earth. So I do construct my view of some things in life through songs and lyrics and words. I think it's alright..I know it's alright...for me.
And I'm going on staff at Hillsdale.
Where we're going is where we've never been, but once we've come out on the otherside, we'll feel like doing it, all over again.
Oh, there she was.
Oh, there she is.
Just believe.
kcaZ-
"niaga sdrawkcab og ot emit yalp dna dniwer"
-eaM
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Approaching Waves
Don't ask me what the title means. I've been staring at a blank screen for the past twenty minutes, just because it's Thursday and I have nothing else to do at this exact moment (but I've got things to do later, including phone calls and a basketball game), so I had no reason to put off my weekly update. And it's really not like I've little to talk about for the past week. It as been a good, full week. Certainly.
Indeed, this week has been something of a showcase of God's faithfulness. At this very moment, I can certainly say Fund Raising is going good. Good progress happened this week. God is faithful.
And even good arose from the Cavs losing....in that it led me to something of an existential crisis...well, that's a bit extreme, but it was an important thing for my personal life....an important thing I'm not going to post all over the internet...not yet.
I just don't have much to say right now. I just can't come up with words that I feel like expressing.
A lot of weddings have already happened this summer. It's pretty cool. I haven't been to any yet, but it's that time of year...my first is but two weeks and two days away now. Well...not mine...the first one I'm going to this year.
I'm picking the magic. Which feels somewhat like saying I'm voting for Dukakis at this point.
I'm giving my first talk at a church on June 14th. It will be short. Pray for me, if you will.
David Caradine died today. His most significant impact on my life was that Kill Bill was one of the first movies I watched when I started watching movies for fun during Comparative Film. I didn't really like movies before that class....it's probably no secret that that's not the case anymore. Maybe he just decided he wanted to die in Asia....Suicide will never make sense to me...but for someone like David Caradine, it almost makes sense that he would want to decide so badly how he would get to go out and when...
Not that there's anything right with that.
I guess I've got nothing to say right now....because I can't come up with anything to say. It's a familiar feeling to other times in my life....but never so random as now.
-Zack
"My man's got a heart like a rock cast in the sea"
-Malcolm McLaren [About Her, from the Kill Bill soundtrack]
Indeed, this week has been something of a showcase of God's faithfulness. At this very moment, I can certainly say Fund Raising is going good. Good progress happened this week. God is faithful.
And even good arose from the Cavs losing....in that it led me to something of an existential crisis...well, that's a bit extreme, but it was an important thing for my personal life....an important thing I'm not going to post all over the internet...not yet.
I just don't have much to say right now. I just can't come up with words that I feel like expressing.
A lot of weddings have already happened this summer. It's pretty cool. I haven't been to any yet, but it's that time of year...my first is but two weeks and two days away now. Well...not mine...the first one I'm going to this year.
I'm picking the magic. Which feels somewhat like saying I'm voting for Dukakis at this point.
I'm giving my first talk at a church on June 14th. It will be short. Pray for me, if you will.
David Caradine died today. His most significant impact on my life was that Kill Bill was one of the first movies I watched when I started watching movies for fun during Comparative Film. I didn't really like movies before that class....it's probably no secret that that's not the case anymore. Maybe he just decided he wanted to die in Asia....Suicide will never make sense to me...but for someone like David Caradine, it almost makes sense that he would want to decide so badly how he would get to go out and when...
Not that there's anything right with that.
I guess I've got nothing to say right now....because I can't come up with anything to say. It's a familiar feeling to other times in my life....but never so random as now.
-Zack
"My man's got a heart like a rock cast in the sea"
-Malcolm McLaren [About Her, from the Kill Bill soundtrack]
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