Nothing, sometimes, is harder than being.
And nothing is that has not at least at one time been.
But all that has already been for as long as anything has ever been, which, on some ends, is eternal. The great human scandal is that eternality implies the lack of linearity and yet we are nothing if not somehow linear.
I have had trouble, major trouble, sleeping normally this week. I've been up to at least 4 or 5 every day so far...it's not my idea of a good time, no, not at all. I get a lot of reading in, and I've seen all but the last season of the Office...but I don't want to be up that late. It's a vicious cycle though, brought on by far too many naps in the beginning of the summer...well, the last couple weeks at least...slowly, I was pushing toward this I guess. And here I am. But I'll break it...at least I'll do my best to break it. Sunday should work...I think I'm sharing at a church service at 8:30 a.m. And like, right now, I'm kind of tired, and it's just 9 p.m.....of course, I've only been up for 8 hours at this point....yeah...definitely not a fan of this. I definitely strive to be as much of a morning person as I can be, and usually, I do pretty well. There's just not a lot I have to do in the mornings these days so sleeping longer and longer is so tempting.
I think it has been my best week of fund development so far. I've gained over 3 percent, which is still kind of slow if you figure out how long it would take me to get to 100% from 3% every week...like, six months. But I think it's really the sign of a what should be an increasing and steady pace from here on out. I'm kind of running out of contacts at the moment...I've got about 40 left, which I can probably finish calling next week or the week after. That being said, there's a chance for a lot of new contacts at church this Sunday...two services of people that could potentially be interested in the ministry of InterVarsity.
I feel like I mostly say things that don't really make sense or just talk about fund-raising on here...I guess that's basically my life...a big confusing ball of fund-raising.
It's really weird to be home. I say that a lot, to a lot of people, and probably on here more than once. But it's totally, totally true....I was going somewhere with that, but I don't remember now...just a non-sequitur fact. Actually, I don't believe there is such a thing as a non-sequitur...if it exists, it has a purpose, and unity is a facade anyway, so there's no way you can define it based on that.
I'm reading Harry Potter (all of them, hopefully) this summer, and while i is, on one hand, far more interesting than I ever expected, I always feel like I could be a slightly better writer than Rowling. Maybe I couldn't, indeed I'm sure I could not, come up with everything in there...but her style is so painful...and it's not just low, like, for kids..it's just bad. The dialogue is flat, fan-fictiony with little to no thought seemingly poured into what the characters say...and the explanations of everything over and over again, while it kind of makes sense, just works, primarily, as a foil to all of the unfilled plot-holes. There are a ton of things I would love to see explained that never are...sure, I can assume it's magic, but the best parts of the books are the explanations of the magical stuff...anyway, I am enjoying it, but it's also painful.
I've also taken to reading seven books at a time, so it's not all Harry Potter, all the time. I always thought I might relish in reading just one thing at a time after I graduated, but I don't really...I'm a fan of many things, all at once....just like how I'm watching, at various point,s like, 5-9 movies at a time. Of course, I probably watch a lot more parital movies too...not many people will start and stop the same movie anywhere near as often as I do...but it's just me. I think I have a very slight attention span...that's what I blame.
So, when I redid this blog, in an attempt to make it more ministry-centric, my hope was to avoid just talking about myself for post upon post, and it's clear that I've utterly failed at that.
In an effort to succed a little better, I'll talk a little, week to week, when I think of it, about something that's been on my mind from scripture lately. This one is from Jeremiah 31:28-30
28 Just as I watched over them to uproot and tear down, and to overthrow, destroy and bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant," declares the LORD. 29 "In those days people will no longer say,
'The fathers have eaten sour grapes,
and the children's teeth are set on edge.'
This passage has been kind of on my mind for awhile now because it points out a very interesting difference between the original covenant and the Kingdom of God began in the (and eventually completed in the 2nd) coming of Christ. For Jews, it was always about making up for the sins of ancestors and family members. I've heard jews attribute the Holocaust to sins of their ancestors. But that's not the way Jesus established the world-order...."he is blind so that God may be glorified" is a well known, but probably generally unexplored passage, with regard to Jewish tradition. It was, or should have been seen as, an affirmation on the part of Christ that the days spolen of by Jeremiah were at hand. The man was suffering because of sin, the fallen world in general, but not necessarily as punishment for his father. Suddenly, it is not about what family (and, therefore an entire ethnicity) does or does not do, but about an individual's faith. This is key, and, I think, a fairly overlooked aspect to the application of the new covenant, atonement for all, in grafting the gentiles into the Kingdom of and Inheritance from God. Not only are people free from the sins of their ancestors, but they are free to be forgiven for their own sins without it impacting their progeny. The result? Everyone must make a personal decision for (or, as it may be, against) Christ. One is no longer cleared or punished for the actions or inactions of those that came before...it is now between the individual and God. Faith finally matters a whole lot more. That's part of the doing away with blood sacrifice too...atonement is no longer tied to a family which gives up the family's ox or what have you.
Jeremiah is kind of a strange book...it's good, but it's half some of the hardest hitting and cruelest sounding prophecy in the Bible, but it's got a lot of incredible hopeful stuff (I know the plans I have for you...) and it's also got such great stories as "Jehoiakim burns Jeremiah's scroll" or "Jeremiah is thrown into a cistern." It's really great...sometimes hard to get through, depending what phase its in, but a wonderful message, all the way through; a message of the coming (and now present) hope for all in the name of the Lord.
Have a splendid Holiday weekend.
-Zack
"I didn't believe in magic til I watched you disappear (I wish you were here)"
-Gnarls Barkley
No comments:
Post a Comment