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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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