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
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