Purpose

My favorite song will be, until the day I die, There is a Light that Never Goes Out by the Smiths.

The title comes from the quote: "Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out." said by Hugh Latimer before being burned at the stake for heresy. Heresy in the form of an evangelical revolution on college campuses in England.

I don't think there's even the slightest coincidence that InterVarsity has nothing to do with the Smiths but wouldn't exist were it not for the people that were responsible for the song's title...and I am sure there is absolutely no other job in the world I should have right now.

I just spent 3 days in Ann Arbor talking about the heart of what we do...seeing people decide to make Jesus Christ the Lord of their lives.

It was a long and exhausting few days....we basically put in 12 hours of time, stayed up til 2 a.m. or later (that part was optional, but the direct consequence of putting the three Wooster-tied staff in the same place for sleeping arrangements), and did it all again the next day. Thankfully, it was only three days....As it was, I slept til noon today trying to catch up. Thankfully, indeed, I could do that...I'm sure many of my colleagues couldn't.

It was a remarkable time though.

Spending time thinking about why we do what we do, I've given thought to why I do much of what I do. Some of the reasons are more opaque than others.

As far as this is concerned though, I'm not quite sure why I write this...each post seems to have its own purpose. Sometimes, I just need to write and sometimes I feel like feeling like I'm telling people things, so a word document on my hard drive wouldn't "scratch that itch." Other times I really do have something I want people to know. Sometimes, I think I write because I often wish many of my friends had blogs so I could see what's on their mind from time to time. I acknowledge though, that my relationship with the English language and writing is pretty unique....

J.D. Salinger died today and I don't know what to say. I'm not glad he's dead; I'm never glad someone is dead. But he's basically famous for the death of John Lennon and making a ton of emotional teenagers think they know anything about anything. It's a shame too, because what there is to like about the Catcher in the Rye is never what gets attention. As far as I can tell, Salinger was incapable of creating characters or plot, but he could build a compelling narrative out of literally nothing....but it's the nothing that gets all the attention. Ironic, probably....

I heard bagpipes on campus last night. You can take bagpipe lessons, and that's what was going on. I've been aware of the lessons, so I always thought I would feel at home when and if I heard the pipes....but the opposite happened...I just missed Wooster.

I met a guy on Tuesday that could play basically any song he'd heard on the piano. He was wasting that talent on a degree in engineering....sometimes, communism looks good.


-Zack

"Oh call my name, you know my name, and in that sound everything will change"
-Vienna Teng