Retraced

I'll admit, last night's was something of a cop-out post as I knew I should post something to stay "on schedule," but instead of really "updating" I just thought and wrote for a few minutes. I guess that's what this is all of the time, but there are different voices, different perspectives, and different tones toward the reader I take, depending on the sort of post, and I've kind of got a "weekly update" voice that I forsook to this point this past week.

But I'm making up for it, or at least trying to, right now.

My life is a perfect dichotomy in Hillsdale. When I'm on campus doing things, I feel perfectly alive, very much in touch with a world, (although, as it is on any college campus and especially Hillsdale, calling it the world is a bit too generou), and like a functioning member of an integrated (not racially but at least anthropologically) society. It's still a world I'm trying to figure out and that's a lot of what I do (quite directly these days, as I meet with students and try to get perspective on all of this, to figure out what exactly and where exactly I'll be best deployed (so to speak) in ministry on campus), but I do feel like I do something, and actual "doing-things" roles are emerging. Staffwork at Hillsdale has a lot of intricacies, not the least of which being that the primary staff has been and will continue to operate with a very old model of staffwork, wherein the role is basically coming to campus periodically to meet with students and hear about what's going on, influencing as the opportunities arise...it's a fine style, but there are a lot more possibilities when the staff lives in the community, like I do....so sometimes I feel like I'm creating my own role in a roguish fashion. Things are going pretty well and just keep getting better with time....

Then there's the other side of my life....the side that is when I'm not on campus....the side that has little to no social interaction, and it's a side that is slowly driving me insane. I've been back to Ohio twice since moving to Hillsdale, and both times I have realized the non-campus social life I'm missing here....but I'll make it work til something develops, and if it doesn't, so be it...Ohio isn't that far away and perhaps that's how God wants it. Indeed, I'm sure how it is right now is how God wants it; it's just a matter of figuring out what that means in the long run.

We talk a lot about how our goal on campus is to bring glory to God. You couldn't come up with a more complete statement, but I'm finding different students have different ideas about that, and few of them realize the call that actually places on their lives to do things....often times, they're pretty convinced it's more about what they don't do.

I'm by all means a fish out of water here, but that's good for all of us.... I see things on campus others don't because their perspective is different...and I'm learning things I wouldn't encounter elsewhere.

I know God wants me here right now......but I also know he doesn't want me here forever.

So where am I headed? Well, I said I'd be out of the country for at least 3-5 years on my Urbana commitment card, and since that's also where the first seeds of staffwork started being cultivated, I don't doubt that it's still true....but I just don't know where or when.

I've said it so much that you've probably heard it, but I've got a feeling I'll be married or have a seminary degree before I go abroad. Part of me doesn't wonder if both won't be true....I'm pretty sure at least one will be because I've done what I can to escape that little "technicality" about calling, and it just hasn't worked.

I'm also learning a lot about patience these days, but I'm going to have to leave it at that.

-Zack

"You're aiming to please way off target"
-Death Cab for Cutie