As far as I'm concerned, next year is now.
That's not true, but this year isn't really hanging on by much anymore...just a dissipation into nothing as I turn my attention to what's on the way.
I used to write end of the year blogs in college, and I don't think I'll have it in me to do that as a staff. Part of that is because I have prayer letters for that, and the other part is that years don't really end as much as new years arrive. That sounds dramatic, harrowing perhaps, or at least confusing, but there's simply little to no time to transition between the two. Prior to Chapter Focus Week, where the focus is on the chapter as it will be next year, we've got to make submit plans for the next year. So right now, with an entire week left on campus (I say entire when I should say but one), I'm just thinking about next year and planning for CFW. There's enough meditative space in my life (and enough is required to sufficiently plan for next year) that I don't feel too rushed, I don't feel like there's no due time to move from one to the next. But there's a big difference between the months of summer that accompany even the most ambitious InterVarsity student as he or she moves between school years and the months of constantly-forward-looking work that accompany staff work.
I like it though, because I can't really function looking backward too much. If anything, it's because I'm too sentimental and can get locked into thinking about what was (and won't be) and neglect to think about what will be. That's why graduation weekend was so hard last year...I was completely diametrically split between the celebration and the saying of goodbyes. There was no inbetween, ever. After graduation, the last thought I had was how I had completed college... the only thought I had was how I was leaving. They couldn't stay together for me, although they were both altogether true enough at that present moment.
And it's even harder right now. Not the looking back thing, but the looking forward, because a big part of next year is figuring out next-next year. Actually, that's often more on my mind than the coming year. Indeed, it's a bit hard to believe in the 370 or so days that sit between me and then at the moment, and that is a problem. It's often not that I don't want to be here (indeed, it's very much that I very much do), but there is a strong temptation to think that the next year here is an important bit of putting my life on hold. I shouldn't but I do feel like whatever comes next will be a step toward forever, but until then, I have a mandatory year at Hillsdale with no legitimate bearing on what comes next...and the irony of that is that I don't even know that I won't be at Hillsdale for a third year (but if I am, I'll have to figure out something of a social life between now and then, because every weekend spent here feels like a hostage situation with little to no stockholm syndrome). In the end, it doesn't really matter. Well, it's hard to ever say that and really mean it or for it to be completely true (but then again, what is ever completely true?). I mean to say though, that all the thinking, all the debating in my mind over what is happening, all the uneasiness or at least un-surety will fade, (and ought to out of faith already) and what is right will be apparent.
I have my dreams, I have my desires, I have my own ideas about what I would like to see happen. I don't know that those are all completely invalid because I don't know that they're all completely born of my own desires without God's input. More than anything though, I've just got to have faith, I've just got to pray, I've just got, often, to wait and see. Because it's not hard for me to get impassioned about something and run toward it just to find out that my passion wasn't invalid but my running was. Indeed, I've had and lost girlfriends and almost girlfriends that way.... I do trust though, that I'll know, when the moment hits and the time is right, that the passion is correct and I won't even be able to run fast enough to take in all God has for me, so He'll have to carry me there.
That's one large glob of a prayer request for next year, and I can't wait to take the steps and plumb the depths of the adventure God's got ahead of me to find out. There is no waiting in this holding pattern here at Hillsdale. There is no waiting at all in the shadow of the almighty. No matter where we are, no matter what we are doing, this is an adventure and waiting is nothing more than his way of letting us experience where we are and what we're doing deeper. We miss that. We miss that a lot.
-Zack
"You can't memorize words you've always known"
-Flobots
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