The past two weeks evaporated. It often felt like they were going to last forever (and sometimes I hoped they would, just a little at least), but right now, it feels like two weeks were zapped from my life. It's mostly because there's such a difference between being at Cedar Campus and being anywhere else that it almost feels like a dream...like I know it happened but the time it took to happen is unaccounted for in my mind.
Then I think about the physical exhaustion I had to overcome over the weekend and realize that it most definitely did happen.
And it was good. It was very good. Chapter Focus week is kind of more fun to staff when your students aren't there because it feels like you've got a vibrant social life for a week when you get to hang out with all of the other staff that don't have chapters there and, even without my bias, it's probably safe to say that InterVarsity staff are mostly pretty cool people to hang out with. But I do have a bias, so I might be wrong.
That's not to say that the second week, when Hillsdale was there, wasn't great, because it definitely was. Indeed, it was perhaps more great but in all different ways. We had a very small group, by Hillsdale standards, but it seems that many of them at least understand the mission of InterVarsity better now...my main prayer request is that living that out on campus happens and, further, that it spreads. The students we had are influential, but there is always the stark worldview contrast between me and Hillsdale students that translates into very different things from the same or at least seemingly same ideas. There probably shouldn't be such difference between my worldview and that of the typical Hillsdale Christian Fellowship student, because we're all Christians...but sometimes it feels like all similarities end there....indeed, I think they often might...at least most of them.
I've been realizing, especially today and this weekend, that calling God the giver of life means a lot more than we let it. Of course it means eternal life, but so often we act like eternal life is the only thing God wants to give us. Perhaps it is the ultimate thing, but he wants to give us life to live abundantly now, here, in this life. A rich, joyful, hopeful, free life is what he wants to give those who seek him in this life. I think most people settle for so much less. Many christians settle in and decide that this life must be terrible and look heavenward at all times, while non-Christians and especially irreligious people settle for a life that strives to be fulfilled by imperfect love from imperfect people and it can only lead to an unfulfilling life. But God can and will grant a beautiful life to his children, if we would simply seek to see his world as he sees it, deriving joy from the beauty he places around us, in people, in places, in knowing that he loves us more than we can even fathom. There's joy in the life he wants to grant us, if we would be open, and it's a joy that gives strength and hope, because he promises this world will be imperfect in its broken state. But despite its brokenness, he offers hope for a brighter tomorrow and a better today. It's amazing how far hope can get you, when it rests in the creator and sustainer of all things. The best part about it is, perhaps, at least for now, that it's a joy that often, practically, comes from others, in the context of community. God uses people to bless people with a rich life of love and hope. To be close to God is to be close to others; it is some kind of profound, beautiful, mysterious circle that lets us constantly draw more and more and more into the fold of joyful, warm, loving embrace, if only we would stop pursuing the end and take a moment to love in the means.
-Zack
"What happened to the American dream? It came true."
-Watchmen
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