Three black marks

Before we started walking, we were sliding down the slide.  When you get to the bottom, you just go back to the top.  You climb to the top because it's at the top that you ever find anything, ever see anything.  But then down, on down, on down you go.  Again, again, again.  It was never a roller coaster.

Maybe it is waves.  Peaks, valleys, frequencies.  I do know it pulses.

The losses wouldn't be losses if they weren't lost.

Cut.

Then keep moving forward.

-Zack

"After all is said and done, build a new route to China if they'll have you"

-Gil Scott Heron

As big as the sea...

There is scandal, mystery, and glory in Christmas.  The darkness breaks and hope awakes in the heart once more.  I sometimes feel odd, acting as if Christ isn't born at Christmas, or like he really just died on Good Friday.  Neither are true and the emulative nature of our holiest observances is a little immature and cultic sometimes.

But we need it, that feeling of dawn breaking , that heart-taking, soul-rending birth of hope on Christmas.  We need it every single day.  We need it, at least, once a year.  As play-acting as advent and Good Friday might be, without the birth of hope once more, without the renewal of knowledge as to what it really means, we miss so much of the point.

Darkness turned to dawn at Christmas, but sometimes, we forget that we're still living in that dawn.  We're actually living in a more glorious dawn, closer now to the completion and the Kingdom than we were when Christ became man.  But he took up dwelling among us for a time, and those 30-odd years were as magical as anything, as deeply and lightly as that word can be used when talking about Jesus.  God was here.  And yet, he still is.  We can't touch him, indeed, but he never left.

And that's what Christmas is...a celebration but also a remembrance and a re-embrace.

-Zack

"O shepherds, find thy goal"
-French Carol

365

One year ago today, though it was a Tuesday then, I met the woman I am going to marry.  I wouldn't have guessed it then.  I wouldn't have guessed it even as late as this past May, when we started dating.  Well, I probably could have guessed it then.  Because I knew in early May that our relationship would be God-ordained and I knew he was asking me to take the step of faith entering into a relationship with her would be.  But it was a step of faith not just worth taking, but one, I know, I was excited to take at the time.

But that doesn't mean it was going to be easy, and most certainly, it has not been.  Loving her is easy.  It's the easiest thing I've ever had or wanted to do.  But it's not easy when she's away, when she has to be away, or when I'm away, because I have to be away.

But nonetheless, it has been a glorious year, a great predecessor to the year to come...which, I do believe, will be even more spectacular.

-Zack

"And I never thought I would find her here
Flannel and satin, my four walls transformed
But she's looking at me, straight to center
No room at all, for any other thought"
-Vienna Teng

Callling Birds

I spent my day making this.  It was fun, but it wasn't much more than typing up stories I've already told 100 times.  It's still fun and exciting though.  It's all so fun and so exciting.

I've had to come to terms with something these last few days, although that's kind of a lie, because it's driving me nuts, so I haven't come to terms with it at all.  I don't think I'm going to reach my goal of 51 finished books this year.  The issue comes in grossly overestimating how many days I could read fully in December.  I always reset my numbers for the month when I get to it, and though I had 25 days in for December all year long, in reality, I had less than ten, and my 20 pages per book I was hovering around jumped up to around 60.  I'm at like 3 days to really read left in 2010 with 7 books to finish.  That's, on average, 67 pages per each of the 7 books I'm reading right now everyday to the end of the year.  I just don't think it's happening...I don't know if there's really enough physical time over 3 days to do that, to say nothing of the actual time I could allot for it.  But we'll see....I'm close to the end of a few things...we'll see what happens.  I'm not giving up, though I probably should.  I'll be very cautious with December when I set up next year in a couple of weeks, and I'll be shooting for less books on the whole.  50 last year was inflated by a semester of Children's literature.  Though I'm 7 books short right now, I'm well over my page total from last year.

I don't really have much of anything to say tonight.  I just felt like saying something.

It's hard to believe 2010 is so close to finished.  It's already winter.  This year flew by, but I'm sure 2011 will be even faster.  I'll be 24 before I know it.  I decided today that I'm the laziest person I know.  I'm going to try to change that, and updating this more often is part of that.  I think I'm a generally better person when I write more.  Experience doesn't lead to wisdom after all...it is reflected upon experience that leads to wisdom because there are plenty of old fools running around.  Look at my mother...she's older than me, very much a fool, and absolutely running around.  I'm sure, til the day either of us dies, she's claim that I don't understand because I'm so much younger than her.  I guess I don't know is she's right or not...but understand or not, nothing she's done this year, or at least very little, could be judged as correct, no matter how much anyone understands.  Her facebook religious views says "I have a relationship with my god" but that's a lie, even though her "god" is her self.  If she was at all in touch with even that, she'd realize that she's on a path of deceitful destruction that will end with her acknowledging wrong or with an obstinate barren loneliness; refusing to admit anything but pitiful to all.  C.S. Lewis said that there are, in the end, only two responses to God...you can tell him "thy will be done" or "my will be done."  The constant insistence on the latter removes life and humanity, little by little, as a creature created for outward connection and love becomes more and more focused on its own self and therefore, less and less as it ought to be.  The irony of sin is that it's so often done in the name of doing what one judges will bring his or her own self the most enjoyment, the best use of his or her own free will, but that very proclamation destroys the very soul who claims it.

Maybe I shouldn't post all of that on a blog.  I don't know.  But I'd rather not take it down now.

While I'm on the topic of self-centeredness, I officially withdraw any support I may have ever claimed of Senator George Voinovich...maybe I'm just uneducated, but I don't quite understand why extending basic rights to humans is bad for other humans who already have those rights.  Someday we'll strike the idea of other from our vocabulary, but we're far from it and Saturday's vote on the DREAM act proved that.  But we live in a broken world.  I just wish I didn't live in a state represented by someone breaking it so fervently.

-Zack

"It's like that sometime, I mean ridiculous"
-Kanye West

5 Golden Rings

It's nearly Christmas once more.  I love Christmas, but Christmas blogposts  are almost always, at least as I try to write them, about the past year and the coming year.  Right now, that's exactly what I feel like I should write about.  A lot happened this past year and a lot is happening next year.

But Christmas comes between.  Christmas.

It's hard to even know what Christmas is anymore.  Well, I know what Christmas is.  It's the day we celebrate Christ's birth.  But when was the last time Christmas was just a day?  Christmas is bigger than a day, and probably rightfully so.  But it's a feeling, it's a rhythm, it's a hanging in the air balance of the now and the not yet.  It's advent, it's trees, it's lights, it's peace.  It's gifts, it's love.

Wherever you find love, it feels like Christmas.  Christmas is, and that is all.

Christmas is the ultimate binary.  It's the breaking dawn, the coming day.  Darkness cannot be where light is.

It seems like Christmas is the time when it's socially acceptable to be a Christian, and it makes me hopeful, but I'm not quite sure why.  In China, they display pictures of Santa at churches, because it's an accepted Christian symbol, as a symbol of Christmas.  I don't think we keep in mind how Christian Christmas is because we spend so much time focusing on how Christian it isn't.  Not every does it for the right reason, that's for sure...indeed, far from it...but there's something somewhat exciting and hopeful about how the only day the world shuts down in the U.S. is to celebrate Christ's birth, even if so many people have no idea what that quite means and don't do anything quite in line with what he'd want.

To hear a lot of people talk, you'd think it'd be better if people didn't celebrate Christmas at all than to do it poorly.  Last I checked though, there aren't other things, good things, we'd rather people not do than to do it with the wrong motives or style.  I do with more people really knew Christ and could really celebrate Christmas with the right reasons and deference...but much like I'd rather people feed the hungry out of self-glorification than to not do it at all...I guess somewhere, in some ways, I'm alright with people observing a celebration of Christ's birth, even if for the wrong reasons.

So ultimately, I'm all for Santa, all for 24/7 Christmas music, all for Christmas movies and egg nog.  You can say they detract from Jesus, but only if you let them.  They, if nothing else, point to how big of a deal the celebration of Christ's birth is, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

As always though, I'm opposed to how Americans choose to spend their money.  But it's much less how they spend it and much more how they don't.  I couldn't care less about and indeed I'm completely for people giving gifts to each other.  But that doesn't change how little it would take, in light of how rich we, as Americans, are, to change the world, and we, time and time again, choose not to help out. 50 billion dollars would go to fight poverty if we would spend ten percent of what we spend on Christmas gifts on charitable work.  We're celebrating the birth of someone who said two things: love each other and feed the hungry.  We could at least try to do that in his honor.

-Zack

"I wish you a hopeful Christmas
I wish you a brave new year
All anguish, pain, and sorrow
Leave your heart and let your road be clear"
-Emerson, Lake, and Palmer

On down the lines of Difference

It's the last day of classes here at Hillsdale.  It's the last day I'll be on campus this semester too.  There's direct correlation.

To say it's been a good semester is the simplest way to describe what I've experienced these last 15 weeks.  But it's far from that simple.  Simply though, I'll just say that everyday gets better here, or at least every week does and the net average of how much I enjoy it at Hillsdale, trying to do ministry here, improves every Thursday night.  I'm falling into some kind of comfort level with the students and I feel like I have real rapport with some key students in key situations.  I won't say it's been my best semester of ministry, but I was far from this effective my second semester at Wooster.  Of course, I wasn't on staff then either.

But it's not about my effectiveness, and at the end of the day it's far from about my own enjoyment of what I do. Everyone wants to enjoy their own job right?  But I struggle to even call this my job.  It's bigger than that.  It's bigger than calling it my career even for that matter.  It's, more, perhaps, than anything else, a place I am to be and a place I need to be.  Our regional director always reminds us that we're not chapter staff, we're campus staff, and I feel more and more all the time like my call is a lot less to be here for the students doing ministry as much as it's to be here for the ministry going on amongst the students.  There are enough Christians here that they don't need me, at all, to have a fellowship.  Some of them are better leaders than I could have hoped to be as a student.

But I've found that a student, no matter how skilled, is always going to be a bit nearsighted.  I'm sure I was as a student.  I'm probably far from the best staff worker in the world, and I'm reminded of that all the time because my staff partner here at Hillsdale definitely could be, but that's not really a question even worth begging.  If all I accomplish on any given day is helping students see things in a way they wouldn't on their own, then I've done something almost magical, and that's actually a fairly common occurrence.  Talent matters, experience matters, calling matters more.  But it's all a series of differences that we run along, that we base everything on.  I'm "effective" on campus because of the ways I can challenge students in the areas I differ from them, because of the way I see things that they don't. I'm also effective on campus because there are enough things I can relate to students on.  Both are required and in any given situation, in any given settings, your differences are a strength and a hindrance...but so are the commonalities.

I have no idea what the future holds.  I have no idea what series of places I'll be or what situations I'll someday find myself in.  But I'll have more or less similarities and differences with those around me and the crux will always be finding the leverage to do anything with them.

But it expands.  It's cultural.  It's values-system based.  Without the deepest possible diversity, we're not playing with a full deck.  And for that reason, I lament the separation in which we all live.

-Zack

And back again...

8 years ago, I was a sophomore in High School and I had this feeling.  Not quite eight years really.  It will be 8 years in March.  But it's close enough.  Eight years ago, this basketball season.  In many ways, eight years ago, tomorrow night.

8 years ago this past spring, the Ottawa Glandorf (my high school) boys basketball team lost two rounds before the championship round.  LeBron James was the reason.

This past spring, the Cleveland Cavaliers, the NBA equivalent of my high school when it comes to rooting interest, lost, two rounds before the championship round.  LeBron James was the reason in a different way, but he was on "our side" this time.

But now, tonight, the eve of the Ohio high school basketball season, I find myself in a similar sort of mindset I had going into the season my sophomore year.  LeBron James is the reason.

For the past 7 years, the man that stood in the way of a title for my high school (we won it during his first year in the NBA) was the sole reason I had any hope my NBA rooting interest had any hope of a title.  I was a turncoat, so to speak.  He was the enemy while I was in high school, but he was the King as soon as he left.  I have friends I graduated with that never liked him in the pros thanks to high school.  I bet they feel vindicated now.  Because I've turnedcoat once again.  You could say he did too, but while I disagree with his decision that he can win better in Miami, if he believes that he can, I can't blame him. But I'm most severely the turncoat again.

I know what it's like to root against LeBron and his team from high school and today, that's where I am again.  I thought, I think, I'm basically positive it will feel weird to see him on the other side, to see him going against "our guys."  But really, there's nothing new about that at all.  It's how I met him and it's how I'll leave him.  He entered my life as the villain, with his team of tattooed superstars with names from literature (Romeo, Scion, Joyce), and he's become the villain once more.

I never felt guilty about my turning-coat.  For 7 years, "we" had the best player in the world on our side and we had a shot.  It seemed personal poetic justice then, that he'd redeem himself by bringing Cleveland NBA glory.  But it was never to be.

There is still something poetic though, in his return to the other side.  It's somehow more orderly, somehow more normal for Cleveland to be on the other side after all of this. .

But even then...

It was a good ride.

-Zack

"you got that big fame homie, and you just changed homie"
-Kanye West

Shots across the sky

I think I've spent the last 11 months detached.  It was probably less than that, but a best it's been since March.  I've put my heart into very little and ended up with results.  Some good, some bad, but I basically left those up to whatever happened.  I haven't cared about much.  At all.  For a long time.

There are exceptions...the majority of my relationship that has turned into an engagement probably being the best example of that.  Others are more shameful and include Harry Potter and soccer.  But I've been spending a lot of time floating through things. I've always thought I'd get by on raw muscle-memory-like talent, like, for my whole life.  I don't want to brag or anything (believe me, I think of this as far from it) but since graduation, that's basically what I've done, with my level of mental engagement dwindling ever more and more, each and every day, I think.  It's why I've blogged less.  It's why I'm not at full funding.  It's why I completely lost steam by the end of ONS and why I probably won't finish my reading goals for the year.

I wish I could say that's over.  I can say I hope it's over.  I feel like it's over.  Already today, it has been over.

I don't know that I can actually describe what happened, not here at least...but some things just finally broke through, last night and tonight, and I actually feel like I'm becoming, again, or for the first time, the person I was supposed to be all along.

This comes though, I admit, at a time when ministry is at its best at Hillsdale as it has ever been with me there. People actually want to participate in evangelism and that's not been the case for pretty much the history of the chapter with few (but extant) exceptions. That might be a part of it.  But mostly, I just want to be real to more people than myself.  I want to be who God created me to be.

Today is World Aids Day and it reminds me of one of my favorite lines on Kanye's new album...in the second verse of the second track, Gorgeous, he says "I'm going to treat this money like the government treats aids; I won't stop til all my [people] get it"  I don't exactly know what that means because he's not naive enough to believe the government actually gives black people aids, but I think his sentiment might be eerily accurate...as Lil Wayne elucidates in the last track on Tha Carter III, 1 in every 9 black men are in jail, often for selling crack, which is prevalent in poor areas....globally, the darker your skin, the more likely you'll have aids, statistically speaking, but it's not because of race....it's because of poverty and a lack of education.  Why is there so much poverty?  I'm going to be blunt: selfish white republicans and a few assimilated non-whites and successful asian americans.  Right now, in Congress, they're trying to renew the Bush tax cuts.  For someone making minimum wage, that's trying to "save" them about 200 bucks a year, maybe, which they'd get back anyway in such a low tax bracket.  On the other end, those making millions save tens of thousands. All the while, they're fighting to cut unemployment benefits, basically telling struggling people they aren't allowed to feed their families.  All the while, they're supposed to be the party of "Christians" at least according to them.  I'm sure Jesus wants them self-identifying with his title after all, when they're saying they'd let him starve and get aids...."what you do to the least of these, you do unto me."   What does this have to do with aids?  Aids is prevalent amongst the poor because treatments and protection aren't as readily available.  Beyond that though, I'm going to jump back to Congress.  In the past decade, we've spent billions of dollars on wars that shouldn't have happened (In my opinion, that's all war), given billionaires tax cuts, and descried everything that might help humankind as "socialist."

But who is to blame?  We all are.  Why are people selfish?  They aren't actually serving Christ.  They aren't actually putting others above themselves.  I understand that people work for the money they have, it's "earned," but seeing human suffering you could do something about and choosing not to is its own kind of evil, regardless of how one received or earned money he or she has.  This is to say nothing about the advantages the successful have that have nothing to do with their own hard work, especially considering the cultural currency simply being white affords us people who are white.  In "Hell Yeah" by Dead Prez, the rapper claims "to me this isn't welfare, I call it reparations."  Honestly, we couldn't do reparations because no amount of money can pay for the destruction of hundreds of years of culture, thousands of years of honor, and lifetimes worth of pain.  If the U.S. took the cost of both Iraq wars and the Afghanistan conflict and wrote a check for that amount to all of the people oppressed during the past 236 years, it wouldn't scratch the surface of what's due.

But we're capitalists.  We make our own way.  I'm not even white by technical definition but I benefit and act like I am because that's how I was raised.  I can't begrudge it, it is what it is.  But if nothing else, I can start with myself and help others get decentered too, as I constantly decenter myself.

Post-modernism is not a culture.  It is not a release of truth.  It's almost nothing you've ever heard it to be.  It's a decentering and acknowledgement that the truth isn't something we can boil down to.  It's something so much bigger.

-Zack

"See I'm a poet to some, a modern day shakespeare...but that ain't the case"
-Eminem