I just wish we could see through it all, into something else, something deeper, something farther along than all of this. To fore-go this process and end up and the end without traversing all the way through from the beginning.
But that's not what we've got, not here, not now, presumably not ever. And it can be maddening.
And we pray and we ask and we implore, just to see a little bit of the future or even a future, but even as those prayers are answered we want more and more and more....and I say we when really, I just mean I, I just mean me but I don't want to admit and don't really think I'm all that alone in the quarry for what's next.
What happened to faith?
Nothing. It's just that sometimes I have to grasp it much tighter than I please, I have to work to grow it...and I just don't want to.
-Zack
"I really see you upside down"
-Death Cab for Cutie
Saturday, February 27, 2010
L9: Direction
"This is the way, walk in it"
Often, there is little we know. Often, there is little we see. We're but one entry point on literally billions into perceiving and working and moving through the world. Try as we might to approach similarity, at the end of the day, we fall apart on some level, we fail to connect at some key moment. If this weren't the case then marriage wouldn't so often be defined as both the deepest form of human connection on the most levels and the process of learning to compromise for the sake of love (or loving to the point of compromise. Were I married, I might care how I term that, but I'm not so I don't).
So how are we anything more than many islands floating about, crashing into each other from time to time, for good or bad?
I wish I could answer that, I wish I could find the connection point that goes deeper than all of this, but as far as I can tell, it doesn't exist, or at least not across the board, not on every level.
And somewhere deep inside all of that, it's right that that is the case, it's right that we're all so different and we're so prone to disagree or at least think differently even if we're not outwardly disagreeing.
But we're called to community, we're called to reconciliation. And maybe we're fractured so we can approach that, so we can work toward it. Maybe sin didn't just separate individuals from God but individuals from individuals so that we would know our winnowing of dross that keeps us apart is an act ordained by God.
Even though we still fail here, here in this world, we can at least work in the right direction.
"This is the way, walk in it"
-Zack
"We will learn to be a piece is to be truly whole"
-Vienna Teng
Often, there is little we know. Often, there is little we see. We're but one entry point on literally billions into perceiving and working and moving through the world. Try as we might to approach similarity, at the end of the day, we fall apart on some level, we fail to connect at some key moment. If this weren't the case then marriage wouldn't so often be defined as both the deepest form of human connection on the most levels and the process of learning to compromise for the sake of love (or loving to the point of compromise. Were I married, I might care how I term that, but I'm not so I don't).
So how are we anything more than many islands floating about, crashing into each other from time to time, for good or bad?
I wish I could answer that, I wish I could find the connection point that goes deeper than all of this, but as far as I can tell, it doesn't exist, or at least not across the board, not on every level.
And somewhere deep inside all of that, it's right that that is the case, it's right that we're all so different and we're so prone to disagree or at least think differently even if we're not outwardly disagreeing.
But we're called to community, we're called to reconciliation. And maybe we're fractured so we can approach that, so we can work toward it. Maybe sin didn't just separate individuals from God but individuals from individuals so that we would know our winnowing of dross that keeps us apart is an act ordained by God.
Even though we still fail here, here in this world, we can at least work in the right direction.
"This is the way, walk in it"
-Zack
"We will learn to be a piece is to be truly whole"
-Vienna Teng
Thursday, February 25, 2010
L8: Tidal
You could sink in it, you could drown in it, you could be overcome by it, it can seep through every crack, it can go all places it is not blocked. It is love, it is justice, it is righteousness.
And we can know everything, we can do everything, because with God all things are possible. We can say anything, we can say it sweetly, we can say it wonderfully, we can say it powerfully. But without love it will all be nothing, it will all be noise.
And love can get in every crack because it is poured out and flows like a river, because it is released and crashes like a glorious tide. And all we have to do is be the open lock; to let it flow through us.
It's an idea that sounds so sweet and it sounds so easy. But it can be hard and it can be bitter, to love and even to be loved. But it is always right; to love and to be loved at all costs.
-Zack
"There's a low moon caught in your tangles"
-The Decembrists
And we can know everything, we can do everything, because with God all things are possible. We can say anything, we can say it sweetly, we can say it wonderfully, we can say it powerfully. But without love it will all be nothing, it will all be noise.
And love can get in every crack because it is poured out and flows like a river, because it is released and crashes like a glorious tide. And all we have to do is be the open lock; to let it flow through us.
It's an idea that sounds so sweet and it sounds so easy. But it can be hard and it can be bitter, to love and even to be loved. But it is always right; to love and to be loved at all costs.
-Zack
"There's a low moon caught in your tangles"
-The Decembrists
150
I started this just over 13 months ago, and it's taken me that long to reach 150 posts. I don't feel like I post so much, but I guess that means I average around 2.5 posts/week. That's more than I would expect, but perhaps not completely surprising.
Hillsdale's spring break is still four weeks away as of tomorrow. That's quite the haul from the beginning of the semester in mid-January, and I always thought it was long when we had to get to the second week of March at Wooster. But, at least, at Hillsdale, once you get to break, you're really close to the end of the school year. I don't know that that's necessarily good, but coming off of break and seeing 6 more weeks of class isn't much fun either.
It's all just pointing to the fact that balance doesn't get enough credit in our lives or our structures. Of course, balance and Hillsdale are often complete opposites so that's no surprise.
I don't completely know how long I'll be on staff in general, but I do know I'll almost definitely still be at Hillsdale next year. I'm mostly fine with that and excited to continue on in the work God has started this semester, but if I stay on staff much past next year, I can't fathom staying out of Ohio for a singular reason: the Cleveland Urban Plunge. I've gone three years in a row, so I don't really mind missing it for this year and next, and obviously, there's no gurantee I'd get to staff it if I was on staff in Ohio, but at least there would be a chance. More than anything else, even more than MAC or China, I often think "if I could just get these guys to go to the Urban plunge" this or that would be different. It's a truly transformative time, each and every year, and I went three times. I remember a student, during the fall of my junior year at Wooster, claiming to "not need a full week of an Urban Plunge" and thinking that she couldn't be more incorrect. She did go though, eventually, and I would imagine she now realizes the error of her earliest statement.
And it's not like each year I went was particularly good....my second time around, I kind of wished I hadn't decided to go. But looking back, I know it was the right decision (and for the record, it had nothing to do with the program itself, but rather an unfortunate concatenation of participants).
I should probably back up and explain what all this fuss is about. It's really quite simple: God loves people, all people, and his heart breaks in the face of injustice. When you get many people together (as is the case in an urban center) and they are subject and exposed to much injustice (as is the case in Cleveland and many of our nation's cities), the result is a nearness and fullness to God's love and passions that you're not going to encounter on your own and you're not even going to encounter on an urban service project, because far too often, people like me, or at least people like who I was, feel like they're making a lasting difference and saving the world on service projects. But at the Urban Plunge, we, quite simply, encounter God and see what we can learn of his love for the city. What happens though, is realizing that that love is the same for all people everywhere and, no matter how downcast any group of people or any inhabitants of a particular place might be, there is always real hope for the present and future in God.
And I can explain it all further, but that's it in a nutshell, and no matter how much you think you grasp it, I say whole-heartedly that understanding what I've written is nothing like actually experiencing it.
I went three times after all.
My life is so strangely gyroscopic right now. I kind of look forward to weekends for rest and renewal, but on the other hand, I kind of loathe weekends for their blankness.
-Zack
"Everything changes when you come around"
-John Mark McMillan
Hillsdale's spring break is still four weeks away as of tomorrow. That's quite the haul from the beginning of the semester in mid-January, and I always thought it was long when we had to get to the second week of March at Wooster. But, at least, at Hillsdale, once you get to break, you're really close to the end of the school year. I don't know that that's necessarily good, but coming off of break and seeing 6 more weeks of class isn't much fun either.
It's all just pointing to the fact that balance doesn't get enough credit in our lives or our structures. Of course, balance and Hillsdale are often complete opposites so that's no surprise.
I don't completely know how long I'll be on staff in general, but I do know I'll almost definitely still be at Hillsdale next year. I'm mostly fine with that and excited to continue on in the work God has started this semester, but if I stay on staff much past next year, I can't fathom staying out of Ohio for a singular reason: the Cleveland Urban Plunge. I've gone three years in a row, so I don't really mind missing it for this year and next, and obviously, there's no gurantee I'd get to staff it if I was on staff in Ohio, but at least there would be a chance. More than anything else, even more than MAC or China, I often think "if I could just get these guys to go to the Urban plunge" this or that would be different. It's a truly transformative time, each and every year, and I went three times. I remember a student, during the fall of my junior year at Wooster, claiming to "not need a full week of an Urban Plunge" and thinking that she couldn't be more incorrect. She did go though, eventually, and I would imagine she now realizes the error of her earliest statement.
And it's not like each year I went was particularly good....my second time around, I kind of wished I hadn't decided to go. But looking back, I know it was the right decision (and for the record, it had nothing to do with the program itself, but rather an unfortunate concatenation of participants).
I should probably back up and explain what all this fuss is about. It's really quite simple: God loves people, all people, and his heart breaks in the face of injustice. When you get many people together (as is the case in an urban center) and they are subject and exposed to much injustice (as is the case in Cleveland and many of our nation's cities), the result is a nearness and fullness to God's love and passions that you're not going to encounter on your own and you're not even going to encounter on an urban service project, because far too often, people like me, or at least people like who I was, feel like they're making a lasting difference and saving the world on service projects. But at the Urban Plunge, we, quite simply, encounter God and see what we can learn of his love for the city. What happens though, is realizing that that love is the same for all people everywhere and, no matter how downcast any group of people or any inhabitants of a particular place might be, there is always real hope for the present and future in God.
And I can explain it all further, but that's it in a nutshell, and no matter how much you think you grasp it, I say whole-heartedly that understanding what I've written is nothing like actually experiencing it.
I went three times after all.
My life is so strangely gyroscopic right now. I kind of look forward to weekends for rest and renewal, but on the other hand, I kind of loathe weekends for their blankness.
-Zack
"Everything changes when you come around"
-John Mark McMillan
L7: Circles
If only it could all make sense, to fall in at once to an epiphanized state, where it all just makes sense and it all just is. To find a stasis worth living in, to be placed in a stasis worth inhabiting.
But ultimately, disassembling that becomes the process the defines how life actually goes, how wheels actually turn, how progress actually happens.
We hear so often that we ought to avoid change for the sake of change or progress in the name of progress, but where do we get off assuming everything is already so perfect?
Doesn't life constantly prove itself to be a series of important falls from which we are to recover? A change for the worse at least proves that we're not stuck somewhere, which, no matter what, would be far worse.
I would rather make fruitless progress than no progress at all. Because at least I have a chance at positive change that way.
-Zack
"And no one knows where the shore is
We're divided by the ocean
And the only thing I know is
That the answer isn't for us"
-Feist
But ultimately, disassembling that becomes the process the defines how life actually goes, how wheels actually turn, how progress actually happens.
We hear so often that we ought to avoid change for the sake of change or progress in the name of progress, but where do we get off assuming everything is already so perfect?
Doesn't life constantly prove itself to be a series of important falls from which we are to recover? A change for the worse at least proves that we're not stuck somewhere, which, no matter what, would be far worse.
I would rather make fruitless progress than no progress at all. Because at least I have a chance at positive change that way.
-Zack
"And no one knows where the shore is
We're divided by the ocean
And the only thing I know is
That the answer isn't for us"
-Feist
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
L6: Mountains
We've got to get to the bottom of this, to the answer to the fleeting question, what is joy and how do we find it? Do we find it at all?
C.S. Lewis had his own definition, that joy was something we couldn't fully have in the here and now. That now and then, we caught glimpses of it and that was a picture of heaven. But it was not something we could truly know or make known deeply here on Earth. The joy that is from the Lord, that is, unspeakable and transcendent joy.
But there's something in the here and now, there's something we can have, something I know we have and have had. The question is where does it come from and how does it make itself manifest?
It is promised to us afterall, for we are always already raised up with Christ, or something like that, when Lacan and Paul meet in a hallway and start agreeing on more things than you'd ever believe.
But how can we know? Is it a sin to suffer and feel like God might not be as close as He is? I won't rush to claim it, because I've felt it.
And I've felt the reverse.
Somewhere we've got to allow for the acknowledgment that we don't really know how God works. What might be an unending unspeakable joy and faith in Christ for years on end could stem from the same theology that leads to years of struggles with faith.
I don't know if that's the case, but I do know that I can't claim surety either, because God draws and teaches us all differently. He made us differently. He made us care about different things, he made us love and experience love differently. And he did it because it is how he expresses himself through us, his children.
Sometimes faith is what you've got to cling to when the world is falling down, and sometimes it's the start of everything beautiful, and either way, we've got to get to a point where we can say neither is incorrect. Just different and all at once the same.
It might never make sense, until you leave the center.
-Zack
"The boundaries of language I quietly cursed
And all the different names for the same thing."
-Death Cab for Cutie
C.S. Lewis had his own definition, that joy was something we couldn't fully have in the here and now. That now and then, we caught glimpses of it and that was a picture of heaven. But it was not something we could truly know or make known deeply here on Earth. The joy that is from the Lord, that is, unspeakable and transcendent joy.
But there's something in the here and now, there's something we can have, something I know we have and have had. The question is where does it come from and how does it make itself manifest?
It is promised to us afterall, for we are always already raised up with Christ, or something like that, when Lacan and Paul meet in a hallway and start agreeing on more things than you'd ever believe.
But how can we know? Is it a sin to suffer and feel like God might not be as close as He is? I won't rush to claim it, because I've felt it.
And I've felt the reverse.
Somewhere we've got to allow for the acknowledgment that we don't really know how God works. What might be an unending unspeakable joy and faith in Christ for years on end could stem from the same theology that leads to years of struggles with faith.
I don't know if that's the case, but I do know that I can't claim surety either, because God draws and teaches us all differently. He made us differently. He made us care about different things, he made us love and experience love differently. And he did it because it is how he expresses himself through us, his children.
Sometimes faith is what you've got to cling to when the world is falling down, and sometimes it's the start of everything beautiful, and either way, we've got to get to a point where we can say neither is incorrect. Just different and all at once the same.
It might never make sense, until you leave the center.
-Zack
"The boundaries of language I quietly cursed
And all the different names for the same thing."
-Death Cab for Cutie
Monday, February 22, 2010
L5: Lazarus
Revived. Renewed. Remade.
Resurrected.
There's no room for comprehension; I was blind now I see, I was dead, now I live.
I was old, I am new.
What I was then, I am not now. I have been transformed.
Then or now or soon or not yet, it's always going on, always already and always forever.
Call it sanctification if you must, but that word just feels so old, so outdated, so much like it says something about us.
But the process is becoming less and less ourselves and more and more someone else more us than we could ever be.
Sanctified, for what? after all, is the far better question.
No matter how far you've gone, no matter how high or how low, there's still hope for the future as long as you're still here.
Just look at Lazarus. He was dead. It's easy to think of that in so spoon-fed terms...but let's be honest; there's something to Lazarus we always miss: what did it mean for him to die and come back to life? It had to mean something. It had to mean that even in death God wasn't finished with Lazarus on Earth.
We're never useless to the Earth till God's finished using us.
-Zack
"The laughs will dance from up and down the pews"
-Death Cab for Cutie
Resurrected.
There's no room for comprehension; I was blind now I see, I was dead, now I live.
I was old, I am new.
What I was then, I am not now. I have been transformed.
Then or now or soon or not yet, it's always going on, always already and always forever.
Call it sanctification if you must, but that word just feels so old, so outdated, so much like it says something about us.
But the process is becoming less and less ourselves and more and more someone else more us than we could ever be.
Sanctified, for what? after all, is the far better question.
No matter how far you've gone, no matter how high or how low, there's still hope for the future as long as you're still here.
Just look at Lazarus. He was dead. It's easy to think of that in so spoon-fed terms...but let's be honest; there's something to Lazarus we always miss: what did it mean for him to die and come back to life? It had to mean something. It had to mean that even in death God wasn't finished with Lazarus on Earth.
We're never useless to the Earth till God's finished using us.
-Zack
"The laughs will dance from up and down the pews"
-Death Cab for Cutie
Saturday, February 20, 2010
L4: Unseen
"Faith is having hope for things unseen"
It's more than trust. It's more than experienced calculations that things will probably turn out as they have in the past. It's the unseen, the unknown, the hope for the future based on what you can't know anything about.
Faith is so much bigger than the impetus that brings us back in relationship with God, a God who has always already "blessed us with every blessing from the heavenly realm." And we've got to believe that even though it seems so strange that that could be the case and things could often be so unsatisfying, so empty, so cold, so disappointing.
But it's because it's unseen, it's because it's about hope.
It's not about taking one step and into a larger world and realizing everything for the first time all at once. That would be convenient, but it would turn the faith switch off the moment it all began, and I do not believe that is the will of the Father.
He wants us to take hold of his hand and journey on into the great unknown, the ever unseen for all eternity.
God is asking me to have faith right now and I want to know why and how I can do it without having any sort of guarantee that anything will come from it.
But the point is that if I had any sort of guarantee, then it wouldn't be faith at all. That's the hardest realization I've ever had. And I can look back on life and know that he's been working. But that doesn't mean I can see how exactly he'll do it now...and I know that's exactly how he wants it.
Journey onward, journey deeper, adventure upward. That is the life to which we are truly called and the faith we must have.
-Zack
"Did you know what you were doing, did you know? Did you know how you would move me well, I don't even think so"
-Mae
It's more than trust. It's more than experienced calculations that things will probably turn out as they have in the past. It's the unseen, the unknown, the hope for the future based on what you can't know anything about.
Faith is so much bigger than the impetus that brings us back in relationship with God, a God who has always already "blessed us with every blessing from the heavenly realm." And we've got to believe that even though it seems so strange that that could be the case and things could often be so unsatisfying, so empty, so cold, so disappointing.
But it's because it's unseen, it's because it's about hope.
It's not about taking one step and into a larger world and realizing everything for the first time all at once. That would be convenient, but it would turn the faith switch off the moment it all began, and I do not believe that is the will of the Father.
He wants us to take hold of his hand and journey on into the great unknown, the ever unseen for all eternity.
God is asking me to have faith right now and I want to know why and how I can do it without having any sort of guarantee that anything will come from it.
But the point is that if I had any sort of guarantee, then it wouldn't be faith at all. That's the hardest realization I've ever had. And I can look back on life and know that he's been working. But that doesn't mean I can see how exactly he'll do it now...and I know that's exactly how he wants it.
Journey onward, journey deeper, adventure upward. That is the life to which we are truly called and the faith we must have.
-Zack
"Did you know what you were doing, did you know? Did you know how you would move me well, I don't even think so"
-Mae
Friday, February 19, 2010
The Light starts to Burn
If you've visited this over the past few days, you've noticed a series of 3 short posts. They're the first three of 40 5 minute thought explorations I'll be undertaking til Easter. There's no set theme, there's no real connection between them. Mostly I'm doing it to keep my mind running throughout the day or to process things from the day before going to bed. There's not time really, to go too in depth or get all that narrative or meta-prosish in 5 minutes, so I honestly just sit down and start writing as I think. I hope they're at least slightly interesting, but I completely understand if they're incomprehensible too.
This week, I've been learning how far from a Calvinist I am...and it's happened by encountering many of them. Ancestrally, I can't really win with Hillsdale...students are taught to celebrate the American heritage that includes stealing the land upon which this country was founded from one side of my ancestry, while religiously, a vast majority of the Christians here align quite sharply with the group that persecuted the other side of my ancestry to the point of fleeing Europe for the United States.
But thankfully, just as there is no Greek, Roman, Slave, Free, Male, or Female in Christ, there is no Calvinist, Anabaptist, Native American or White Immigrant American either. That means I either keep my personal details to myself or do my best to look past the uninterrogated views that are seemingly held by so many and lay aside any objections I might have for the sake of the Gospel. There's no need to rehash distant past conflicts now. Someone did say, at Bible Study Wednesday night, that "people don't seem to like the Anabaptists much around here" and that doesn't really make sense to me. I mean, I guess pacifism can be contentious, especially at the neo-con capital of the world, but disliking pacifists is kind of the funniest thing I've heard or had the chance to think about for a long time..... I didn't stretch that conversation too far, so I don't know what the actual grief was, but I'm also not sure what it could be once you get past incorrect preconceptions. But, chances are, that's the real issue anyway, as it so often is.
I'm caught somewhere between believing my life is some grand adventure and some slow roll toward chaos. I kind of like it like that, but I do wish I had more than just a group of people that aren't too sure I'm at all necessary to turn to for all social interaction. It will come though, I'm sure...I'm also incredibly impatient.
I kind of can't wait for Chapter Focus Week. Semester go a lot faster when you don't have class. February is almost over and I can barely remember any time passing between now and its beginning. Really, since moving to Hillsdale, time has been completely unclear for me. It seems like both forever ago and a recent event. Sometimes I feel like I've been here forever, but I don't know that I've really ever felt like I actually live here. I kind of live an episodic yet repetitive life...sort of like the "The Monkees" wherein every episode is different, but similar enough that you can hardly tell them apart. That happened in college too I think, but my life was people-centric enough that variety seeped in and I can think back and piece together whole time-space referenced memories. I don't know that I can really do that at Hillsdale, at least not yet.
Mostly I just know I need patience. My life is ridiculously contrasting, going back and forth from really amazing to really dull without warning.
Mostly, weekends are the dull part.
-Zack
"Listen to the girl as she takes on half the world, moving up and so alive"
-The Jesus and Mary Chain
This week, I've been learning how far from a Calvinist I am...and it's happened by encountering many of them. Ancestrally, I can't really win with Hillsdale...students are taught to celebrate the American heritage that includes stealing the land upon which this country was founded from one side of my ancestry, while religiously, a vast majority of the Christians here align quite sharply with the group that persecuted the other side of my ancestry to the point of fleeing Europe for the United States.
But thankfully, just as there is no Greek, Roman, Slave, Free, Male, or Female in Christ, there is no Calvinist, Anabaptist, Native American or White Immigrant American either. That means I either keep my personal details to myself or do my best to look past the uninterrogated views that are seemingly held by so many and lay aside any objections I might have for the sake of the Gospel. There's no need to rehash distant past conflicts now. Someone did say, at Bible Study Wednesday night, that "people don't seem to like the Anabaptists much around here" and that doesn't really make sense to me. I mean, I guess pacifism can be contentious, especially at the neo-con capital of the world, but disliking pacifists is kind of the funniest thing I've heard or had the chance to think about for a long time..... I didn't stretch that conversation too far, so I don't know what the actual grief was, but I'm also not sure what it could be once you get past incorrect preconceptions. But, chances are, that's the real issue anyway, as it so often is.
I'm caught somewhere between believing my life is some grand adventure and some slow roll toward chaos. I kind of like it like that, but I do wish I had more than just a group of people that aren't too sure I'm at all necessary to turn to for all social interaction. It will come though, I'm sure...I'm also incredibly impatient.
I kind of can't wait for Chapter Focus Week. Semester go a lot faster when you don't have class. February is almost over and I can barely remember any time passing between now and its beginning. Really, since moving to Hillsdale, time has been completely unclear for me. It seems like both forever ago and a recent event. Sometimes I feel like I've been here forever, but I don't know that I've really ever felt like I actually live here. I kind of live an episodic yet repetitive life...sort of like the "The Monkees" wherein every episode is different, but similar enough that you can hardly tell them apart. That happened in college too I think, but my life was people-centric enough that variety seeped in and I can think back and piece together whole time-space referenced memories. I don't know that I can really do that at Hillsdale, at least not yet.
Mostly I just know I need patience. My life is ridiculously contrasting, going back and forth from really amazing to really dull without warning.
Mostly, weekends are the dull part.
-Zack
"Listen to the girl as she takes on half the world, moving up and so alive"
-The Jesus and Mary Chain
L3: Integration
"To live is Christ and to die is gain."
So what do we have to lose?
If only it were that easy. It's true, ultimately, what is the most we can lose but life, and what comes with death but eternal communion with our heavenly father, savior, and friend.
It's a great battle cry, a great call to boldness.
But "do you not know that your body is a temple. Glorify God with your body."
We've got to find the middle ground, where what we do acknowledges that we've got nothing to lose and yet everything that does exist here matters to some degree.
God loves us greatly and part of that was granting us the ability to love here and now. We aren't the love the here and now and yet, we are to do all we can to be here and now and live purposefully here. In doing so, you're going to love things here and now and not be able to help it.
Contradiction. Sometimes that's what it all feels like.
But it's now and not yet and it's both and, and it's always already and it's what we've got to do no matter how much we understand it.
C.S. Lewis calls humanity a great experiment, attaching an immortal soul to a mortal "animal" body. Actually, that's from the Screwtape Letters so it's more (and purposefully, ironically) harsh in explaining it.
But it's God's experiment, not ours, and he doesn't make mistakes.
-Zack
"Like Ludwig Van, how I loved that man, well the guy went deaf and didn't give a f***, no.."
-The Hours
So what do we have to lose?
If only it were that easy. It's true, ultimately, what is the most we can lose but life, and what comes with death but eternal communion with our heavenly father, savior, and friend.
It's a great battle cry, a great call to boldness.
But "do you not know that your body is a temple. Glorify God with your body."
We've got to find the middle ground, where what we do acknowledges that we've got nothing to lose and yet everything that does exist here matters to some degree.
God loves us greatly and part of that was granting us the ability to love here and now. We aren't the love the here and now and yet, we are to do all we can to be here and now and live purposefully here. In doing so, you're going to love things here and now and not be able to help it.
Contradiction. Sometimes that's what it all feels like.
But it's now and not yet and it's both and, and it's always already and it's what we've got to do no matter how much we understand it.
C.S. Lewis calls humanity a great experiment, attaching an immortal soul to a mortal "animal" body. Actually, that's from the Screwtape Letters so it's more (and purposefully, ironically) harsh in explaining it.
But it's God's experiment, not ours, and he doesn't make mistakes.
-Zack
"Like Ludwig Van, how I loved that man, well the guy went deaf and didn't give a f***, no.."
-The Hours
Thursday, February 18, 2010
L2: Calling
I wish we could all broaden. Our horizons, our minds, our expectations for the truth. I wish we could accept that under all of this there could just be something more, there could be something deeper than what we want to cling to, what we want to hold on to, what we want to use to say we know we're right.
But we're not so right so easily, the moment we're convinced of it.
It's not about pursuing truth. That is a bland, neutered dream. What is truth but a set of ideas, and what happens to my life when I've captured them?
Nothing.
Let us pursue something deeper. Something bigger, something more wonderful and something stronger.
Something bold.
We are called to adventure, not to interrogation; to "go and make" not to "read and interpret."
We should know the truth. We should want to know the truth. But the truth sets us free, and when we're free, we have a choice. We can continue to pound out boring old dogmas and chase down some ever-nearing-ancient ideal from a dead swiss-man about santification...or we can do that to which we are actually called.
The mission of God is saving souls and the body works together to accomplish it. You're either working in the body to that end, or you're not really working in the body at all.
So run, fly, dream. Chase something bigger.
Because it is that to which the power and redemption of Christ compels us.
-Zack
"I'm learning to trust that it's not you who hurt me"
-Jason Upton
But we're not so right so easily, the moment we're convinced of it.
It's not about pursuing truth. That is a bland, neutered dream. What is truth but a set of ideas, and what happens to my life when I've captured them?
Nothing.
Let us pursue something deeper. Something bigger, something more wonderful and something stronger.
Something bold.
We are called to adventure, not to interrogation; to "go and make" not to "read and interpret."
We should know the truth. We should want to know the truth. But the truth sets us free, and when we're free, we have a choice. We can continue to pound out boring old dogmas and chase down some ever-nearing-ancient ideal from a dead swiss-man about santification...or we can do that to which we are actually called.
The mission of God is saving souls and the body works together to accomplish it. You're either working in the body to that end, or you're not really working in the body at all.
So run, fly, dream. Chase something bigger.
Because it is that to which the power and redemption of Christ compels us.
-Zack
"I'm learning to trust that it's not you who hurt me"
-Jason Upton
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
L1: Crash
At some point in time, it all just has to make sense right? And what if it doesn't? What if it's all just about rolling through life with millions of unanswered questions and unlinked events? Does that change anything?
They say He's the great storyteller, that really, in the end, this is all just a huge narrative being pulled together by strings set long before any of this all began. I don't doubt that, but I don't know how necessary it is either.
"He works all things out for the good" True. Can't be refuted. But does it mean all things end up having good results? Can it really be that simple, that strictly correlative?
I don't doubt that eventually we're sliding to "the good." But does that have to mean every single event is leading up to something redemptive? Can't something just be bad without a good result? I don't see why not. Indeed, I mostly see times when that is the case.
There's got to be something deeper to it all, to this working out to the good. There's got to be more than all's well that ends well, no matter how well it ends.
-Zack
"At the end of the age, it will land you and me"
-Anberlin
They say He's the great storyteller, that really, in the end, this is all just a huge narrative being pulled together by strings set long before any of this all began. I don't doubt that, but I don't know how necessary it is either.
"He works all things out for the good" True. Can't be refuted. But does it mean all things end up having good results? Can it really be that simple, that strictly correlative?
I don't doubt that eventually we're sliding to "the good." But does that have to mean every single event is leading up to something redemptive? Can't something just be bad without a good result? I don't see why not. Indeed, I mostly see times when that is the case.
There's got to be something deeper to it all, to this working out to the good. There's got to be more than all's well that ends well, no matter how well it ends.
-Zack
"At the end of the age, it will land you and me"
-Anberlin
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Safe from the Guards
I've been trying to come up with something to say with a Valentine's day theme since Friday and it just isn't coming this year. This is the least valentine's-feeling valentine's day I've probably ever had, or at least for quite some time. There are a lot of reasons for that I'm sure, but most of them are probably summed up with how it's a Sunday and short of the obligatory sermon on God's love in Church this morning, I've been completely sheltered from all things Valentine's save for Zales commercials.
Tomorrow will probably feel exactly like President's day though...and that will probably be exactly like today...I don't know if that's ironic or just a fun fact.
On the whole, it's hard to top the summer olympics, but at least I enjoy watching basically everything in the winter olympics, even if it's out of novelty. Nothing could be further from the truth in the summer olympics, where at least 90% of them are quite boring to watch.
I once dated a girl who's birthday was Valentine's Day. We dated for about 32 days, all of them in the fall. From a cost perspective, she might have been one of the least expensive girls I've ever dated....there's only so much you can give someone on a single day after all. Other than that, I can't see any benefit from that relationship.....indeed, we dated for 32 too many days.
Ah well. The NBA All-Star game is tonight, and I haven't been able to watch it since my senior year of High School, so I guess I've got a date with that. Or some other stupid-emo-sounding-wordplay.
-Zack
"No words to say, No words to convey"
-Tracy Chapman
Tomorrow will probably feel exactly like President's day though...and that will probably be exactly like today...I don't know if that's ironic or just a fun fact.
On the whole, it's hard to top the summer olympics, but at least I enjoy watching basically everything in the winter olympics, even if it's out of novelty. Nothing could be further from the truth in the summer olympics, where at least 90% of them are quite boring to watch.
I once dated a girl who's birthday was Valentine's Day. We dated for about 32 days, all of them in the fall. From a cost perspective, she might have been one of the least expensive girls I've ever dated....there's only so much you can give someone on a single day after all. Other than that, I can't see any benefit from that relationship.....indeed, we dated for 32 too many days.
Ah well. The NBA All-Star game is tonight, and I haven't been able to watch it since my senior year of High School, so I guess I've got a date with that. Or some other stupid-emo-sounding-wordplay.
-Zack
"No words to say, No words to convey"
-Tracy Chapman
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Waiting for the World to Fall
Google buzz might make for an interesting new dynamic to my "blog's" readership. I hope that doesn't change how I write, but it would be a lie to say that I don't think about who reads this when I write it. I wish that weren't the case, I wish I could just create without thinking about the audience, but I'm not capable of such a feat. Indeed, it is a truly remarkable artistic achievement, no matter the content or result, if one can do so. I don't know that I believe anyone can, but there are those that claim it to be possible. Darren Arronfsky claims that...he directed Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, and The Wrestler. If you've seen any of those, do you think he's creating without deference to his audience? I think it varies. To call Requiem for a Dream anything but a play to an audience though, is a lie to oneself.
I like google buzz though, even if it's kind of useless before it began thanks to facebook and twitter. It's just a social network aspect to google contacts, but most people don't have google contacts that aren't at least contacts on facebook and twitter as well.
Starting next Wednesday (can anyone guess why?) I'm going to engage in 40 days of 5 minute thought experiments on here. My lent will be interesting this year, because I'm focusing on hw I use my time...which is completely different from giving up food or drink. I've never gone through lent without coming out better with regard to the things upon which I focused (I eat a lot less meat now, for instance), so we'll see what happens....it could be a pretty radical life-altering lent...or not, we'll see. So these five minute things... I'm going to spend exactly five minutes every day (either early in the morning or right before bed) writing about whatever comes to mind, to see what happens and to see, after it all, where my thoughts tended to go.
Calling lent a favorite religious observance is probably a misnomer among misnomers, but it has always been a call to spiritual discipline in my practical life that God always honors in power, grace, and mercy.
Speaking of lent, we've got a remarkable weekend coming up...it's literally 4 holidays in a row and they're not all inter-related.... Sunday is Valentine's day, Monday is President's day, then Mardi Gras (fat tuesday for the German catholics that don't acknowledge other bits of European tradition in the church.) and Ash Wednesday. I'm sure that's probably happened before, the little Holiday marathon we're running into. Of course, Mardi Gras is only kind of a holiday and Ash Wednesday is less holiday and more holyday, but they're still 4 recognizable days. Of course, everyday is some kind of holiday if you get down to it (everything is commemorated in some culture on some day it seems), but as Americans (which I am one of), most of us can at least claim a bit of working knowledge about each day, especially Christians or post-Christians.
I have come close to a full post about this a lot lately, but I'm just going to say a few words right now...... If we, as a church trying to reach out to the culture in which we exist, keep thinking about post-modernity as a culture to which we must reach out, we're always going to miss the point. It's not a culture. It's an ideology that informs the young culture of westerners. If post-modern is a culture, so is modernity and the theory of gravity is just a cultural value. That sounds insane, but it's no less insane than calling a lack of grand narrative and an emphasis on personal story a "cultural value" among the post-modern, and we (actually, I say we because I associate with people who do it, but I never will so I don't actually include myself in that we) say that all of the time. A lack of grand narrative and emphasis on personal story is the outcome of a held assumption that we have made far too many assumptions in the past and are striving to get beyond them by giving agency to people who have not had it, but not just doing that...also allowing and acknowledging that everyone gets agency. That is not a cultural value that shifts person to person and culture to culture; it is a deeply held belief that informs and constructs cultural values which may or may not be rooted in post-modern theory and ideology.
It's not just a gripe on my part...it's an important distinction that, if we don't start making it, will ultimately neuter our witness in the post-modern world which is both coming and already here. The now and not yet. Sounds familiar....
-Zack
"All of my dreams and my passions are in your hands'
-Falling Up
I like google buzz though, even if it's kind of useless before it began thanks to facebook and twitter. It's just a social network aspect to google contacts, but most people don't have google contacts that aren't at least contacts on facebook and twitter as well.
Starting next Wednesday (can anyone guess why?) I'm going to engage in 40 days of 5 minute thought experiments on here. My lent will be interesting this year, because I'm focusing on hw I use my time...which is completely different from giving up food or drink. I've never gone through lent without coming out better with regard to the things upon which I focused (I eat a lot less meat now, for instance), so we'll see what happens....it could be a pretty radical life-altering lent...or not, we'll see. So these five minute things... I'm going to spend exactly five minutes every day (either early in the morning or right before bed) writing about whatever comes to mind, to see what happens and to see, after it all, where my thoughts tended to go.
Calling lent a favorite religious observance is probably a misnomer among misnomers, but it has always been a call to spiritual discipline in my practical life that God always honors in power, grace, and mercy.
Speaking of lent, we've got a remarkable weekend coming up...it's literally 4 holidays in a row and they're not all inter-related.... Sunday is Valentine's day, Monday is President's day, then Mardi Gras (fat tuesday for the German catholics that don't acknowledge other bits of European tradition in the church.) and Ash Wednesday. I'm sure that's probably happened before, the little Holiday marathon we're running into. Of course, Mardi Gras is only kind of a holiday and Ash Wednesday is less holiday and more holyday, but they're still 4 recognizable days. Of course, everyday is some kind of holiday if you get down to it (everything is commemorated in some culture on some day it seems), but as Americans (which I am one of), most of us can at least claim a bit of working knowledge about each day, especially Christians or post-Christians.
I have come close to a full post about this a lot lately, but I'm just going to say a few words right now...... If we, as a church trying to reach out to the culture in which we exist, keep thinking about post-modernity as a culture to which we must reach out, we're always going to miss the point. It's not a culture. It's an ideology that informs the young culture of westerners. If post-modern is a culture, so is modernity and the theory of gravity is just a cultural value. That sounds insane, but it's no less insane than calling a lack of grand narrative and an emphasis on personal story a "cultural value" among the post-modern, and we (actually, I say we because I associate with people who do it, but I never will so I don't actually include myself in that we) say that all of the time. A lack of grand narrative and emphasis on personal story is the outcome of a held assumption that we have made far too many assumptions in the past and are striving to get beyond them by giving agency to people who have not had it, but not just doing that...also allowing and acknowledging that everyone gets agency. That is not a cultural value that shifts person to person and culture to culture; it is a deeply held belief that informs and constructs cultural values which may or may not be rooted in post-modern theory and ideology.
It's not just a gripe on my part...it's an important distinction that, if we don't start making it, will ultimately neuter our witness in the post-modern world which is both coming and already here. The now and not yet. Sounds familiar....
-Zack
"All of my dreams and my passions are in your hands'
-Falling Up
Saturday, February 6, 2010
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
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
Friday, February 5, 2010
Breathing In
It takes so long for things to epiphanize. I don't know where I'm going, but I know it's all intake.
Where are you from?
Tell me about your relationship with God.
What do you see God doing on campus?
How is God working in your life right now?
Good questions. Rote questions.
Rote-for-a-reason questions.
But it's all intake. It's all inhalation. It's all good. But it's all consumption.
At some point we have to burst. We have to exhale. We have to give after we've taken. Call it balance, I just call it survival. At some point it all just ends; the fragmentation sets in and there's a way to finally see beyond the give and take, the push and pull, the polarization of all meaning and the stark nakedness of thought that is inhale/exhale or this/that oriented. God never meant this/that, he always mean both and and. And is more than a conjunction; it is the key to all meaning, once you realize it's meaning. And perhaps that's what it is all along- the link to phrases, thoughts, clauses, and, on the outside of all of that, the link between us all that actually lets us get past what we think we know and realize that all we need to know is that He is at the center and all else is not just up for debate but necessarily subjective.
But even so, how we live is how we live and how we see is how we see; it might be built on false castles and ungrounded foundations, but they are still our castles, they are still our foundation, and that gives them a legitimacy to us, even if they aren't necessary, even if they aren't right, even if they don't even exist. Because God loves us enough to put himself within this hackneyed world of false binaries so that we might see beyond it. But we can't see beyond it without its existence, and that, if nothing else, is worth exploring.
So even if my feeling of inhalation is ultimately false, that doesn't change the fact that I'm longing to breath out.
-Zack
"The more I live I see this life's not about me"
-Anberlin
Where are you from?
Tell me about your relationship with God.
What do you see God doing on campus?
How is God working in your life right now?
Good questions. Rote questions.
Rote-for-a-reason questions.
But it's all intake. It's all inhalation. It's all good. But it's all consumption.
At some point we have to burst. We have to exhale. We have to give after we've taken. Call it balance, I just call it survival. At some point it all just ends; the fragmentation sets in and there's a way to finally see beyond the give and take, the push and pull, the polarization of all meaning and the stark nakedness of thought that is inhale/exhale or this/that oriented. God never meant this/that, he always mean both and and. And is more than a conjunction; it is the key to all meaning, once you realize it's meaning. And perhaps that's what it is all along- the link to phrases, thoughts, clauses, and, on the outside of all of that, the link between us all that actually lets us get past what we think we know and realize that all we need to know is that He is at the center and all else is not just up for debate but necessarily subjective.
But even so, how we live is how we live and how we see is how we see; it might be built on false castles and ungrounded foundations, but they are still our castles, they are still our foundation, and that gives them a legitimacy to us, even if they aren't necessary, even if they aren't right, even if they don't even exist. Because God loves us enough to put himself within this hackneyed world of false binaries so that we might see beyond it. But we can't see beyond it without its existence, and that, if nothing else, is worth exploring.
So even if my feeling of inhalation is ultimately false, that doesn't change the fact that I'm longing to breath out.
-Zack
"The more I live I see this life's not about me"
-Anberlin
Monday, February 1, 2010
The Stars Lean Down
It's impossible to be two places at once, without being truly nowhere.
But that's what I want to do. Because the dual-nature of our lives, the private and the public, the professional and the social, the wished for and the real, the now and the not yet, is pressing me on all sides. And the two sides, all of them, are as far from each other as they've ever been in my life.
Physically.
But we don't really live a dual existence. I can't go to campus and become a different person than I am when I'm not there....I can act differently, I can think of myself differently, I can "have my InterVarsity hat upon my head" but no matter what, there is something, even concealed, of the rest of me, the rest of my life, of the other side, beneath or even running through it all.
But I'm living a dichotomy right now, a very real dichotomy, and it is hard to really "be" anywhere.
There's a spiritual discipline I know very little about, called "practicing the presence of God." Basically, it's spending time in acute awareness of God's presence. God's always around, of course, but so often we live, pray, act, and speak as if that's not the case. I mostly attribute that to the smallness of our minds and the parochial nature of our ability to focus. No matter what, the fact that we actually need to focus on something omnipresent shows us how small we really are, and it reminds me that I've got to focus to even be present in corporeal unity at any given time.
It's hard to separate my "work" from the rest of my life, but conversely, it's also hard to separate the rest of my life from work. It's practically impossible. That's not bad, but I often feel like I'm floating about without any clear lines as to what is what. I know time will peal away the layers as I develop a life in Hillsdale that isn't on campus, but I don't know what that looks like, when I kind of just want to be back in Ohio whenever I'm not on campus or doing InterVarsity work. I went "home" over the weekend (although I've not got anywhere there that I've ever actually lived now that my parents have moved out of Ottawa) and was reminded of how balanced our lives ought to be and mine has not been since moving to Hillsdale. But it will take time. I know that. I do fear, however, that I'll illegitimately undertake a full binarization of my life and live fully here at Zack, HCF staff, and fully in Zack, the everything else Zack is. But that just isn't true, and I hope it doesn't happen.
But I know I will continuously, increasingly, and joyously be drawn back to Ohio more than I had thought when I moved.
-Zack
"There is a light in your eyes that never goes out"
-The Lucksmiths
But that's what I want to do. Because the dual-nature of our lives, the private and the public, the professional and the social, the wished for and the real, the now and the not yet, is pressing me on all sides. And the two sides, all of them, are as far from each other as they've ever been in my life.
Physically.
But we don't really live a dual existence. I can't go to campus and become a different person than I am when I'm not there....I can act differently, I can think of myself differently, I can "have my InterVarsity hat upon my head" but no matter what, there is something, even concealed, of the rest of me, the rest of my life, of the other side, beneath or even running through it all.
But I'm living a dichotomy right now, a very real dichotomy, and it is hard to really "be" anywhere.
There's a spiritual discipline I know very little about, called "practicing the presence of God." Basically, it's spending time in acute awareness of God's presence. God's always around, of course, but so often we live, pray, act, and speak as if that's not the case. I mostly attribute that to the smallness of our minds and the parochial nature of our ability to focus. No matter what, the fact that we actually need to focus on something omnipresent shows us how small we really are, and it reminds me that I've got to focus to even be present in corporeal unity at any given time.
It's hard to separate my "work" from the rest of my life, but conversely, it's also hard to separate the rest of my life from work. It's practically impossible. That's not bad, but I often feel like I'm floating about without any clear lines as to what is what. I know time will peal away the layers as I develop a life in Hillsdale that isn't on campus, but I don't know what that looks like, when I kind of just want to be back in Ohio whenever I'm not on campus or doing InterVarsity work. I went "home" over the weekend (although I've not got anywhere there that I've ever actually lived now that my parents have moved out of Ottawa) and was reminded of how balanced our lives ought to be and mine has not been since moving to Hillsdale. But it will take time. I know that. I do fear, however, that I'll illegitimately undertake a full binarization of my life and live fully here at Zack, HCF staff, and fully in Zack, the everything else Zack is. But that just isn't true, and I hope it doesn't happen.
But I know I will continuously, increasingly, and joyously be drawn back to Ohio more than I had thought when I moved.
-Zack
"There is a light in your eyes that never goes out"
-The Lucksmiths
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