Of Diaries and Lockets

I've decided that writing is a Voldemortian experience, but the opposite.  It's like, for me, creating horcruxes.  As I go about the process, it's like splitting up my soul and injecting a bit of it into whatever I'm writing.  But it doesn't kill.  For me, it gives life.  Honestly, it feels like the best use of my time, at any given time.  I don't know what that means and it's not really the entire truth because it's not like it's my job or anything. But I do know that, for my whole life, I've often felt like I'm wasting time.  Playing video games, reading, even sometimes when I'm doing what I'm "supposed" to be doing because it is my job..it just feels like I'm taking time away from something else...that sounds vague, I know, but I'm not sure how to describe it.  It just feels like I'm meant to be doing something else, a lot of the time, no matter what I'm doing.  It's a semi-fleeting feeling when it happens, but it's not altogether uncommon, especially when I'm doing truly useless things, like watching television.

But I'm doing well with my sort-of-a-new-year's-resolution to write more.  When I find time, which is thankfully common enough, I spend time writing.  I've got about 4 "projects" going right now and it's alright, very alright.  When I'm writing I feel like I'm fulfilling a purpose inside of me that's always been there.  I have no idea what that means for my life, but it's nice, just to have the deep desire or instability gone from my inner being.  Part of me wonders if I didn't decide to come on staff, at least in part, because it fed my subconscious will's necessity to write.  I don't know if or really think that I'll ever make a career of writing, especially because that normally means writing for the sake of a magazine, newspaper, or television event.  I could do that, but I don't think it would satiate the monster I've managed to put to sleep this year.  I just feel like I'm a better person when I'm regularly writing, even if that just means I'll have a bunch of practically useless word files containing stories and parts of stories on my computers for the rest of my life. I don't care, not in the slightest, because it's the only real way I've found that answers a deep question that, up to now, had been spoken in an internal language I couldn't consciously decipher.  I honestly think it may have been a sort of personality sickness that has always been a threat.  Since graduation, I don't know that I've been the person I was or could be at college...maybe it's incorrect, I'm still learning myself.  But up until May 2009, I had to write on various occasions, for classes.  When that left my life, I think a part of me left with it in a more horcruxial way than writing is now.  For whatever reason, I have to express myself in writing to survive, I have to splinter my soul in some way and insert bits of it into text documents on my computer...it's just how I was made when I was knit together in my since estranged mother's womb.

-Zack

"At the start, he was there"
-David Crowder

How we aspire

I heard, on the radio yesterday, an off-handed comment about people younger than 30...in this particular broadcaster's opinion, there hasn't been a great thing to come out of anyone born in the last 30 years apart from facebook.

Whether or not that's true, I don't actually care.  Whether or not I agree, that too, I don't care about.  Actually, I think he's probably not too far off, all things considered.

"Great" is a loaded word that can easily mean "oppressive" as much as it means "exemplary."  They say we don't have great novels the way we used to; like people just can't write now like they could 80 years ago or something.  It's true, James Joyce hasn't been equaled in my mind for aesthetic skill, but there wasn't anyone prior to him that did either.  The question isn't about greatness, it's about perception.

I believe the greatest living writer is Salman Rushdie and I'd say that 's nearly an objective truth.  I don't really care to argue it though, at least not for the sake of actually determining who is the greatest author.  Dave Eggers is up there too, but AHBWOSG is grossly overrated and "What is the What" is far from enough for him to stage any sort of coup, in my mind, for the title.

I'm not writing this right now in order to discover who the greatest living author is or isn't..I'm trying to get to the bottom of something, something about this concept of greatness that people my age or younger, or a bit older, supposedly don't grasp or at least don't accomplish.

We could argue merits of different artists and craftspeople and maybe we'll prove that facebook isn't the end of the story for our generation.  Even so, new buildings are rarely architectural wonders.  Function is over-coming "greatness."  It's about ease and efficiency now...but who is to say there's nothing great about that?  Even so, I'm kind of old-school about some things, and I lament the sorts of video games I grew up on no longer being made because things like farmville and angry birds are outselling everything.  But it's all marching onward...ease and efficiency, not too much time, not too much commitment...just gratification in the fastest and most accessible way for the masses.

That probably sounds like a bit of an indictment, but I'm not convinced it is....We're the first generation to internalize post-modern ideals (misleading many to label us a post-modern culture...post-modernism is an idealogy, not a culture or a set of values..it's a set of assumptions about truth and reality), and one of them, perhaps my favorite of them, post-modern ideals that is, is the value and worth of all humans.  People (colleagues and students of mine in particular) often accuse all things post-modern as a rejection of all in any objective form...there are those among us, the post-modern thinkers, that do that, but it's rarely actually the case.  What's actually happening is a process of decentering...instead of centering on societal ideals, like the preminence of white men, the democratization of ideas, and the objectivity of experience, we break out of molds and let what actually is emerge.  What I mean is that instead of thinking everyone ought to like something because it is "great," acknowledging that cultural artifacts are products of culture and they are understood through culture...meaning some may appreciate, and some may not...it's not a deficiency, it's just a real difference.  Even educational advantages in art history are a part of the culture of art history when it comes down to it.

That's a fairly complicated way of saying that while facebook may be our greatest thing, it itself is great because it allows people to be themselves or try to be whomever they want to be...how people use it may be wrong and I do have strong feelings about the place of children on facebook or attention-seeking through it...but at the end of the day, it's a place where people can choose to claim their own voice and it is, for that reason, great.  But it also establishes other ways for things to be great...sure, no one is ever going to write huck finn again, but we will write things that acknowledge that we can only see the world as we can with our own eyes...that's both a higher form of art, more generally appealing, truer, and ultimately, greater.

To those who have not internalized post-modernity as many of my generation have, it looks hazy, it looks lazy, it looks sub-par.  But just because they don't have the eyes to see why it's great doesn't erase its greatness.  Of course they are entitled to their opinions in the same way I am my own.  Not understanding or seeking to do so though, will never be an excuse to criticize.

-Zack

"I couldn't bare it, to live for fear "
-Yo La Tengo

It always rolls.

The Packers won the Super Bowl for the second time in my life on Sunday.  That's the highest accomplishment for my favorite team in the NFL and it makes me happy, but I don't know if it makes me happy enough.  It's definitely better than the alternative, but I feel like I should be happier.

Honestly, though I root for the Packers and always will, I might have been happier if the Browns had won it, for Cleveland's sake.  Some things are bigger than football, and though sports aren't everything, a break-through for a team from Cleveland would mean a lot more to me no matter what team it was than even the Packers winning.

That probably means I'm taking my first steps toward "fan conversion" but I don't believe that.  I can't imagine not being a Packers fan...but I honestly feel a little bit guilty for it, as I probably identify with the Cavaliers as my favorite team in all of sports more than any other right now.

The day after the Packers won the Super Bowl, the Cavs set the record for most losses in a row outright...they had set the record for most losses in a row within a single season on Saturday.

Though they have nothing to do with each other, I've definitely allowed the Cavs horrible year to poison the Packers' accomplishment.  Honestly, I was more excited when the Packers beat the Eagles in the first week of the playoffs than I was at any other point.  I honestly felt entitled to that Super Bowl victory because I didn't believe any team in the league was actually better than the Packers...being a Cavaliers fan, that kind of made me a Miami Heat fan translated onto an NFL skin.  That's ridiculous...but it's sub-conscious.

I honestly believe losing hurts worse than winning feels good, which makes sports a sucker bet, as only one team can be champions at the end of the year in any given sport....the feeling of not-losing and not-winning, which can only come from not-caring is the "safest" way.

It's probably too late to stop caring now, and I'm moving to Cleveland next year so not caring about sports isn't really an option.  I'll deal with it...

I think a bit of it might have to do with community too though...I'm not a part of the larger Packer-fan community...I'm not from wisconsin and I don't know many other Packers' fans around anywhere I spend time, much less am I friends with any of them.    There's something special that happens when Ohio State wins and a big part of that is the fact that almost everyone I know loves the Buckeyes and I can enjoy it with them.

Indeed, I think that means I'm wrong...the glory of winning probably does outweigh the hurt of losing.  Last June I watched the U.S.'s last second win in a world cup game in a room full of people who cared.  I don't really care about soccer, but I couldn't help get caught up in the moment and cheer on our guys...heck, I don't even like the U.S. as a country very much a lot of the time....but it didn't matter then.

It always rolls back around...community, others, people, friends, love...those are why we live...they make sports better, they make life better...they make living equal more than some vapid dollar sign in the end.

I am happy the Packers won.  I am hopeful that the Cavs might someday win again.  Indeed, I am hopeful that Ohio State could win the Basketball championship this year.  I'm in the midst of what could be the best year of my life...I'm getting married for one...and the Packers won the Super Bowl.

If anything, I just need to stop and realize that.

-Zack

"So I'm counting on your fingers, cause you've reattached the twitch"
-Bon Iver

Ethnicity 3: Heritage

I'm sitting in the "Heritage Room" at Hillsdale right now.  It's a fancy room off the side of the library here with semi-comfortable (although not terribly) seats, lots of "key books" which means hyperbolic, dogmatic, propaganda about how great the constitution is or was or how awesome the United States could be or (the worst) how capitalism is the best.

Heritage, they call it.

But I think that's as far off-base as you could get, thinking about what this all really is, and what heritage actually is.

Perhaps, as Americans, this is our heritage...a "celebration" of our past through the lens of the "great" things that make America America.  That...and a lot of Eagle statues...I think there are about 12 of them in a room that's around 15 by 20 feet.    I guess I can buy that.  But I'm not sure I'm a fan of the assumption that all Americans, as Americans, necessarily share the same Heritage.  Actually, I am positive that we do not.  Indeed, it is one of our overlooked strengths as a country that we do, indeed, not share said Heritage.

That being said, it's an easy heritage for upper middle class white people to embrace.  The Swiss-German side of me doesn't care that much about the Swiss-German part of my past (save for the oppressed Anabaptist bit), so why shouldn't people who are fully white and usually rich for generations embrace, fully, a heritage defined by a country that writes its own history as victors?

Well.....the truth, probably, would be a reason why that shouldn't be the case.  I don't see any pictures of oppressed people groups on the walls...no paintings of the trail of tears or land traded for a few small pox blankets and a bottle of whiskey...I don't see any signs of slavery or any African men with but two-thirds their face.  The American heritage, which is not just lauded but heavy-handedly worshiped here at Hillsdale, was built upon the backs of people who "don't look like us."

I'm probably being unfair, just because I'm sitting in this room.  My own belief that ultimately nothing good can come from capitalism doesn't help.  But there aren't even any signs of celebrated diversity in here.  For a school that has nearly as many lincolns as they do eagles, Jim Crow is de facto the modus operandi.

As I try to figure out, more and more, what it means for me to be a person of mixed race, I'm beginning, more and more, to feel at least slightly more out of place at Hillsdale.  Most of the time, I'm the least white person in the room.  For anyone that has seen me or met me, that should be a joke...but it's almost always true.

I know I probably won't get to do or see much changing around here, but for the present moment, I'll be conscious of what it does mean to be who and what I am while I'm here..and I won't let an opportunity slip that could at least steer one or two student's ethnic journeys.....we're all on them or should be and the first step is acknowledgement.

-Zack

"If ever I wasn't the greatest...I musta missed it"
-Kanye West

Wanna play with my Tesla Coil?

The White Stripes officially broke up today.  That might not mean much of anything to most of you.  Really, it doesn't ultimately much to me either.  The recordings still exist and life goes on.  But it's kind of a passing era for me, personally.  I've liked bands that have broken up already and whatever.  But the White Stripes were, if there was any, the band of my high school years.  They, more than any other band, are forever linked to those times for me.  I remember downloading videos of them playing live (pre-youtube...) and feeling like my mind was completely expanded by their free-wheeling, tight, explosive sound...from two people..one of them simply being a genius that, no matter how simplistic the concept, continuously provided a sound that was unique and refreshing....and unrelentingly artistic.  They led me to the blues which led me to classic rock and to the blues...somewhere in that whole interchange I released all genre-allegiances and started listening to anything and everything.  It probably wasn't that simple, but I know I wouldn't be the music listener I am today without the White Stripes...who knows, I might not be the person I am today.

While I was in China, there were two songs that I sort of clung to...one, which absolutely revolutionized how I listen to music was "X Gon give it to ya" by DMX, which got me listening to Hip Hop at all.  But the other was Icky Thump by the White Stripes...probably their last great song (on an admittedly lackluster album).

There might not be another band made up of a divorced couple with no other members that somehow has a stage rapport with one another bordering on the intensely intimate.

And....well, there's this:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8V4O9wBQc4

And this:





Anyway you cut it....it's a passing of a band that I let impact me, that I let, to some degree, become a part of me.  I also realized recently that I'm as old as my mom was when I was born.

I'm getting older.

And yet, there is so much to look forward to....

-Zack


"Why don't you kick yourself out you're an immigrant too"
-The White Stripes

Identilation

I feel like yesterday's post needs a bit of clarification because it's founded in a couple of days of training and a couple of basic assumptions.

The first assumption is that every person on the face of the planet is created in the image of God, no matter their ethnicity or gender.  Indeed, it is the only biblical stance to take that every ethnicity and gender are required to fully encompass the fullest image of God.

This means, of course, that those of us who can identify as multi-racial individuals are every bit as made in the image of God as anyone else.

But if every ethnicity is expressing a certain aspect or aspects about God's image, we've got to know how to identify as whole members of every ethnicity we're a part of in order to be fully identified within God's Kingdom. He created me as the multi-racial person I am, and to that end, I can't become a fully realized human being in his Kingdom without knowing exactly what that means for me.

What's also true is that God has placed every person on the planet into a certain place that has a dominant culture and it's that culture to whom each and every Christian is called to be a minister.  Our ability to function within a dominant culture is measured in what we call assimilation.  An individual's ability to own his or her own ethnicity is identified as identity.  People generally fall on a spectrum of identity and assimilation co-ordinates on a graph where one is the x axis and the other the y.

All of that means that the most useful people in God's Kingdom are those who can fully embrace the person God made them to be, including their ethnicity and the gifts it brings (so, having a high identity) and also those who are able to to function within the context of the dominant culture...having high assimilation.  Because I look and was brought up white, I'm very high assimilation, and I can mostly claim to be a high identity white, but my failure to fully claim the wrongs of the white race in the past (specifically as they pertain to the oppression of native people on this continent) because I feel like a good bit of that was oppression against my own ancestors means I can't be a truly high-identity white person...and that means I've got to figure out how to have any degree of "highness" in my native identity.


I hope that clarifies some.

-Zack

"I put in work and it's all for the kids, but these cats done forgot what work is"
-DMX

Highs and Lows

This week I've become estranged to myself.

We've been talking about ethnicity at InterVarsity's fourth "Formation" for new staff training event in Great Lakes East.

Today, I realized that I haven't a clue how to deal with my identity.

Perhaps I'm white.  But that entails owning White privilege and I can't quite do that...because 1/4 of who I am, biologically, was oppressed near the point of obliteration...and I don't identify as Native because of that oppression, but in light of that, I can't quite own white privilege, I can't quite identify as fully white....probably because I'm not fully white.

But how can I identify as Native when I don't even know where to begin in saying much more than that it's 1/4 of my biological makeup.

So I'm in between, I've come up liminal in a discussion struggling to own what we are, because I feel like nothing.

But it's a lie, too, to say that I can't own white privilege.  I look, act, and was raised to be white.

So I guess I've found myself on a journey now...someday, I'll find out what that means, as soon as I can figure out where to start.

-Zack

"If everything comes down to love, then just what am I afraid of?
-Addison Road.

The Melody

I've realized that I have a strange memory.  I don't know if it's altogether abnormal, natural, conditioned, extraordinary, or maybe even some kind of nuisance.  I think it's unconsciously selective or at least subjective.

I remember all sorts of things well, very well.  I can quickly take myself back to practically any day after a certain point in my life.  As long as a distinguishing event took place, I can get there.  Much of my life I have recorded, in writing, so maybe that helps.  A lot of the time though, I just remember things.  Certain types of things, I never really forget.

Sometimes, I lie to seem less extraordinary, or I withhold information.  Maybe that sounds too pompous...I don't know.  But it's true.  In order to not be the person who knows everything all of the time, I often don't say anything when I remember exactly the fact being recalled.

Sometimes, it makes me pretty tactless. I remember details people don't, but I think I expect them to remember things just like I do.  If you've been a victim of that from me, I apologize.

There are, of course, times when I remember things as they weren't, and that creates a problem as well; I rely too much on my memory and I argue, too quickly, too fiercely, for what I believe to be true even when it isn't.

But for some reason, I don't remember a lot of things.  I'm not, however, sure if that's an issue with the content or my own effort.  I often forget things I mean to bring along...very often.  I often forget things I need to do.  Generally speaking, I think I forget about thoughts and things having to do with the future.  That probably makes me a less than spectacular planner from time to time.  I'll resist delineating how that may or may not have to do with my MBTI preference, but it is unwaveringly certain that I'll rarely forget something that has happened but often forget things that have to do with events that have yet to take place.

So in light of, or perhaps retrospectively attached to, how well I generally remember things, I've started writing my life up to this point (or, perhaps, just as a designated end-point, the wedding on November 19th of this year).  I figured out that it only takes me about an hour to write 1000 words about my life.  That means I can write something novel length in just 50 hours, which means I can write for an hour each week and have something by the end of the year.  What that, then, means, I have no clue.  But I do know it will be an adventure.  In some ways, I have bits of it written and have for years.  In any event, I'm looking forward to looking back and tracing the line of God's faithfulness all the way through...that's probably the thought that makes it seem most massive.

-Zack

"When it comes to tools, fool, I'm a pep-boy"
-Rick Ross

All you see is

Been here before.  On either side.  Feeling like I need to write and being totally in the dark about what to write.  So I put on some Young Jeezy and listen to thoughts that might or might not be going anywhere...just like this.

I've started at least 3, maybe 4 or 5 entries now, since I last posted one.  Part of that is because what weighs on my mind is unsayable, or unwritable, or unpostable, or all three.  Or simply, in my limited powers, unexpressable.

This has been the longest Christmas break I've ever had.  December 9th was my last day on campus.  January 20th is my first back...and it's still 2 days away...but I don't have to tell you that...you can read a calendar.  Part of me is anxious to get back, but part of me is also anxious about starting again and a little apprehensive.  That's probably good....it's never good to be too overconfident going into anything.  I kind of want this semester to be over as soon as possible.  It's like a hump I've got to get over to get to the rest of my life.

But before I can get to the rest of my life, I have to get through it, and because of that, I'm pretty sure there's something worthwhile in my time remaining at Hillsdale.  I'm struggling to rest in that reality because here, right now, I'm mostly looking past this semester.  My work consists of getting ready for a wedding that's happening in November and in getting things ready for a semester that starts tomorrow.  Disparity.

But there's something there.  There must have always been or God wouldn't have called me to Hillsdale in the first place.  I'm trying to figure out how to soak in the good, useful for the future bits of my time at Hillsdale, all while being useful, and also not dropping the ball in planning the wedding.

It's a juggling act that I might fail, but it will be impossible to really measure.

Ambiguity is an underrated gift from the Lord.

-Zack

"So much on my mind I just can't recline
Blastin holes in the night til she bled sunshine"
-Black Star

re:view

Today started out well enough, but I'll admit that I'm feeling a bit disappointed and frustrated right now at things that really aren't that big of a deal and in light of many little facts that are piling up on their own.

The national staff conference was great, to be certain.

But right now, I'm tired.  I'm kind of hungry but just paid far too much for a bad sandwich, and because of that, I've decided that I hate the St. Louis airport.  I can't find my gum...I thought it was in my pocket, and I'm pretty sure it was, but now I don't know where it is at all.  I don't really want to buy more gum, but I'll probably have to..I'm also worried, increasingly so, that I'll miss the entirety of the Green Bay vs. Philadelphia playoff game because it's apparently been decided to not show it anywhere in the airport.

But that's all just pointless venting.  I did just have a great few days...God definitely met us in St. Louis and the world is, I'm sure, going to be a better place as a result of the conference we just went through.

Even so...I'm tired and I can't wait to get home.  But even now, the channel just switched to the game, and even for something so slight, I know God is good...and has always been so.

-Zack

"I'm well on my way to almost everything"
-Gnarls Barkley

Takeoff

I'm writing this in the midst of a two hour layover in Chicago's O'Hare airport, en route to St. Louis for InterVarsity's triennial National Staff Conference.  This is my first time in Chicago, and it's sort of a bummer, to say the least, that I don't get to go out and see any of the city.  I guess, in theory, I could, if I wanted to go through security again.  But I don't, far from it.

So I'm here.

And I could read, but I've done a bit of that already and I know it rarely gets me motivated like writing does.

So I'm writing.

I'm looking forward to SC11 (as it's apparently going by these days), but I don't quite know what to expect beyond the descriptive marks on a page, a very ambiguous page, delineating our schedule for the extended weekend...or extended last half of the week, if this is work instead of retreat.  Honestly, I'm not too sure how to think of it.  In a lot of ways, I could say that a lot of the time in my job.  Usually, I measure it by energy expended, so it's hard to tell.  There's something intensely fulfilling about the "job" I do, but at the same time, it's often challenging work.  I don't expect SC11 to be unchallenging by any stretch, but I don't know what to expect really, and i imagine it will be challenging in the best possible way.  Right now, I mostly just know I'm looking forward to worship and to seeing people.

There's a guy a few feet from me practicing balance on one foot, dipping down to touch the floor.  He's about 6'3", and I know he's on staff in the pacific northwest.  I'm sure he doesn't recognize me, though I recognize him and a few others around from ONS.  I'm probably being unnecessarily anti-social right now.  I'll be plenty social the rest of the week.

A man just walked by, tall black hat set atop hopelessly fluffed out hair.  Jewish, I imagine, and Hasidic.  There was a time in my life when I had never been to an airport without seeing some Hasidic people somewhere.  That wasn't true anymore after this past summer, twice, in Detroit and once, in Madison.

Of the seven books I'm reading, two of them are steeped in American Jewish culture, but are quite different otherwise.  It's a culture I don't know much about, and it's also a culture I'll never really be able to wrap my mind around.

I do enjoy Klezmer bands though.....and like that, I distilled an entire race of people to a single thing I experienced once, in Wooster.


We've got to experience culture to be anything at all, but if we don't do it correctly, we'll start separating the people from the culture.  So many people come back from other countries and talk about how they learned that no matter how far away you get, people, at the heart, at the same.  That's true, but that heart is a lot deeper than we think sometimes.  Most of the time, I think we immerse ourselves in a culture and try to figure out ways to cut away the culture and realize what lies beneath.  But that's useless because, though something must lie beneath, we just cut away the things, mentally, that are different from ourselves, products of our own, often bigger and more prevalent, worldwide, culture.

Cross cultures to live.  Cross cultures at your own caution.

And sometimes, stop the analysis and just be.

Abide in me, Christ said.  We do far too little abiding and far too much attempting to ascertain.

But just abide.  Just be.  I'd tell you how to do it, but if it was something to "do" it wouldn't be abiding at all.

-Zack

"The system's broken, the schools closed, the prisons open"
-Kanye West

In Retrospect: 2010

I've probably got a few long-term regular readers to be expecting this.  For as long as I've had a blog, which is getting close, now, to half of my life, I've designated superlatives for different things in my life that have had any sort of significant impact in the last year.  I think, generally, I've posted a lot less lately than I did at the end of 2009 and for most of 2010, though I've intended for the opposite to happen.  That being said, I'm going to stick to this little tradition, even though right now I don't feel particularly up for doing it.  But that's a terrible excuse, so I'm going to do it, because if I don't do it tonight, I'm not going to get to it.  I leave for St. Louis on Wednesday, and I cannot wait to spend 4 days with the rest of the InterVarsity staff in the country.   It sounds breathtaking thinking about it.  All that being said, I might be most looking forward to reconnecting with staff I already know who are a bit more local.  Perhaps that makes me less adventurous or something.  I'm also feeling extraordinarily excited for our worship times, led by Andy Kim.  He's my personal favorite worship leader, still on InterVarsity staff.  He might be the best worship leader in the world though.  The fact that he's in our biregion makes me a bit prouder than propriety would allow.

That's a lot of ado, so without further of it...my yearly superlatives.

Literature:

Book of the year: This is always the hardest decision.  I read a lot of books and a lot of them mean a lot to me when I'm reading them.  2010 was typical to that end.  I read a total of 51 books and over 16000 pages. My biggest accomplishment among them was War and Peace, but, though I read it for most of the year, I don't think I could quite call it my "book of the year," even thought it might influence my life and way of thinking for awhile.  Near the beginning of the year, I read one of the most interesting, best written novels I've ever encountered.  It stuck with me all year long, and I found myself comparing books to it all year long, always deciding that whichever book I was reading was never quite as good, the narrative never quite as strong or the characters as quirky and compelling.  I think, perhaps in the easiest decision I've ever made for this title, The Ground Beneath her Feet by Salman Rushdie is my book of 2010
Runner-up: Peace Like a River, Leif Enger

Author of the Year: This is strangely new this year.  Perhaps I never read enough in past years.  But it just makes so much sense.  I've taken to more series reading lately thanks, I think, to Harry Potter, so authors are more immediately important than they have been.  That being said, I'm not picking an author of whom I've read a series this year.  Salman Rushdie didn't just write my book of the year.  He also wrote two other books I read in 2010, both of which were hot contenders for runner up (The Enchantress of Florence and Fury).
Runner-up: J.R.R. Tolkien


Motion Pictures:

Film of the Year: The first year I did this, I'm not even sure I had a movie of the year.  I wasn't into movies and I was far from writing an I.S. about film.  But things change and this is now one of my most contested awards.  My film count has dwindled significantly since graduating from college.  I watched over 150 movies in 2008, but just over 70 in 2010.  Thanks to the Hillsdale Film Society though, I've been able to see some great films I wouldn't necessarily gravitate to on my own.  I was especially surprised though, when they showed a film without any dialogue.  It consists of montage and time-lapse photography to paint a picture of the chaos of modern life.  It may not be the best way to spend a Friday night (or, as I learned, a Sunday afternoon) but Koyannisqatsi by Godfrey Reggio, more than any other film, impacted my life in 2010.
Runner-Up: The Terminator, James Cameron

Television program of the year:  I don't watch much t.v.  Indeed, short of the occasional sports game, I don't make it a point to watch anything.  That being said, there are still a few things that I'll watch anytime I get the chance, and in 2010 Parks and Recreation was that more than any other show.
Runner-Up: American Pickers


Music:


Song of the Year:
This is incredibly hard.  Actually, it's near impossible.  I don't really know what direction to go with it and it's a chore of chores to decide a single song out of the hundreds I listened to last year.  Music means a lot to me, as it does for a lot of people my age, and singling out a single song as my top for a single year is a preposterous proposition.  But, even so, it is the proposition with which I am currently faced.  Partly because it's so hard a task, but also because it's absolutely what I feel to have been the most important song to me this year, I've got to pick: Mystery, by Charlie Hall
Runner-Up: Airplanes, B.o.B. and Eminem

Artist of the year
With extremely varied taste, this is hard to pick.  Depending on the time of day and my mood, I could enjoy something and someone radically different from one day to the next.  Picking a person or band that illustrates a year of music listening for me will never be easy.  That being said, I think, for his presence in so many places and for his re-emergence, I'm actually going to go with Eminem this year.  I can't really believe it either.
Runner-Up: Phoenix

Album of the year:
And maybe the album of all time....My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West is, perhaps, as I've said before, the best piece of musical art ever to emerge from the hip-hop genre, and perhaps since the jazz age.  Kanye is an artist with a vision for his art and anyone who says otherwise, doesn't understand and hasn't taken the time to try.
Runner-Up: Dreaming Through the Noise, Vienna Teng

Sports:
Team of the Year:  This always goes to the team I follow that has done the best in the calendar year. This year is actually simple.  It's cut and dry.  Teams were either completely unworthy or obvious choices.  The winner is the Cincinnati Reds for making the playoffs for the first time in 15 years.
Runner-Up: Green Bay Packers


And that's all folks.  I didn't really have the energy to do this tonight, but I pounded it out anyway, sort of for posterity's sake or something like that.  I hope you enjoyed reading it!  Happy New Year!

-Zack

"Sweet Jesus Christ, my sanity"
-Charlie Hall

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

Ever Moving Forward

I'm 23 now, which is new, since my last update.
That also means I'm a few days past the one-year-til-the-wedding day.  That's it's own sort of excitement.

Two major things happened in my piece of pop-culture interest:  the first part of the last Harry Potter episodes of movies came out and captured the emotion of the first half of the book perfectly (and that's the most you can really ask of the movies).  Additionally, Kanye West released his first rap album since 2007's graduation.  It's basically the best piece of hip-hop art ever crafted, and that's extraordinary as a "non-debut" album and a testament to Kanye's vision as an artist and supreme talent.  Most rappers have a breakout album and never quite re-achieve that greatness because their "flow" isn't as unique anymore.  Kanye somehow manages to create increasingly better music each and every time.  That's actually true of the Harry Potter movies too, but on a different level and in very different ways.

I don't really know what it means or what it looks like to adjust to being a new age.  I'm 23 now and this time last week, I was 22.  22 was one of the best years of my life.  Today was the Curry Night that marks one year since I started going.  It's been the fastest, most brilliant year of my life.  I couldn't have guessed I'd be where I am now, then, and I definitely couldn't have guessed it when I first took the relative risk of coming to Curry Night and my life began to transform.

It's a testament to the sovereignty of God.  I don't think random chance, on its own, would have brought everything together as it all came together.  It all came together.  Thinking back, that means Christmas will be here sooner than expected, and pulling that out, it means the wedding will be too.  Fast fast fast.  Life moves so fast.   But I don't mind at all.  Everything is always moving so fast.  But I don't mind.  The last year of my life showed me that that's alright.  That's a good thing.

Then, this weekend, is the Ohio State-Michigan game...and it's suddenly meaningless.  Of course I'll watch, of course it will feel epic as the blue and yellow helmets collide with the grey....but it's not what it was when even I was growing up....I can only imagine what it's like for my dad and people his age, that grew up with Woody and Bo.  It's all cyclical and it moves so fast.  Somehow those of us on the southern side of the state haven't fallen off like Michigan has, but that's probably some kind of luck.  Jim Tressel could have been the implosion Rich Rodriguez has been.  But he wasn't.  It's always so close to the edge...and that's just sports.

At some point in my life, I might just quit everything and turn to full time writing...I don't know how that would be possible, but there's got to be a better way to make time.

-Zack

"hatred and attitude tear us entirely"
-Kanye West

A Compelling Lesson

I've grappled with the issue of other religions for awhile now.  Not really that I believe their existence does any precluding of the Gospel or anything like that, or like there are so many paths to God that we ought to hold them all as equal and thereby not trust any of them, but from the perspective of perspectives.

I can't really tell someone that what they feel in their own religious, outside of Christianity, experience, is invalid.  I haven't felt it.  From their perspective, I've always thought, it is a real experience, and I can't really plausibly argue against that just as no one can really plausibly argue against my own experiences with Christ.

But I've come to realize it's really a pointless argument.  Jesus offers true life, true healing, and true transformation by a life lived with Him as Lord.  People can reject it or not on any logical or philosophical grounds they may choose.  But they are saying no to their own healing and that is on their own hands. That, or they are saying they are not broken, and chances are, at that point, they're lying to themselves.  Other religions exist, and honestly, I'm not informed enough to say that they do or don't offer anything specific.  But I do know Christ and what He can do, and it is definitely enough, for life and for eternity.  Is Jesus "for everyone?"  He's for everyone who will admit that they're broken, and he's for those who don't, but they won't admit it.

Christianity has definitely become something of a "religion" since its inception, full of culture and tradition.  It's not all bad, by any means, but what Christ truly offers isn't an alternative, easier to do religion in place of Islam, taoism, Hinduism, or whatever else.  He offers a form of healing and identity based on love, and that's something everyone needs, no matter where on Earth they were born or what their parents taught them.

-Zack

"come and see"

Lacking the Adjectives

I wish I had an adjective, for this right now.  It's like liminality without the vacuum.  I've long said we've got to learn to live liminally, and I'm not backing down from that. But it's the vacuum we've got to adjust to in doing that, because the feeling, this feeling I'm feeling right now, is exhilirating.  It's the reason, I think, more than any other (well, aside from liminality's simple existence as truest reality), that I've ever encouraged it.

It's something akin to standing, as I would imagine it, on the precipice, of all that is and all that is to cwas and ever wt will ever be in light of all that was and ever was meant to be.

But standing on a precipice is a metaphor we often use to describe being at the beginning of something.  More accurately, if we get all Hillsdalian on the words, it's probably describing the feeling of nearly diving.  I don't care about meanings, I just want a word to describe how I feel like I'm feeling now, and if I made up that word, it would be precipal.  But at least firefox says that isn't a word.

And while I feel like I'm standing on a precipice, that implies some waiting, and nothing is waiting.  Full steam ahead, everything is moving, constantly barreling toward eternity.  And that makes it sound like I've got no control...while it often feels like that, I don't think it's true at all, at least in the measured, self-control sort of way we ought to have as people who have ultimately handed all control over to God.  I'm not sure why I bother explaining things like that when I just mean to say what I mean and what I feel then leave it at that.

Here's a list:

The NBA season starts tomorrow.  It's basically a holiday I'm missing because of the ATM the next day.

I'm getting married next November.  Being engaged is culturally sanctioned and encouraged liminality.  That, in every other context, is a pure paradox, especially at Hillsdale.

I feel like I need to write more, for a lot of reasons, and one of them is because even Eminem is convicting me of that fact these days.

The simple fact of being here when everything else is there is by its very nature a sort of liminality.  That's always been true of my life when my physical location happens to be Michigan, but it'd be a lie to say it's not increasing every single day.

And everything feels like it's going to converge eventually, and that's a good thing.  It's the essence of why I need a new word.  If this were just liminality, I'd be feeling an incoherent disconnect, but if anything, it seems I'm somewhere in between that disconnect and some kind of coming together of everything that ever was or ever will be in my life.

I can't help but sort of slip into talking like Gandalf sometimes, or at least Stephen Dedalus...and that itself makes too much sense.

But we always need words.  That's the basic human struggle to reconcile to each other and to God, and it's the struggle that only finds its completion in and through Christ.  Words that are communication, words that are wholeness.  In the beginning was the word and until we got him, we had little, and yet he always has been.

Language is completely pliable, but the word that is the essence of God and is Christ, is somehow the only truly trustworthy thing we can know.  That is an underrated miracle.

-Zack

"right now we just ridin on love and shinin in dark"
-Lil Wayne

Light Place

So it's official.  But I guess I probably have some explaining to do.

Most people who read this, if not all, should know by now, but the story hasn't really shot forth with any degree of certainty at any point in time.....but I'm engaged now, engaged to be married, next November, next November 19th, in Findlay, Ohio, it would seem.  Oh, but it would do more than seem...it would be.  It is...to be.


I don't quite feel like turning this into any sort of story time.  There will be a time and a place for some kind of officiality for that sort of thing, on "theknot.com" or whatever...and it's just not my style.

But it happened and it happened wonderfully in a room that started some brilliant things in my life...twice now.

We were in the same room where my small group met Freshman year at Wooster.  It wasn't planned at all...it was just the best spot because all of the other buildings were locked.  I wasn't quite planning to make it happen quite when it happened...but it happened, I just knew it was the right time, so it happened.  I was glad to get the ring box out of my pocket at the time.


It has been a whirlwind ever since, and part of me has felt a little guilty because my outward excitement has been a bit less than most peoples, even though I'm one of the concerned parties...but it's because I've known it was coming for awhile now and ultimately had control over it.  Maybe it's a bit unfair, to that end...the guy gets no surprises.


But I already can't wait, for next November.  I already can't wait for the rest of my life.  Our lives.


Ah, to document those changes, to trace the shift.  I can't wait but I had no idea what to expect...not really, at all. 


God grows us deeper, he grows us stronger, he grows us together sometimes.  And when that happens, the only step to take is often forward.


-Zack

"Leave me wanting the rest of your life"
-Anberlin

Drawing to a Close

It's going to hit like a storm.  I don't feel ready.  I don't feel prepared.  But maybe, just maybe, that's exactly how I'm supposed to feel right now.

This Saturday, I'll be moving back to Michigan.  I'll be moving back to where God's called me, even if just for the coming year (but ultimately, I just don't know...).  It's crazy, to say the least, how fast this summer has gone.  And I don't feel ready for the coming school year.  Perhaps what's worse than that, is that I don't know how to feel ready.

I'm excited for what's coming.  I'm excited for the coming school year because I know great things will happen.  They always do.  But I just don't feel ready to embrace life on my own again.  I don't feel ready to embrace a regular schedule and the challenges that will surely arise....soon.

But I must be ready.  Because here we are and I can't think of anything more I could do.  I can't think of anything more I could prepare.  Really, right now, I can't even think of any more fund development work I could do.

It's just a matter of packing and a matter of moving....and I'm not packing all that much, I'm not moving many things.  Just my self...and my frame of mind.  Starting Saturday, I'm back in the saddle, so to speak.  The semester will probably be over before I know it, but right now, it feels like it will be here much sooner than I ever thought it would.

I enjoy working on a college campus and not being a college student...but it would be a lie to say I don't miss college....often.

It's hard to believe that as much has changed as has changed in the past year.  But it has.  And here we are, here I am.  Last August, I was hoping to make it on campus by October 1st.  This year, I'm definitely getting into the swing from the outset and that's the best feeling ever.

This time last year, I still had some $30,000 to raise (maybe more)....now, I have less than $9,000 for the rest of the year, and that's not keeping me off of campus.

Things are falling into place, so to speak, in my life, in my world.  But it's a constant journey and things falling into place is far from a reason to be at all sedentary.  Things will constantly be falling into place, and it's our job, in this world, to constantly be taking all of those falling pieces and seeing what we can do to improve, seeing what we can do to move forward.

I've called "Meet the Robinsons" one of the most overlooked movies of the past decade, and part of that comes from how great it is, all the way around.  But perhaps the most important part of my love for the movie comes from a simple phrase that sticks with me still: "keep moving forward."  It doesn't matter, so much, how we do it, it doesn't matter, so much what happens...but what matters is that it happens..that we always keep moving forward.  It is the sedentary life that kills much faster than the dangerous....or something like that.

The next year will be full of risks, of course, and full of challenges and opportunities.  But even in the face of failure, as long as I "keep moving forward" I'm sure I'll be okay.

But I can't neglect, despite all of that, that there's a lot more to it than simple forward motion.  I'm called to a divine purpose in this world, and above all else, I've got to keep that in mind, to seek daily what I'm to do from the word of God and by his will.  I know it's his well, because so much of my life wouldn't be what it is if I did it by my own.  But even so, somehow, someway, where I am is what is right..and I'll keep moving forward from there, by his good grace.

So this Saturday I'm moving, moving back to Michigan, and moving back to the place from where I can move forward in this grand adventure God's placed me on, even if just one semester at a time.

But between now and then, I've got to pack and I'll be packing away an amazing summer.  Who knows what will be next summer?  But I know from experience, and faith in that it's always been the case, it will be another glorious summer.  Between now and then even though, I've got another glorious year in the service of the Lord to get underway.

To God be Glory Forever,

-Zack

"We could do more than dream; we could start it off with this"
-Anberlin

To Span the Sea of Time

For most of my time on InterVarsity staff so far, I've often felt like I'm drowning; drowning in a sea of seemingly endless and dead-ended fund raising, drowning in having no idea how to meaningfully do anything on campus at Hillsdale, drowning in a sea of incapabilities to connect with students on some level, and drowning, perhaps overall, in a sea of personal failings and inadequacies.

I've told myself, all along, and not incorrectly, that I can cling to God, cling to his promises, cling to the knowledge that he wouldn't call me to something he wouldn't equip me to accomplish.  Cling is, most certainly, the most useful verb.  It comes and goes in waves, the thoughts that I can't even dream to have what it takes to be a "good" staffworker.  Largely though, I've probably been more in line with thinking I'm desperately skill-less than like I'm on the divinely appointed mission I, come to find out, actually am on and have been on from the beginning.

I realized today that we, I, probably pray the wrong way a lot.  Maybe I'm wrong in thinking and saying this, but it seems to me that we shouldn't pray for God's will in our lives as much as we should pray for his will in the world and pray that we would be used by him to accomplish it.  Maybe that's splitting hairs, but "thy Kingdom come, thy will be done; on Earth as it is in Heaven" doesn't even mention one's own life and work.  It's probably the least we can do, to pray in the same direction as Jesus.

So somehow, and I probably know less now than I did this time two years ago, going into my senior year at Wooster, God's got me on InterVarsity staff as part of his divine mission to redeem creation.  It's so heavy.  It's so true.  It's so much the only thing I can be doing with my life.  It's also so small, so meticulous, that my small striving in a small school is somehow interwoven with the eternity of all of everything.  But it is.  I believe it is.  Human's can't create their own grand-narrative theory because we're by nature full of holes.  But God fills them.  I don't know how, I just know he does, and I'd rather have faith in that than try to figure things out on my own, try to create a box by which to understand God and whatever it is he's doing.  I probably can't comprehend it and I'm ready to give up trying.  I'll simply be, and I will participate in this wondrous rush toward eternity.  Because he is Love, and deep down, love never fails.

-Zack

"But suddenly now I know where I belong
It's many hundred miles and it won't be long"
-Ben Gibbard and Feist    

Perchance to Dream

Summers come and go, and they mark the rhythms of our lives.  Turning the corner you could say, or the page, toward the rest of the year, to the rest of our lives; summer its own kind of space.  Where we go, who we are, who we will become; they trot out in parade fashion as the world rotates around an axis of summer as eternal transitional space.  Here, at least, in what we call the west thanks to how we chose, long ago, to be oriented.

It has been a full summer.  It has been a short summer.  And too, it has been a long summer.
August is a summer month if there is a summer month, but somehow, it is always the beginning of the end of summer.  I had a conversation with my supervisor today about how he is beginning to mentally turn the corner back toward campus ministry, and that's exactly what I've felt like I've needed to do because my mind and heart just aren't where I know they need to be for me to get back into the swing of Hillsdale life and work.  But, perhaps a little, I'm starting to turn the corner too.  But part of me never wants summer to end.  Even with more normal jobs, there's a sort of mystique about summer and I'm not sure I ever want to lose it.  (That's not to say I have an, in any way, normal job).

But there is so much to look forward to with the fall as well.

It will cool down.
Football will return (and eventually basketball too).
Order will come back as school picks up.
Ministry will begin again (and we'll see more tangible ways of God working in students that I've been missing all summer long)
Life will once more feel like it's moving.

I love fall because I love beginnings and endings.  Summer is a three month space of liminality and transition.  While I love it, I am looking forward to what comes next.  For whatever reason, it never quite feels like "what comes next" ever comes in the summer.

I often hear talk about "summer reading" but I'm so organized in my reading that I've been pretty horrible at doing it regularly without my more regular schedule.
What I've finished this summer:


How to Give Away your Faith
Undiscovered Country
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
The Hobbit
Snow Crash
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
The Small Group Leaders Handbook
The Art of Loving
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
A Little Princess

That might seem like a lot...but it's only 1/3rd of my total reading for the year so far (and much less if you count pages)...that's about right as schedules go, but it doesn't quite fit the "more time to read in the summer" mantra.

Anyway, I recommend basically all of those books, especially Undiscovered Country, which is by Lin Enger.

I never really ask for comments, but I would love to hear what you've been reading this summer, if you feel like contributing.

My favorite movie from the summer is Toy Story 3...it's actually more a coincidence than intentional that it actually came out this summer.  I haven't seen much in theaters lately and would pick a DVD I've seen if any of them outshined Toy Story 3.

But none have, not quite.  It's pretty great.

Like life, I hope this gets more regular come fall.  But summer 2010, you will be missed.

-Zack

"When you run make sure you run to something, not away from"
-The Avetts

My mind is full of treasures, I can't unlock my own vault

I guess it's been nearly a month since I last posted.  The blog I most officially endorse didn't even exist the last time I posted.  It's this by the way. There are two posts now.

But I have some reason.  Well, thirteen of those days have no reason...at least ten of them I probably didn't do anything but waste time not fund raising amid the fund raising I was doing.  But since June 21st, I've been very much all over the place.  10 days in Wisconsin, 2 days in Wooster, 2 days in Findlay...about 13 hours at home somewhere in there.

All of it was great.

All of it was full.

Some of it was magical.

In Madison, I participated in InterVarsity's Orientation for new staff.  It was ten full, full, full days...but I've never been so energized to raise support, I've never been so in love with the mission.  I've never been so ready for what God's going to do on campus this year.  I'm not always enamored with being at Hillsdale, but after ONS, I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter where I am: it is a privilege to be involved in God's mission in the world no matter what town or campus I'm serving.

Every single time a friend gets married, my life feels new.  It's nowhere near as new as it is for the married friend.  But life is attached to community more than we might realize (and some of us wish we would both realize and act in that direction more often).  I actually thought I'd be a lot more emotionally unstable last Friday than I was...that's good, but it will always take awhile to think about people as a unit that isn't just a unit but is, by definition, a unit exclusive to itself.

It really makes quarrels about women taking men from their friends seem ridiculous.  (vice versa as well).

I'm not quite feeling up to writing tonight...I just felt like I should and didn't really have anything else to do right now.  I should probably try to get some sleep, but I slept too much today already and that's going to be hard.

I should probably say something about LeBron, but all I can say is that I hope he comes back.  A lot more than a simple basketball player choosing a team is underneath...He's not just Cleveland's best chance for a championship since the mid-nineties Indians, he is probably Cleveland's best chance for a championship for the next 10-15 years.  I would hate to see that squandered....I can't blame him as a person for leaving..he can do as he pleases...but Cleveland needs hope for something.  Sure, it's just sports, but Cleveland is a city full of people that could use a lift, if even for a sports season...thankfully true hope isn't found in sports.  Even so, civic pride and reputation can go a long way and bringing the Kingdom to a place.

That's what I hope, pray, and act for at least.  Is it okay to pray that LeBron makes one decision or another? I don't know.  But when I pray he returns to Cleveland, it has a lot less to do with sports and a whole lot to do with a city and region of the world in desperate need of all forms of justice.

-Zack
"I guess every super hero need his own theme music"
-Kanye West

Bits that shine.

It's not as big of a deal when a friend gets engaged if you're not single.

I've probably mostly lied about being happy for friends that get engaged since I became single.  Not totally lied, because I have always been happy for them.  But to say that happiness wasn't undercut by at least a little jealousy would have been a total fallacy.

But I experienced what it's like to have a close friend get engaged and have it go FBO on this side of singleness, the less jealous side.  I'm not so jealous.  I'm about as happy.  And it's more of a non-issue.

I'm sorry for all the jealousy, engaged and married friends.  It was wrong and I was blinded to it by it.

It's really quite uncanny (although I don't know enough about the past to be certain) how obsessed our culture is with relationships.  Even the most affirmed, well-liked single people will feel the sting of singleness in our culture because we look, so often, upon relationships as the ultimate form of interpersonal validation.  It doesn't even seem to matter where we stand with God as it goes.  Even the most devout Christians seem to look at the world through the lens of romantic relationships, and it just increases more and more as the years go by.

I'm not sure what sort of comment to make on that because I'm right in there in the mix of it all.  "It is better not to marry" says Paul, but you wouldn't think that by looking around.  And like I said...I'm right there in the middle of it all.  Even though, by the time I finally ended my season of singleness, I had decided that desiring a girlfriend was getting me nowhere and to simply live life and let it come as it comes, it would be a lie to say that I don't think life is better on this side of that season.  We just want to connect with others as deeply as we can, and that means romantic relationships and I'm not sure, within our culture, there's a way around that.  Some misinformed 50 year old Christian would start talking about us as "post-moderns" like we're some kind of race that gets by on relational connection and needs to ween ourselves off of it and turn to Christ if they read that little synopsis there.  I don't disagree that we love relational connection more than our predecessors, but I don't think it's wrong, I don't think it's unChristian, and I definitely resist the othering "post-moderns" does.  Some of the people I respect most in my life say it though, like it's anything but reality.  I'm resisting a rant on post-modernity now.  I will say though, that we're in a cycle of desiring and probably brokenly trying to fill voids in our lives with people..and they're voids that people can only kind of fill some of the time.  There's nothing new about that...it's just that we, as a culture, are finally turning to community, to others, instead of to ourselves to fill that hole...and ultimately, that is good.  The truth will always be though, that it's a hole we can't fully fill with others, can't fully fill with anything in the world because nothing here is perfect and we're always already created to be filled with the love of God.

As is par for the course, I've been thinking a lot about the nature of "truth" and how it relates to and is related by notions of the post-modern.  I've come up with one line of dialogue: the post-modernism might seem to shun traditional notions of truth, but I don't see that to be the case entirely.  Post-modernism is, at its core, a realization that we're not going to find all of truth on our own, and just being honest about that very real fact.  Maybe it's a flouting of truth, but ultimately, it's a flouting of the notion of truth in pursuit of the actually attainable notion of honesty.

Maybe that's more than one line.

At the end of the day, I don't think we really know what we haven't felt, what we haven't experienced.  Even the most rationalist of Christians will admit that people aren't convinced to come to Christ by arguments...it's always about his drawing us.  So, to that end, it all starts with experience.  If you ask someone how they know God exists, no matter their long answer about manuscripts, the actual answer, the end answer, is almost always, maybe even always, based on a deep feeling they trust above all else.  That's how it is for me.  I'm just being honest.  I don't put my faith in Christ, my trust in the Bible because there are so many agreeing manuscripts.  It's because I've felt my life, my soul, my inner-being being nourished by its words, by encountering God.

Oftentimes, it seems to me, that Christians want less to show the world the love of Christ and so much more to prove a certain rightness.  And that when the Gospel falls on deaf ears...when people who don't care about your rightness want to feel love and all you've got at the end is an argument that doesn't matter.

So do I throw all objectivity out the window?  Most of it.  That's heresy probably.  But I don't see any validity in fallen man building anything upon the scriptures as we get them and the truth has always been that people look at scripture differently, person to person.  That's a chink in the armor, no matter how we slice it.  So I look at scripture as I look at scripture and I think it's as right a way to do it as I can.  I know people disagree with me on things, but as far as I can tell, there are enough who agree with me that we can get together and try to change the world.  Because I believe it says that's something we're to strive to do...through love.

-Zack

"You're wearing the scars that save"
-Kids in the Way

Discovery

Late late late.

And up against a wall.

But there I am, writing this again.

I will admit, this is probably a stand in, this blog that is.  A stand in for writing I should do that could be more important.  I will admit that this is probably not going to be as great of a read as you might have hoped, as you might have wished for when you decided to come see if I updated and might have got a little excited in seeing that I had.  But I will also admit that I'm glad you're here, reading this right now, because if I'm going to deflect writing other, better things, I might as well be writing for an audience.

It's a binary I guess, or many of them constructing the larger whole.  I could writer other better things for no one (immediately) with no sort of instant gratification at all, or I can write this, for you and others like you to read right away but it's a diversion from the better things I could be spending my time writing.

So why write this if I'm so convinced something else I could write would be so much better?  Mostly because I'm lazy and mostly because I enjoy instant gratification...also because I don't feel organized or devoted enough to anything else right now in order to spend the time writing it.

I also kind of feel duty-bound to update this from time to time.  That's not the fault of any of you...it's simply 6 years of conditioning.  I did, afterall, update my old (ancient really) xanga page daily for something like 8 months when I started it.  I'm self indulgent, so here's a shameful link to it if you want to see it: click these words!

I feel like I'm walking on a wall between two gardens right now.  Opaque metaphor is my specialty.  Luckily it almost always translates into "liminal."

But I digress.

Ever since I joined InterVarsity staff (or really, more correctly, since graduation which is now more than a year ago...wow), I have felt like my life is some kind of uneven collection of colored glass pieces (opaque metaphors about transparent material are really my favorite) that can sometimes pass around by each other and look like something with meaning, but mostly it's all just a jumbled bit of many things, often beautiful, but without any real unity, without specific purpose.  I shouldn't say without specific purpose because I haven't felt purposeless...but I have felt like my life, as a whole, is more a collection of things that share but me as me and don't really fit together to form a solidified whole.  I wonder if that's how all recent college graduates feel or if it's simply the real form of adult life.  I'm not sure but I am sure that if anything, it seems to become more and more the case as time goes on and that doesn't seem like its altogether completely logical.  The further I get from college, shouldn't more things fall into place?  Maybe that's the case in the long run.  But one year out, I'm still in the fracturing phase, or at least have been for awhile.  Maybe I'm not anymore.  But it was a good phase.  It was a good place to be.  It's not that I like things kind of seeming to fall apart or at least become disparate, but it seems to me that life is really a set of build ups, orderings, then fallings down and apart so that something somehow more glorious is built in its place.  Maybe that means I'm afraid of permanence and have given myself a transient lifestyle because I don't want to become something that will stagnate.  But If I think about myself in those terms, then I guess I'm well on my way to losing a bit of that transience, and I'm okay with that...but it's not happening, not yet.

Next year, I will have sort of 3.5 homes, depending on how you count...but all at once, will be somewhat without a permanent residence.  I'll be living in a cottage not far from Hillsdale during the week but probably won't spend many weekends north of Ohio, and my weekends will be pretty split up between different places in Ohio, depending on the ebb and flow of life.  I wish I had some sort of commentary on all of this, but I don't really.  I wish I could divine some deeper meaning from the lot of it, but all it really is is a collection of facts that are.

But from where I stand I stare boldly into that coming future and embrace all of it.  It's not time for me to have a home yet, but I will know when it is.  Maybe it's because God has brought me this far without any debilitating snags, maybe it's a naive refusal to be tied to places as places, maybe it's a faith that borders on irrationality.  I don't know.  But I don't fear anything and I don't worry.  And that's alright.

I feel like I'm being prideful and arrogant about all of that and I apologize because not only would that be wrong of me, but it's not even really something worth being prideful and arrogant about.

But I look forward to the summer and the coming year richly.

I'm at about 55% of my funding for next year, I think.  If anything, it's probably more than that.  It's shadow time, wherein the next fiscal year is close, when the new budget kicks in, so it's like a game of waiting and coin-flipping, to see what the final remaining balance will be and how much less I need to raise.  I don't know that that's actually how I ought to look at it because we're supposed to be striving for monthly gifts that sustain...I'm something of a one-time-gift magnet though, and I'm not going to insist on any specific form of giving if someone wants to invest in God's work at Hillsdale.

I've been learning and thinking some pretty simplistic stuff about God lately and I think it's simply things we've wanted to overlook:  Jesus' commandment is to love God and to love others...and that's all.  The entire wealth of Christian morality is derived from that and explicated in Paul's letters, but those are letters to people who are already Christian whom he is urging to act in ways that will best show that love to the world.

That is more radical than it sounds...as love often is.

-Zack

"strange how you fit into me"
-Vienna Teng