goodbye?

How do you say goodbye to someone you were just starting to get to know? Does "I will miss you," even mean anything? Are these the hardest or easiest goodbyes? Hard because there's no certainty that a friendship will continue, hard because you're saying goodbye not just to a person, but to potential. Easy because their presence in your life was brief enough to be easily filled once its gone.

So, should you even say goodbye? Maybe "good luck" would be more appropriate, but those two simple words completely ignore what is being lost, even when you don't completely know what you're losing.

race and funnel cakes

From a class discussion following our viewing of Crash -

Professor: For those of you who have seen this film before, what did you notice this time that you didn't notice before?
Me: This time, I noticed that there were several scenes with American flags in the background. Just kinda like, "This is our America, this is what it's really like."
Professor: Hmm, and what do you think of that?
Me: What do you mean?
Professor: I saw something in your face change when you said that. ***
Me: Well, I think the filmmakers were using this as a symbol, to remind the viewers that all the things they're witnessing really do happen right here, and to connect the actions with what us as viewers are also capable of . . .

I rambled on something like that, but what I wish I'd said, which is perhaps the true reason why my face changed, is simply, "I'm sad that this is our America."

One of my classmates had brought her Dutch roommate to watch Crash with us, to educate him about American race relations. He had showed us this video, and we all laughed, but explained that it would probably offend Black Americans, but he didn't really understand why.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3c_p_wXw2M
(I tried to embed this, but it wouldn't paste everything)

I asked him after watching Crash what he thought, since he didn't parcipate in the discussion. With a look of shock and disgust he replied, "I sincerely hope that this movie was exaggerated." "I don't know," I responded, "I'm not sure if it was. All of these things happen, but I guess it is kinda overwhelming to see all of those packed into a two hour film." Then I turned to my classmates, "What do you think? Do you think any of this was exaggerated?" They all responded with an emphatic "No!" My dutch friend just shook his head, and all he could say was "Wow."

When he returns to the Netherlands in January, what is he going to think of our country? He loves our food, even though he sees how unhealthy it is and now understands why America is so obese. He buys a gallon of Blue Bell ice cream of different flavors every week. He bikes to his internship, and my classmate drives him to the grocery store once a week. We've taken him to movies like Dan in Real Life, and to the carnival, where we bought him funnel cakes and hot dogs. He came to the our pre-Thanksgiving dinner and we all talked about our different holidays and our countries' ways of celebrating. And then we showed him Crash. So, when he goes home, what will he say about America? That it's full of fat, racist people? He might not be completely off. But surely the good will outweigh the bad. He'll remember Blue Bell and his kind roommate and her grad student friends who were patient and caring enough to spend time with a 19 year old Dutch kid and answer his questions and buy him hot dogs and funnel cake. And that's the America that I hope we can be.



***Side note: It's really something else having psychologists as professors! They pick up on nonverbal cues a little too well. My first class this semester, I had a professor completely call me out, "Zach, you agree, but you, you're completely stoic. I can't read anything one way or another in your expression." Dang!

“Loved by God, kept by Christ.”

This and other scriptures have been my mantra the past few weeks. I have been having a rough time lately, feeling lonely, unloved, guilty, hurt, insecure, and yearning for the approval of others. I feel like I’m fighting these feelings, and intrusive thoughts, lies that pop into my head based on the things I listed. I’m fighting them with prayers and scripture. It’s like some sort of faith-based-self-induced-cognitive-behavioral therapy – I’m trying to restructure the maladaptive thoughts and belief system with the truth that I know is God’s word. And it helps. For example, when I start to feel guilty and ashamed, I remind myself, “There is therefore now no condemnation in Christ,” “Those who put their hope in Christ will never be put to shame,” and “As far as the east is from the west,” that’s as far as my sins are from God. The Spirit is freedom, and I don’t want to beat myself up about things that are already forgiven, I want to experience freedom and life.

And God’s grace is at work through this time. The scriptures I am reading are becoming so much more real to me. They’re not just things I think; they’re things that I experience. Somehow, for the most part, I feel at peace. I feel hopeful, and I feel that this is right where I should be. Though November has been lonely and sometimes sad, it’s better than the anxiety and confusion that was September and October. I can handle sad and I know that it will go away. Anxiety and doubts, I’m not really sure what to do with those. More tangible, external things are also happening. I have dear close friends and relatives who, while not here physically to take away my loneliness, have been only a phone call or email away, and have supported me, prayed for me, and talked me through my rough nights and mornings. While I’m new at my church and all of these people are new to me, I’ve started to become closer to them. I am starting to connect with them and feel at home. A couple of weeks ago, I shared with my small group the loneliness that I’m feeling, and they’re responding and I’m starting to experience through them this connection with others that I long for. I’m starting to really experience what it means for a church to be a community. It’s not perfect, these aren’t my new best friends just yet, but step by step, I’m experiencing the community that my heart desires.

I’m also trying to let go of my expectations of these new people in my life. I’m trying to not let my self-worth be determined by other’s approval. I do desire close friendship and connectedness, and I need more support here, but I’m trying to not be needy. When I go into situations when I’m around new friends and just release my expectations, and just try to love and enjoy them, well, it usually goes great, connections just flow naturally and I’m thankful for that.

I have been so focused on myself these past few months, but I want to love others more. I want to really, genuinely care about all of those around me. I want to step out from myself, step away from my trying to make myself better and happier and instead focus on giving to others and enriching their lives.

I have no idea how any of this sounds. However this comes across, writing this is more real to me than writing about being white. I have started writing a follow-up to my whiteness post, but today is not the day to finish it. I actually started writing this post Sunday evening, during a time that was probably a low point for the past couple of weeks. I am feeling better, and I know that in spite of the rough times I’m experiencing, I’m becoming more whole and more myself because of it.

homeward bound, home, where my thoughts escaping

I just can’t contain my excitement about going home tomorrow! It’s been two long months since I was last home, two months in which I’ve poured my energy into readings, papers, exams, friendships, romance, church family, counseling sessions, cooking, cleaning, football games, laughter, tears, carnivals, shopping, long discussions, oh, I could go on, but now all of my energy is focused on going home, packing, loading up, and dancing. I can’t contain it, my excitement is leaking out of my body in the way I’m just letting go and moving to the music, swaying my hips, raising my arms above my head, accidently hitting the little chains from my fan not once, but twice, but still moving, not stopping . . . and tomorrow, I will work and hope the hours go by fast, pick up my dear cat, and drive north, listening to my music, talking to my friends, driving through rural farmlands, small towns that barely dot the map, through another college town about halfway through, stopping at the Czech bakery, loading up on carbs, and continuing north, to where the highway splits, until finally, the downtown buildings come into view to my left, it’ll still be light, but perhaps the sun will be setting behind them, perhaps their lights will already be on, and maybe my heart will skip a beat at the sight of them, but then I’ll likely be stuck in rush hour traffic, and wish it were moving faster, and the last hour will stretch out so long, but I’ll play my music louder, and sing, and soon be home, into the arms of my loved ones.

Well, now my car is loaded, sandwiches are made, In Rainbows has moved* into some slower tempo songs, and I think I’ve spent all that energy I just described. Now, I will relax and sleep and awake with great anticipation.

I sincerely hope that someday I will look forward to returning to my new home with as much excitement as I’ve just expressed.

*BTW, sometimes I love passive voice – APA can bite me. Not really, I need to submit a publication sometime soon!

on whiteness

How do you define whiteness? What are some white American values and customs? If you are white, what does it mean to your identity?

I'm currently working on a paper for Multicultural Counseling class that is forcing me to examine some of these things. It's interesting yet hard because I don't think White Americans think about these things very often. Being a part of the dominant culture, our "whiteness" may seem so universal as to make it invisible. My culture has become the norm by which minority cultures are judged and examined. Sometimes, "deviance" is easier to define than "normalness."

When I finish this paper, I'll give some more thoughts on these things. For now, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Dang, is this how I return to blogger after an almost four month hiatus? A brief paragraph and some questions that I hope are thought-provoking? It's not quite the "I'm back!" kinda post that I had planned on, but it's what's on my mind. Starting several weeks ago, every once in a while I started reading some of your blogs and leaving comments to try to slowly ease back into the blog world. There is a lot going on in my life that I'd love to write about, but I just haven't sat down and done it. I wrote one post last week that was merely describing a new experience that I had, but I never posted it because I wanted to edit it.

But I truly would love to hear your thoughts on whiteness. After that, there are so many things that I want to share with each of you, and I want to share in your lives as well. This may not be dramatic or poetic, but I have returned.

And he dreamed . . .

While a month ago I had friends heading to New Zealand, Spain, and London, I'd spent the weekends in a row in a different Texas town. They may not sound uber-exciting, but each of them brought opportunities for me to create good memories that I'd like to share.

1. College Station. I've already written some about the purpose of this trip and some of my emotions involved. The first day was exciting and peaceful, but the second day was exhausting and stressful for my mom and I. I know I said some things outloud that I should have just kept in my head, but I apologized eventually. The stress of the day alleviated around 6pm when we decided to stay another night, and drive around and look at the outside of more homes/townhouses/duplexes, and our exhaustion turned into giddy delirium. We spent hours sitting outside of McDonalds in our car to get cheap wifi, driving around, trying to find properties based on the computerized voice of my mom's GPS program. Towards the end of the second day, we recognized how ridiculous it was that we were following around the verbal instructions of a machine, so we named her Clarissa. "Clarissa will guide us, she'll tell us what to do and where to do. Clarissa, where do we turn next?" We spent the weekend chasing properties, realtors, wifi signals, Starbucks, Walmarts, and hotels. We often found our way inside properties accidentally - a painter working inside would let us in, or the rentor would arrive home and let us in just as we were about to leave, or one time my mom shocked me by simply opening a window and climbing inside.

We were driving along one neighborhood toward a house, when we noticed two young men riding a two-seated bicycle. My mom nervously asked, "Are they gay?" "No mom, they're just frat boys." "Are you sure?" "Yes, they're wearing polos shirts. That's just what fratboys do." "Really?" "Yup. There's probably a video camera somewhere." To our surprise, these young men were friend of the rentors of the home we were looking at! They brought us into their home, and apologized for it being completely trashed from their party the night before and warned us not to open the fridge. I noticed a broken window upon entering, and it seemed like every room went into had another hungover guy in it - seriously, there were probably at least 10 guys coming in and out of the place, all in various levels of stupor at 4pm in the afternoon. One of the tenants explained how they would replace the carpet and probably put in some new appliances. He said that the owner had offered to replace the carpet for them, but they told them, "No, we're just going to trash the place, don't bother." I love that. I love people who are so unpretentious, so unapologetically themselves.


2. Abilene. This was a true getaway, and I needed it. Two of my closest high school friends went to ACU and recently graduated. They are both going to continue living in Abilene for a couple of more years, one to wait for her husband to graduate, and another to complete her master's program. We had a great weekend, catching up, celebrating, drinking watered down Walmart margaritas, having meaningful conversations and asking and answering the questions that are somehow only asked by these girls. Not always even deep probing questions, but E asked if me and M were such good friends because we were both only children. We then started talking about all the things that we have in common because we're only children, and the things that we do differently from others who have siblings. I've thought about this a lot before, but this brought new insights into my understanding of my personality and my relationships with others.

Also, I greatly enjoyed going to E's "inner city" church, hearing the honestly of the people there, and praising the Lord with our voices alone. During the service, I had these thoughts that sound depressing but were actually very comforting to me: I could marry the man of my dreams, and he could die or we could get divorced or I could get some terrible chronic illness. I just thought about the reality of that, how all the dreams I have could completely change, and one thing could happen to alter the rest of my life. This thought drove me to think about how the one constant in my life is God. My husband could die or I could get a disease and it could be absolutely awful, but I would be ok. Life would go on and I would be ok, possibly more than ok, with the Lord at my side.



This weekend brought some good insights and revelations, but mostly it brought me peace. If you ever find yourself in Abilene, you must visit a sculpture at ACU called "Jacob's Dream." It's not really just a sculpture, it's a beautiful structure including a sculpture of angels climbing the ladder to heaven, and surround by large stones, grass, and a small pool used for baptisms. The artist (an art professor) continues to work on this since it was created, continuing to carve words from scripture into the stones. The messages on the rocks aren't always obvious, there may only be one or two words on each large stone, but you simply look to the right or below, and the phrase continues. Though we never did find the "Jacob" to end the phrase, "I am the Lord, the God of Abraham, Issac, and . . ." but perhaps he hasn't completed that one yet. After following the messages in the rocks and taking many pictures, E and I finally just sat quietly for several moments, enjoying the peaceful setting. I prayed, I remembered God's presence, and I remembered these promises that were etched on these stones, from the word of the Lord which stands forever though heaven and earth may fall away.



I also found peace staying in E's home. They recently moved into a beautiful old home that they're renting, with hardwood floors, a moon-shaped window in the front door, and windows everywhere. My times spent eating, reading, watching the end of a movie with one of her roommates, or listening to the rain hit the tin roof that covered their back porch were so blissfully relaxing, I wanted to stay in this house forever. Indeed, after E left for work on Monday and I was about to head home, I was extremely reluctant to leave. I didn't leave right when she left because I was waiting for a CD to finish burning on her computer, but even after it was finished, I lingered. I walked around the house, checking to see if I'd neglected to pack anything, and sure enough, I found a book of mine sitting on top of their piano, but I still managed to leave my umbrella and a pair of shorts. I filled up my water bottle with the pitcher from their fridge, then refilled their pitcher, then refilled their ice trays. I checked the doors to make sure that they were locked. Finally, after loading everything into my car and not being able to think of any other duty that would give me an excuse to stay, I drove away.


3. Atlanta. Not Georgia, but Atlanta, Texas is the small town where both of my parents graduated from high school and the majority of my dad's family still lives there - my grandad, both his brothers, and two of my six cousins and their families, and a third cousin lives about 45 minutes away from there. I enjoyed seeing my family, we had our traditional fish fry, but I also had more fun than I usually do being there. After dinner, my dad, stepmom, aunt, and my cousin's friend from boy scouts, all went bowling. We had heard that the local bowling alley was under new ownership and had been renovated somewhat, so we decided to check it out. Whatever renovations had been done, my aunt said it looked exactly the same as when she had gone there in high school. This place was so great and retro, my cousin's friend commented that it felt like "we're in an episode of That Seventies Show." After bowling, we went to Walmart and bought a movie, and stayed up until 2:30 watching it. Seriously, most of my friends here don't ever stay up that late with me, and I found myself tiring out before my parents and aunt did! I guess I had a little age stereotype that was dispelled that evening. Shortly after finishing the movie, there came a knock on the door. It was my grandfather who had woken in the middle of the night, got up and seen that our car was gone, and thought that someone had shot us and taken our car! Had it not been for his extreme worry, I would have laughed at such a paranoid idea. Shortly after returning to my grandfather's house, I overheard him chastising my dad, "What in the hell?" and my dad explaining why we were out so late. Even at fifty-five, a man can still be responsible to his father.

photos and wizards

Does anyone know of any good, user-friendly photo sharing websites that allow you to upload unlimited or at least over a thousand photos for free? I had recently joined flickr and had started uploading pictures and was going to post a link along with my next post, because I've been traveling and I think you guys need to see some pictures to give these places justice. I had also been planning on trying to use it while I'm traveling Europe, if I can connect my camera to a computer in an internet cafe. However, flickr only allows up to 200 photos to be displayed at a time, unless you upgrade to the pro version which is $25 for a year. Broken down month to month, that's really not that much, but I don't think I'd have need of it for a full year.

I looked at Photobucket, but couldn't figure out how to upload multiple photos easily unless I download a new type of internet browser, which I'm definitely not planning on doing at internet cafes. I also looked into Webshots, but it only allows 1000 pictures for its free version. That sounds like a lot, but it's really not considering that I took over 200 pictures at New Orleans, and at least that many at Chicago, and I'm sure I'll be taking lots more pictures over the course of three weeks in Europe. Hmm, maybe I need to be more picky about which pictures I post, or just suck it up and pay a subscription fee for premium services. But, if there is another good free site that I'm overlooking, please bring it to my attention!

On another note, I went to a midnight Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix showing and absolutely loved it! While they don't compare to the books, I've enjoyed all the films. In preparation for the latest film, I rewatched Goblet of Fire the other night and realized that as much as I love that story, the film version really wasn't all that great. Aside from the awkwardly sexual moments that were just odd and distracting, it just moved way too fast, jumping around from scene to scene, hardly developing subplots and new characters, and barely giving the viewer any chance to have an emotional reaction to what they're viewing. However, this latest film seems to flow much more naturally, and while you have to cut a lot from an 800 page book to fit it into 2 hours and 20 minutes, it didn't feel hurried nor did I really miss the things they cut very much. In slowing down the pacing somewhat, I actually was able to feel all the different emotions the book brought out while watching the film. And I was surprised at all the little details from the book that made it into the movie, especially within the first half hour. I hesitate to say this having not watched the first three films in a couple of years, but I really think this might be the best film of the series so far. I hope that if you read this before you see the film that you're not expecting something so spectacular that the actual viewing disappoints. It's a fun film, but it's not going to win any Oscars, and you probably won't love every part of it. I've tried to just give an overall opinion and not mention any specifics. So, please see this film soon, form your own opinion, and let me know your thoughts!