Secondly, click here to visit a website that some friends designed.  It shows off the greenest of villes, the city in which I live and one that you should visit.

The death of Christopher Hitchens yesterday has saddened many Atheists and perhaps many more Christians.

Mr. Hitchens was a man of many contradictions.  He was a left-wing Trotskyite who defended neo-cons forcefully and eloquently during the Iraq war.  He was an ardent Atheist whose name means “Christ-bearer.”  He was moralistic in his writing yet without warrant for that moralism in his philosophy.  He challenged Americans to think about ultimate things even as he denied that there were such categories as ultimate things.

Six or seven years ago one was likely to hear an Atheist say that they didn’t believe in God anymore than they believed in the tooth-fairy.  The implication was that belief in God was harmless immaturity.  However the New Atheists have culturally advanced very far the idea that belief in God (particularly the Christian God) is not only false, but immoral.  Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens spent a great deal of energy writing books in an attempt to suppress Christianity in the public square.  While these books have not proved philosophically deep (I’m not saying they’re as sloppy as someone like Bill Maher, merely that they avoid Christian Theism’s best arguments), still the work of the New Atheist has provided a veneer of  intellectual cover for people who enjoy mocking Christians on facebook and youtube comments sections.

At the conclusion of Collision, a documentary featuring a series of debates between Douglas Wilson and Christopher Hitchens, Mr. Hitchens once again reveals his penchant for contradiction.  He relates a conversation with Richard Dawkins about the eradication of religion:

“And then at one point, I think this is not on camera, I said if I could convert everyone in the world, not convert, if I could convince them to be a non-believer and I’d really done brilliantly, and there’s only one left.  One more, and then it’d be done.  There’d be no more religion in the world.  No more deism, theism.  I wouldn’t do it.

“And Dawkins said, ‘What do you mean you wouldn’t do it?’

“I said, ‘ I don’t quite know why I wouldn’t do it.’

“And it’s not just because there’d be nothing left to argue with and no one left to argue with.  It’s not just that.  Though it would be that.  Somehow if I could drive it out of the world, I wouldn’t.

“And the incredulity with which he (Richard Dawkins) looked at me stays with me still.  I’ve got to say.”

Christopher Hitchens, the man whom God used to challenge Christians so that they might not get too comfortable, will be sorely missed.

Douglas Wilson wrote this honest summary today in the pages of Christianity Today:

“We leave the soul of Christopher Hitchens (and he did have a soul, despite all his arguments) in the hands of God, who will do nothing but right.”

If you know me or have read my blog for any length of time, you know I have the tendency to over-talk.  Permit me to over-talk about over-talking for a moment.

A few years ago I had a roommate that used to get in theatrical arguments with his girlfriend.  They were sort of passionate people.  One day in response to his girlfriend’s distress he took out a piece of paper and started listing things on which they agreed.  His effort smoothed things over and the fight ended.  I was impressed with his resourcefulness when he told me this story.

When I moved from the apartment, in the process of cleaning up, I found a piece of paper in a book.  On the back was a numbered list of random things–bands, foods, movies and things.  On the list, around number 9 was the sentence: “Zach talks too much.”

After a minute I realized this was the list of agreements my roommate had shared with his girlfriend.  Glad I was able to bring them together.

If you find that you like the art on my blog, but you could do without the commentary, hop on over to my behance page and look in peace.  Today marks my one year Behance anniversary.

Ha!  This picture’s hilarious.

I used to work nights at UPS as a package handler.  As my distance from the job has grown, my recollections have developed a nostalgic patina.  How wonderful to have worked such a terrible job.  Every night I left my apartment at 10:15.  At 10:25 I pulled into the parking lot, shut off my car and savored the last few moments of stillness.  UPS machinery is hard on clothing, and the crowds that entered the hub every night exhibited a type of fashion that is generally reserved for the menacing extras in zombie movies.  Patches on patches.  Ripped sleeves.  Pant legs nearly shorn off.  Back pockets peeling off.  Our clothes bore the signs of remarkable violence.

[Strangely, I couldn't bring myself to throw these jeans away].

Every night we shuffled from our cars to the guardhouse, showed our IDs, and waited for the largish security woman to look up from her book and nod us through.  She had an insatiable appetite for lurid romance novels with titles like Voo Doo It Like That: A Scandalous Tale of Urban Desire and Sensuous Vampiric Adventure.  We continued to the “Hub” amidst grumblings as predictable as an Episcopalian liturgy.

“How you doing?”

“Great, till I came here.”

“I hear that.”

“Two more days.”

“Yeah.  You double today?”

“No, but I hear Twilight got ransacked.”

“That’s what I hear.”

“Two more days.”

“I hear that.”

The inside of the “Hub” was as drab and boring as a bucket of oatmeal.  The memories of my time there have lost their particularity, but for one.

One night I left my apartment the regular way, arrived the regular way, showed my ID in the regular way, and entered the building in the regular way.  But when I turned the corner, what had for nine months been a concrete floor, cinder block wall, and metal chute, was magically transformed.  The forms were still there, but they were now beautifully soft and white.  Someone during the twilight shift knocked a fire extinguisher from its hooks.  It fell, bounced off the bay platform, hit the ground, and exploded.  The blast covered the chute, the bottom of the conveyor belt, and about twenty feet of the floor in what looked like freshly fallen snow.  I must have come very soon after the extinguisher burst, for there were no footprints.  The scene was almost overpowering.  I stood in my tattered clothes holding my water jug and everything old was new again.

Fitzgerald, I think, once mentioned that in life every person searches for reincarnations of a former aesthetic experience.  The writer or painter tries to approximate some moment in their life when they had very real contact with awe.  Isn’t it strange that while those moments are widely incommunicable, sometimes a few particles can make the journey from one person to another?  So far as I can tell the sensation works best when we feel a rapid flicker between the familiar and the unfamiliar.  At any rate, I think that at its best literature, or maybe art in general, can take something quite ordinary, concrete, and dull, and blast it with a spectacular whiteness so that we can see the thing again for the first time.

Here are some pictures from our wedding at Skylight chapel.

A bunch of my favorite people showed up.

From left to right are Libby Ramos, Mike Meyer, James and John Tarala, Andrew Ramos, Paul Johnson, and Matt Silver.  The back of the head belongs to the classy cake maestro Erin Godbey.

Alissa bought me a sweet bb Gun, and we all took turns shooting at the targets.  Above is a picture of  me taking a shot.  I also seem to be wearing an entirely useless belt.

Aaron Greene, who’s pretty much great at everything, shows Henry and Jude how it’s done.

Mollie, their mother (also good at a host of things including momology), looks on with a pistol in her back pocket.  Paul, poses in the back like a viking.

Quick Draw Godbey.  He’s not messin’ around and he’s got the mustache to prove it.

My roommate Justin.  Posing.  Always posing.

Lola, Chris Koelle, and Marshall.

Cuteness overload: Lola Greene and Marshall Koelle.

Here’s everybody looking tough except for me.  I’m wearing that cowboy hat the way a little boy might on Christmas morning: 1961.  Ben Kammer looks so tough he’s stifling a yawn.

The Brothers K and Justin.

Here I am with my good friends Matt and Bill.

It was a great b-day party and a super good time.  Thanks Alissa, and all who came out.