What's The Worst That Could Happen?

So I submitted a couple of papers to present at this year's AAR in Chicago. Enough time had passed and I'd been concerned with enough other things to let me forget about worrying wether they'd be accepted- oh sorry... there's that Bible line about not worrying... I was able to not think about it. AAR would let presenters know by the first of April and wouldn't you know, that day is approaching. I haven't heard from the session leader or anything saying one of my papers had been accepted though I did just receive an email saying this: "To put your paper, (which is currently accepted for presentation at a session of the AAR/WR 2008 meeting), into competition for this award, send an email to..."

The email is an announcement for a prize being offered for Best Paper Written and Presented by Blah Blah Blah. Do you see how this might be confusing? This email is from the prize committee director, not from a session chair. Does this mean the prize committee knows something I don't yet know? Is this simply a general announcement to anyone who submitted a paper for consideration? Does "currently accepted for presentation" mean I will be presenting or simply acknowledge that I submitted one? Ugh. Now I am thinking about it again.

It was, like so much else in life, only a possibility or goal not yet achieved nor failed, but as a possibility it was a "hope" for what could be... Someday. It's out of my hands. We'll see.

But now. Now I am reminded that the date is approaching. I am reminded moments of decision approach and multiple possible alternatives will collapse leaving only the "path" taken. That's good. It's good because that "it's out of my hands" is not hope. It's "wait and see." It's fatalism. Things are okay now, but in the future they'll be better. It's "that's just the way things are." And that "that's just the way things are" is killing us. Well, it's killing a lot of other people first but we're in line.

Yeesh, where did that come from?

Without being too pointed, I would bet many of us heard a lot about hope this past week (even if you're not a sell out like me), but it is so important for me, for the word faith to have any meaning for me, that hope not mean a Christian existence is one of passivity and acceptance, especially an acceptance of the real manifestations of sin- and a sense of hope as "wait and see" is the height of sin- or I guess the depth. It is the deepest despair.

Here comes the So Long Recording line- The idea that Jesus died for you is an ideology of despair if it means Jesus died for you. Good Lord, that cross is an evil thing. It is the symbol of the coercive, deadly, unjust, hopeless nature of the world and its power. Jesus lived for you (lives as you prefer), but the nature of that life could not- cannot- be overcome by the evil of the world. Obedience to the point of death on a cross is not a call to submission and subjugation, but a call to a life that sees the nature of God as just, liberating, and life-affirming. It emulates that, pursues that- knowing full well that the world has only one way to respond to it. It can't wait and see because it is living now- a life according to a particular nature.

My papers, that's not a hope kind of thing. That's a wait and see kind of thing. History will judge, that's a wait and see kind of thing. Love, that's a hope kind of thing, though I guess I shouldn't call it a thing. But I did. I hope that's okay.

If This Isn't a Horrible Mistake, This Could be Great for My Chaotic Good Half-Elf Cleric Experience
Overture- The Who
Hunting Bears- Radiohead
On Broadway- Tito Puente
Once- Pearl Jam
Big Spender
Soma- Smashing Pumpkins
La Raspa
Little Wing- Jimi Hendrix
Painter Song- Norah jones

ed.- During a self-indulgent reread I noticed I wrote what when I meant that. I fixed it. What you are now reading is inauthentic.