I had a heartbreaking moment yesterday. I have been anxiously making plans to get the tickets to the Division Playoff on Tuesday and head to Chicago whenever the day was that I had the tickets for. I had gotten coverage for my classes; it was all going to work. Then yesterday I looked very carefully at the e-mail and realized that it was last Tuesday and that I only had last Tuesday between 12 and 6 to buy tickets. I had lost my one chance.
I guess I should expect these kinds of things to happen. After all Chicago is the team that just can’t seem to put it all together. If I believed in curses (and I don’t) Chicago is the team that I would say is cursed. One doesn’t have to go back too many years to remember the Bartman story. One fan getting a little too excited and reaching out into the field for what would have been the third and last out and would have sent the Cubs to the world series for the first time since 1907, but once the ball was tipped, and the Marlins caught up and eventually won that game at Wrigley, you could see it on the faces of the players and the fans. Not again, please not again. But it did happen again and the Marlins came back to win the next night and the series.
It shows us how small and unreal our control of our life really is. The fan who reached for the ball had to move from Chicago because of death threats. Never mind that the real reason the Cubs lost that game was an error on a crucial play with two outs. We find it hard to admit to ourselves that we are not in control, but we aren’t. We can’t fix the financial problems the country is in, we can’t stop terrorist attacks, and we can’t end wars, sickness, or dying.
But somehow we go on living. Those of us who are Christians go on living because we are waiting for the great and coming day. Those who are not Christians find some sign of help or hope in something that won’t really last. And the Cubs, they keep on playing. The fans keep on hoping that this is the year. This year there will not be a dropped fly ball in left field for what should have been the last out of the season, causing a one game playoff. This year there will be no goat kicked out of the stadium, no owner to place a curse, and no fan to tip the fly ball. Cub fans live on hope. Christians live on a hope that is much greater.
So at incredible odds my name was chosen to get tickets and somehow (I am still not exactly sure how) I lost my chance, I still have hope. I put my name in for the League Championship Series and I can always hope that the Cubs will win the Division series and that lightening will strike twice in the choosing of my name. If the Cubs don’t win (I doubt that) or if my name doesn’t, against all odds, get chosen again, I still have hope. The hope of a new heaven and a new earth, where there will be no errors, no interference from the fans, and no fools who didn’t get the tickets when they had the chance. That’s the kind of world I’m talking about. It’s coming. Be ready.
Play Fair,
DrSamLam θεόÏακα (God’s Fool)