Your Last Chance to Dance the Dance

CONCEPT

Here we go, kids.

I sit here, at work, in general quietness. There are only twenty patients today, spread out over about nine hours. I have my Venti Coffee, and I'm putting together consultation sheets for Thursday and Friday and Monday. Thursday and Friday, I'll be gone.

And I know that in just a few hours... fourteen hours, to be precise, I'll be caught up in the exhileration of extraordinary and unexpected goings on. In 24 hours, x will be. It's a rare inversion of the anxiety caused by knowing that abrupt change is coming very shortly. The last memory I have of such precipitousness was the 2004 election... of which the results were disappointing. Prior to that, my proposing to Jessica... of which the results were pure delight. In between are moments of holding the envelope with an admissions decision, but not having opened it yet. Or waiting to confront an employer. Or a "serious talk" with girlfriends that might be breaking up with me.

How often do we have the opportunity to greet the seen-from-far-away unexpected without doubt or trepidation? Once, maybe twice, each year?

* * * * *

The preamble to the Scavenger Hunt bylaws states that "enlightenment can only be attained through freedom, and further, that true freedom can only be realized through utter chaos." Over the years this statement has stuck, and has evolved into a whole philosophy that supplies its own evidence and arguments and implies a higher purpose.

I won't argue that there haven't been those who've participated in Scavhunt and walked away disappointed. There have been a few. Still, this is an event that goes beyond the hype of games and competitions we play day-to-day. It's a secular event that in its scope and complexity takes on aspects of the world at large, and evokes in hundreds of participants the passion of true belief. This isn't idolatry. This is the thing itself.

Unless, of course, the items calls for a golden calf.

In which case it is idolatry.

* * * * *

A while after midnight tonight, there will be conclaves convening in nine HQ's scattered around Hyde Park.

If you can, I recommend you get yourself to one.

If you can't, you should get yourself on the phone.

There's still time...

but only for awhile.