Friday, April 01, 2005
(8:06 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Friday Afternoon Confessional
I confess that I feel like something of an ass for my comment to Discard's last post, which prompted this response from Jared. I was having a bad day, and I'm still surprised by how really deeply upset I was that day. To quote another movie, I needed a few minutes to sit in the car and slap myself in the face, saying, "You're weak, you baby..." like the mom in American Beauty.
This is more a comment than a confession, but I found it funny that last night as I was reading Jürgen Moltmann's Theology of Hope, I was also day-dreaming about my future studies. "Man, I need to get 19th-century German theology under my belt, and 20th-century Marxism, and Blanchot, and liberation theology...," and then I was thinking of all the professors at CTS with whom I could potentially do a directed study on the various topics, or which seminaries offered appropriate courses (for 19th-century, talk to the Presbyterians; for liberation theology, talk to the Catholics) and how their profs would adapt the course requirements for a doctoral student, and -- then I thought, "Man, if I do my PhD there, I'm going to have to work." So then I just went back to reading.
I confess that I have a really hard time concentrating on my studies when I'm at home. I confess that I prefer to complain about all the electrician's stuff on the dining room table rather than move it. (I know that no one else in the world shares my opinion on this, but if I ever live alone, my dining room table will have nothing on it at all unless I am actually using it at the time. My anality really shines in these confessionals.) I confess that I'm using the electrician's continuing failure to finish his work as an excuse to avoid cleaning out the bathtub, even though he's done in the bathroom and thus the rationale that I don't want to clean what he'll just mess up again does not apply.
I confess that I'm thinking about going to church this week. Further, if I continue on this theology route, I am thinking that there's not much future in Catholic theology for a guy like me, who studies nothing but 20th-century Protestant theology and Wesleyanism when he's studying theology at all, so I might have to find some other denomination where I can contribute to the conversation more productively. All signs are pointing toward the United Methodists, except for the fact that I don't want to leave the liturgy behind in favor of the generic church growth-style Evangelical Republican worship methods. There's always the Episcopalians, but I'm not sure I want to get on board that sinking ship.
