Fools

Fools: 15 April 2025

I always like it when Tax Day falls during Holy Week. Such a stark contrast of allegiances. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and render unto God the things that are God’s. I’m not happy about owing taxes this year. But honestly that’s an easier burden than surrendering my will to God’s will. Except that in the moments when I actually do surrender, I feel buoyant in a reality that is so much grander than my small imaginings.

Shakespeare’s Hamlet says it this way: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Or in our theology.

Easter has a way of shining a light on the folly of the world. All the foolishness cloaked in intrigue and bluster. All the strongmen (and women) who prop up their egos and greed by fear and division. All the gaslighting.

Easter turns things upside-down. The strong are weak. The weak are strong. But we’re not there just yet. We’re still in Holy Week. Before we get to celebrate with the risen Christ on Sunday, we must sit with the anguished Jesus on Thursday and suffer his crucifixion on Friday. Tradition states that he was crucified on a hill outside Jerusalem. The political leaders wanted to get rid of a threat, but the innocent man refused to be baited. The politicians want a show of jurisprudence but let the mob decide the man’s fate. And here is how the gospel of Luke describes the result. “[Pilot] released the man they asked for, the one who had been put in prison for insurrection and murder, and he handed Jesus over as they wished.” Mobs aren’t known to make sound decisions. They are often full of fools.

A fool takes pleasure in expressing his opinion, rather than in understanding.  (Proverbs 18:2)

But not all fools are fools, and not all fools have always been considered foolish.

Throughout history, people with disabilities have been labeled fools. Medieval Europe had court jesters and fools, some of whom were targets of discrimination, some of whom were considered wise. Some Native American cultures revered people with disabilities as having special gifts of spirituality, wisdom or healing. Chinese jesters were considered “fools of no offense”, and they entertained at court often giving pointed and wise advice to rulers, even through their mockery. Some of Shakespeare’s most memorable characters are sharp-witted fools.

"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool," says Touchstone, the fool in As You Like It.

We have different terminology now. Special needs. Neurodivergent. But I remember hearing other labels—retard, spaz, slow. Neurodivergent folks are often considered childlike, foolish, innocent. Especially the non-verbal. For parents and caregivers, it can be agonizing to wonder: is my child in there? I’ve been listening to an incredible podcast that explores this question and emphatically answers: yes! Yes, they are in there, and they are not fools.

The Telepathy Tapes explores the profound communication abilities of non-speakers with autism. They are shown to have gifts of telepathy and otherworldly perceptions. Many describe a place (a sort of mental channel) where they can gather to socialize with one another, regardless of where they are in physical space. They meet and form friendships and can learn from the large knowledge base that undergirds all reality. Many call it the Hill.

Remind me: Which ones of us are disabled?

The research into their telepathy contradicts materialism, the prevailing philosophical view of reality. Materialism posits that the basis of all reality begins with physical matter. I’m not pretending to be an expert around any of this, and the Wikipedia page was more than enough to quench my thirst for the theoretical arguments.

However, what appeals to me is the alternative: Consciousness, not matter, as the ground of all being. This makes so much more sense to me. Maybe it makes more sense to me because I am a person of faith. Or maybe I’m a person of faith because Consciousness inherently makes sense to me. Either way, I’ve always believed in an omnipresent spiritual force that precedes and connects everything else in the universe.

I remember being a child in the pew of First Presbyterian Church Charlotte and feeling my consciousness leave and hover above my body still sitting between my parents. Decades before I heard of the science of the “wood wide web” I remember describing mortality and heaven as individual trees linked underground by a vast and eternal network of interconnections. I remember a few years ago dreaming that my aunt came to say she loved me and waking up the next morning to the message that she’d died.

Foolish? Maybe. But Consciousness as the ground of all being makes more and more sense to me. The interconnected dance of the Trinity inviting us to play, the interconnected roots of all plants thanks to fungi (please go read Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake!), the interconnected knowledge of the Hill. These things deepen my faith, and I have less and less patience with shallow Christianity that merely seeks to codify things the way we want them to be.

Early in my career I worked with an ecumenical organization that brought denominations together around Christian unity, advocacy and social justice. It was fascinating, especially to pursue how Christianity could speak to things happening in the world and in the state—to practice acting in concert to glorify God while making the world a more just, peaceful, and equitable place for all of God’s children.

One December I answered a call late on a Friday afternoon from a distraught and angry woman. She was outraged that Riverbanks Zoo had a female Santa. She worried that this would confuse her toddler and demanded that the Council get involved. Had she called the zoo? She had; they’d said no men had applied for the Santa position. She wanted us to call the zoo. I assured her the Council would not call the zoo. She spluttered and said, “Well what am I supposed to tell my daughter about this?!?” And before I could stop myself, I said, “I think you could start with the real meaning of Christmas.”

This is painful for my Christian heart, the way America purports to be one nation under a very specific but vapid, litmus-test, Hallmark Christian God. People want both the sweet baby Jesus of Christmas and also somehow a His-pain-your-gain superhero of Easter, neatly sidestepping the ‘follow me’ challenges of Jesus’s ministry. They’re pretty vocal about how Jesus was born and died but pretty quiet about how he actually lived and loved. Or told us to live and love. (spoiler: humbly and everyone)

I see too many of my fellow American Christians who are currently glorying in the dismantling of our fragile democracy; cheering the firings of civil servants, scientists, scholars; happy in the cessation of food deliveries to starving victims of war; gloating in the unconstitutional arrests and deportations of innocent men and women; supporting an economic meltdown draining their neighbors’ retirement and college funds. Many of them will grumble about taxes or file for extensions. Many will buy Easter clothes and show up Sunday to worship their personal lord and savior. To them I respectfully recommend Yuval Harario:

When all is said and done, the essence of patriotism isn’t reciting stirring poems about the beauty of the motherland, and it certainly isn’t making hate-filled speeches against foreigners and minorities. Rather, patriotism means paying your taxes so that people on the other side of the country also enjoy the benefit of a sewage system, as well as security, education, and health care.

I also recommend Proverbs 12:15, “a fool is always right in his own eyes.”

In the Easter story, the innocent man complies with the people’s law, but in his compliance, he embodies (incarnation!) the true law. It’s not really what anyone expected. Those Israelites who wanted a warrior savior (and the contemporary ‘His pain your gain’ crowd who seek a savior to avenge all their political grievances) have a hard time with this weak Jesus, this loser who got captured, this failure. This fool.

It’s sometimes called the Folly of the Cross. This incredible, upside-down event confirming Love is stronger than death. Life is more than existence. Time is deeper than law. It occurred on a hill outside the walls of Jerusalem. It occurs this week in our rituals and in our hearts. For those who can hear, those who are open, we meet the mystery at the Hill.

 Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. Folly. Freedom.