Folly

 

This Holy Week, I am thinking about folly, and the folly of believing in the resurrection.

It is likely that I will get divorced. (I am speaking of statistics, let the reader understand.)

It is likely that my wife will die, and I will be widowed.

It is likely that I will die, and make my wife a widow.

Despite this, for over twenty-seven years now and counting, I choose love.

It is fairly likely that, should I find myself divorced or widowed, I will dare to love again.

On the other hand, it is fairly likely that I will push love away.

Among those I count as friends and as acquaintances, there are many who still choose love, many who risk loving again, and many who push love away. And they are all foolish to do so. Not wrong. Not stupid. But foolish. That is, albeit in different ways, each one acts contrary to conventional wisdom.

And, if the interaction of other friends is anything to go by, it turns out that we root for the fool who embraces folly. Even when, perhaps especially when, we dare not embrace folly ourselves. It turns out that we need fools, and folly, to help us to be humble and to help us to be brave. That is why a truly wise king employs a fool: not a jester, to entertain his court, but a fool, whose actions speak truth to power.

Fool that I am, I believe.

Great is the mystery of faith:
Christ has died;
Christ is risen;
Christ will come again.