The Life of the Holy Fool

"For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence." (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)

Last week I played the fool. Literally.

I was running closing ceremonies for the Wild Goose Festival in North Carolina. Myself and Callid Keefe-Perry played co-ringmasters to a part revival - part circus ceremony. That's Callid and I pictured above. The parts we played were two sides of a Holy Fool. Callid was the slightly legalistic revivalist styled circus ringmaster, and I was the anarchic Jesus-people hippie ringmaster, and we played a grand tension of the Christian life (law versus license) against one another.

The creation of a carnival-like atmosphere has regularly allowed me to befriend people very unlike myself. Christians with beliefs far more liberal than my own fairly conservative evangelical reading of the scriptures, the Witches living in my famous little city of Salem, Massachusetts, and the people called "Burners." (Our friends who go to Burning Man.)

More and more I find myself creating and being involved in artsy, and crazy ideas. So much so that I am wondering if my calling is to be a clown - a clown dancing and tripping between the many warring factions of our broken world - bringing peace and a gentle God revolution. I often am more comfortable in uncomfortable places than I am among people who think and act just like I do.

Last week I was at the Wild Goose in a wildly divergent Christian crowd. In a little less it that two months it will be an outreach art installation at the wildly hedonistic Burning Man, and after that back home to Haunted Happenings in Salem, MA.

Right now we are in the fundraising stage of our Burning Man art installation, and need help to get the project together and to Nevada. I guess we are looking for people who want to join the convocation of Holy Fools.




"If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." (1 Corinthians 3:18-19)