Official Proclamation!

I'd like to be among the first to make this April 1st Proclaimation - the community of faith ought to appropriate this secular holiday, known as "April Fool's Day," as an official observance of the church. It was St. Paul, after all, the great planter of the church, who first said, " We are fools for the sake of Christ." (I Corinthians 4:10) Let us wear our Jester's hats with pride!

My eldest, a sophomore in High School, has been encountering the horrible truth about the real world in his studies; experiencing the Holocaust and Darfur in the same week at school. He is in that place where many teenagers who are blessed with the gift of sensitivity find themselves: how can I go forward with my life in a world so broken and desperately evil?

And then last night, he (and a hundred or so of his classmates) put on a wonderful band concert, full of light and joy and surprising genius for a bunch of teenagers. And I was reminded of God's best prescription for dark and ugly days: seek beauty where you can find it, for somewhere, hidden under the gunk and grime of humanity breaks forth the splendor and grace of the kingdom which comes. Easter, death breaking forth from the tomb, life and hope in the cruel misery of the cross.

So let us embrace hope ridiculously, and cling to all things unreasonable: that in the midst of all manner of crisis, economic and political, national and personal, painful and media-driven, we are the fools who still believe in hope, we still trust, and we know the joke. Even here, even now, there is God.

Good one!