Puzzle:

 

  Here the famous puzzle posed by China’s Master Chuang in the fourth century B.C.,

 

 “If when I am asleep I am a man dreaming I am a butterfly, how do I know when I am awake that I am not a butterfly dreaming I am a man?”

from Digital Anvil.

 The Supreme Fool-Maker

  This point i am about to make leads us right to the third type of fool in the Bible—the fool maker.

  The fool maker is the person who (once again) is not a fool at all, but who is prepared to be seen and treated as a fool, so that from the position of derided folly, he or she may be able to bounce back and play the jester, addressing truth to power, pricking the balloons of the high and mighty, and telling the emperor that he has no clothes.

 This, says Paul,the great Apostle, is what God did on the cross. 

If Jesus was the supreme fool bearer, God is the supreme fool maker. He simultaneously shamed and subverted the vaunted wisdom, strength and superiority of the world through the cross—shaming and subverting the world’s wisdom through folly, the world’s strength through weakness and the world’s superiority through coming in disguise as a nonentity.

 by Os Guinness, Fool’s Talk:

 

Final Comment:

Its been my kind belief that GOD has a sense of humour. Even tho there are some instances of satire and sarcasm in the Bible. 
My best example of GOD's humour is found in the story of Balaam's Ass , when Balaam,the errant prophet was in a hurry to curse Israel,the nation, on behalf of a wicked King. 

His loyal donkey or mule stubbornly refused to move forward when confronted by an invisible Angel brandishing a glowing sword in the narrow mountain path. After being beaten several times by the annoyed prophet, the ass turned his head and spoke... 'who is being stubborn now,you or me ?' Balaam,the prophet, knew that he was doing disfavour to Israel, he knew that Israel was God's chosen nation, but money and fame turned his head to near infamy of stupidity.

( there are in modern life numerous examples of sense -of- humour moments like Babylon Bees headline: Prominent Muslim Leader resigns.
Another instance is that senior cleric reveals that in theocratic Iran they were forced to close 50K mosques due to lack- of- interest in a nation of 75K mosques.)

 

by Digital Anvil 

 

 HOLY FOOLS:

 

To follow Jesus is to pay the cost of discipleship, and then to die to ourselves, to our own interests, our own agendas and reputations. 

 

 For all its profundity and pathos, the role of the fool bearer would not seem to help us much with communication, and its main significance has always been for discipleship.

 To follow Jesus is to pay the cost of discipleship, and then to die to ourselves, to our own interests, our own agendas and reputations.

 It is to pick up our crosses and count the cost of losing all that contradicts his will and his way—including our reputations before the world, and our standing with the people and in the communities that we once held dear. It is to live before one audience, the audience of One, and therefore to die to all other conflicting opinions and assessments. There is no room here for such contemporary ideas as the looking-glass self, and no consideration here for trivial contemporary obsessions such as one’s legacy.

Os Guinness, Fool’s Talk 

 

 Final Comment:

Given that the role of " Fools for Christ " is the  appointed yet truly rich definition to wear in this timeframe, where our supposed lack of common sense, our non- self -aggrandised state and out- of- popularity standing,would deny our humble status. Remember that God's foolishness is (still) higher than our ways and our thoughts.

 

Any comments, drop by...and drop your thoughts below 

Respect:

Quote:

When it comes to relationships,everything begins with respect, with the attitude to place value on other people.

Unknown.

 Postmodernism:

 

 A Quote.

 Postmodernism has made our own age as crazily relativistic and as worldly today as at any age since just prior to the Reformation. The result is a severe crisis of authority that leaves the church in many Western countries sounding as either a mumbler, a mute, a hypocrite or someone speaking out of several sides of his mouth however loudly he tries to speak.

Os Guinness, 

  The Mocked King:

 

 Prison of the Heart and Mind vs Prison of the Physical.

 

"Conditions in most prisons in the world are rife with cruelty and degradation, and executions only heighten the dehumanization. The victim being processed for death is usually reduced to something less than a man long before the authorities cut off his life as a man. Warders, soldiers and assistants, those who elsewhere in life are normal fathers, neighbours and colleagues, feel nothing personal against the victim, but often they vent their suppressed emotions in the thick of the grisly business of processing a person for death."

"So the high priest’s servants played a sadistic version of blind man’s bluff, and then in a mean mockery of the reputation of Jesus, they twisted the game into “Let’s see who’s the prophet now.” They were probably as skeptical about the supernatural as their masters, the Sadducees. In which case, they saw prophecy as a complete fraud, but Jesus provided a handy butt for their derision. Having beaten him, they blindfolded him, struck him while helpless and asked him, “Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?”
Then when Jesus refused to play their game, remaining silent before their humiliation, he was handed over from Herod’s guards to the Roman soldiers, and finally to Pontius Pilate, the governor himself."

" The climax of the torture has been captured in countless paintings of Ecce Homo—Jesus standing before his tormentors, suffering but silent, the crown of thorns pressed down on his head, the purple robe draped around his shoulders, the reed scepter thrust into his hands, hailed with the mock acclamations—and then the final parody of the trilingual inscription above his head on the cross: 'Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews'.”

Os Guinness, Fool’s Talk:

 

How you and I think often reveals how we approach life. How we view knowledge of Jesus' mock trials and subsequent crucifixion reveals more about our inner life than it reveals the attitudes of the religious correct of that timeframe in ancient history.

 

( Its my solo belief that similar to the political correct of our timeframe is to the religious correct of theirs.) 

 

 By Digital Anvil.

 

Drop by and comment below. 

Bare Bones of Truth:

 . Life is much more than reason, so it can never be captured and explained by reason alone—crucial and valuable though reason is. Apply reason as carefully and systematically as you like, and there will always be things it cannot explain, things that simply will not fit into its categories, however hard you push, press and pull.

Os Guinness.

 

It was von Neumann who conceived the idea of programming that led to the computer—the notion that you can break down a problem into a series of simple steps that can be manipulated as numbers are manipulated. But what works for a machine does not work for a human being. If only we humans were more logical, or were only logical

Os Guinness.

The bare bones of truth ? Is that the reality,what do you think ? Drop by and comment below.

By Digital Anvil.