What does a good person do when confronted with evil? Jeremiah lamented; Achilles retreated; Oedipus put out his eyes; Eve Ensler wrote a play; and John Francis stopped talking.
It can be argued that refusing to ride cars and speaking is not very practical, and I'd have to agree; but if you take a peak at the Bible's Old Testament, prophets were asked to complete tasks that hardly seemed practical. Hosea married a prostitute and had to redeem her from her pimp; Rahab rescued the men who would be responsible for destroying her city; Isaiah spent three years walking around naked.
So is John Francis a prophet? I'll leave that up to you; but there is definitely something prophetic about walking across much of the American continents in order to testify to the evil of big oil.
I struggle with this idea of what is practical many times. I have a great admiration for people who do things that seem quite impractical; but there's always a slight sense of derision; that these people are wasting their time, that they should have channeled their energies into something, well, something more effective.
There is a verse in the Bible that God's wisdom is foolishness to man. Maybe these wild, absurd prophets and activists understood something I cannot yet fully grasp. Perhaps I need to loosen my grip a bit on my human logic, and allow the dangerous threads of the impractical, the unfeasible, the quixotic wisdom of the Dream Spinner burrow their way into my soul.
More about John Francis.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
The Impractical Prophet*
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2 comments:
If you have ever read tom robbins, you would know already that god does not manifest himself like anyone would thing she does. does it really take an atheist to tell you how to experience god? cause if that is the case, stop reading that silly bible of yours, go out to a cliff and hang your head off upside-down until the earth and the sky switch places. that seems like a good place to start.
Hmmm...I'm not sure what this is in response to...but I think I am going to find a cliff off which I can hang my head upside-down.
And if it takes an atheist to help me experience God (as I think you have many times) cool...you're exactly right that God manifests Herself in mysterious ways.
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