Over at Disputations, Tom asks:

Do I want to become perfect?

I have to admit it: some days my answer is no. Perhaps this is a good time to reconsider for everyone the reason I adore Foolishness. I take as my inspiration St. Paul's take on the matter in 1 Corinthians 1:25:

For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Meanwhile, people that consider themselves quite reasonable can believe that Religious faith of any kind, much less Roman Catholic Christianity, has a place only in the private lives of citizens; it has no place in the public square. Such thinking defies welcoming traditions that have accumulated wisdom, sought to discern truth and honor principled living for thousands of years. Exactly how does doing this benefit society?

Other questions of this reasonable proposition soon follow. How does divorcing morality from lived experience improve relationships among men and women, majority and minorities, and the powerful and powerless? How does the commitment to an absolute principle that there are no absolutes lead to a life of integrity when such an absurd absolute is broken once it's professed? How does deliberate ignorance of the traditions that allowed us to develop the values of human rights and democratic processes improve our continued dedication to these values?

Faced with these conundrums of what the modern world calls reasonable, I tend to prefer the wisdom of a Fool. I would rather follow Christ, God's own fool, than bow my mind and heart at the psychotic sense that passes for reasonableness today. Thus, I strive to become a Holy Fool. After all, as Foolish as Christ may be to the perceived wisdom of today's reasonable people, He is still the Son of God. The Gospels are still true.

Unfortunately, there are days when I do not live this truth to the extent that I can and ought to. I have my days where I play the Rich Young Man. I want union with Christ without his Cross placed upon my shoulders. Or rather, without my own. There are days I want to meet the Minimum Daily Requirement of Christianity. I'm sure I'm not alone.

Tom provides my reality check on such days. The heart of our Faith is relationship with Christ in Communion with his Body, the Church--the people of God. The heart of Relationship remains Love. Do I love God with all my heart, all my soul all my mind and all my strength; and my neighbor as myself?

In other words, Do I want to become perfect?

Do I?

Do we?