Eco Catholic

The holy fool, or the fool as wise soul, is a figure in many wisdom traditions, including the Russian Orthodox spirituality tradition, the Sufis of Islam, Zen Buddhism, Christianity and the inheritors of the Hasidic movement of Judaism. Such fools amuse, confuse, sometimes speak in simile or circuitous riddles, are often ridiculed. They are trickster figures. They are, after all, intentionally ridiculous but can succeed by that very character in breaking through a crust of resistance or disbelief. Holy fools turn our spiritual traditions upside down and inside out -- just as Jesus' parables do -- so that we can more readily see the truth within them.

“There is an enigmatic quality to the fool’s cloak of madness or nonsense that provokes attention, response, reflection, as well as laughter. The fool's inherent humility, too, may loosen the defensive, ego-inflated character of those who make too much of themselves and thus lose touch with a deeper reality,” writes John Boettinger.

The great holy fool from the Sufis is Mullah Nasruddin. Here are some of the tales told about him:

I doubt if any of you readers are inherently cruel or approve of cruelty. I’m sure you would intervene if you saw someone being cruel to another person or to an animal. And if you did nothing out of cowardice, indifference, or selfishness—and you easily could have—I’m sure you would consider this wrong, a sin of omission. What if I were to tell you that you have just such a choice right now?

As I write this, billions of animals on U.S. factory farms are suffering physical and mental pain. Considered mere commodities and “things” to satisfy the palate of meat-loving Americans, they receive no humane treatment (no matter how much smooth-talking PR agents of the industry deny this). Never mind that they too are created in the image and likeness of God, that they feel pain just as much as we do, or that they suffer mental anguish over separation from their offspring or never being able to romp freely.

The White House has announced a "comprehensive plan" that dedicates $53 billion over the next six years to achieving the president's newly-minted goal of providing 80 percent of America with access to high speed rail within a generation. Details and an outline of the plan, announced by Vice President Biden, are available on the Treehugger blog.

An old hermit was once invited to visit the court of the most powerful king of those times.

"I envy such a saintly man, who is content with so little." said the ruler.

"I envy Your Majesty, who is content with even less than I," responded the hermit.

"How can you say such a thing, when this entire country belongs to me?" said the offended king.

"For precisely that reason. I have the music of the celestial spheres, I have the rivers and mountains of the whole world, I have the moon and the sun, because I have God in my soul. Your Majesty, on the other hand, has only this kingdom.”

The Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World report has been released for 2010. In the preface, Christopher Flavin, Worldwatch president, focuses on innovations in world agriculture over the last ten years, saying that these moves forward have been “an impressive success story.”

He writes: “Efforts to raise crop yields by investing in new agricultural technologies and infrastructure have met many of their immediate goals. Productivity has risen steadily in major grain producers such as Australia and the United States, while large areas of Asia, including China, have succeeded in raising yields and thereby reducing rural poverty and hunger.”

Another part of the story is that agriculture has advanced little in much of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where national governments and the international community have underinvested in agriculture over the past several decades. “The failure to advance agriculture in some of the world’s poorest regions has made it impossible for rural economies to develop, leaving hundreds of millions stuck in a cycle of poverty.”