It tickles me that there’s a day set aside for foolishness. April Fool’s Day is a favorite tradition in my family. Or, if you asked my (now-grown-up) boys, it might be more correct to say it’s a favorite tradition for me. Every year, I make it a point to see what I can get someone to fall for.
One year, my husband was flattered that I had submitted his name to be a contestant on an IPTV “Chopped”-style competition for local chefs, and I had just gotten word that he was “in.” My oldest son thought that was amazing, too, and was so proud of his dad. Until I told them it was an April Fool.
One year my husband fell for news of the (untrue) demise of the webcam eagle that so many of us were then watching. One of my sons believed me one year when I told him that his grandmother had won the lottery and wanted to take us all to Hawaii. (He didn’t know that she was an earnest anti-gambler!)
I do have some rules. There is to be no fooling about death, sickness, babies, or job loss. (Well, there was that one year when I told our teenage boys on April 1 that I had a call from my district superintendent and that we were being moved.) I won’t tell someone they’re in danger, or I am. But most other things are fair game.
I think I crossed a line last year when I told a co-worker, during his vacation over April 1, that we had had some misconduct in the chapel (at the prison) and his guitar got smashed to smithereens. I didn’t understand just how tender a thing a guitar is to its owner. He forgave me, but barely. (And when I tried to give him “some good (?) / surprising news” this morning, he totally saw through it!)
This year my favorite prank was to tell some friends that I ran across an invitation from Brene Brown’s new podcast where she was looking for stories of groups and or relationships that demonstrate honesty, vulnerability and mutual support in important ways. I told these friends (in a couple of different configurations) that I had submitted our story and this morning I got a call from the producer wanting to feature us in the podcast! Boy, were they excited!
I may be needing to find some new friends after they read this blog.
That story reflects some aspects of this “foolery” that help make it believable. It always helps if it’s timely and specific, and within the realm of realism. If you can trigger someone’s emotions (happy or sad ones), they’ll be so busy experiencing them that they’ll forget to wonder if it could possibly be true! It’s even better if it’s flattering and has the potential to involve the person in something they’d love to do.
And, of course, it helps if people believe you to be a totally trustworthy person. That happens to be pretty true for me. (So long as it’s not April Fool’s Day!) (Please forgive me, dear ones!)
I’ve been thinking that if our current situation around Coronavirus had sprung upon us on April 1, it would totally feel like an April Fool’s prank. And not a very good one. I mean, imagine someone saying to you, all of a sudden, today:
All the schools and bars and restaurants are closed, effective immediately, and you’re to stay at home if you can and not have contact beyond your immediate family. School is cancelled until further notice, so your kids will be home with you, bored stiff. Churches can’t meet, nor classes, nor 12-step program groups–unless they do it online. Don’t travel; meet online instead. Playgrounds are off limits, and swimming pools, and gyms, and if you must buy groceries, you might want to wear a mask and definitely keep a 6-foot distance between you and any other human being. And, BTW, there won’t be any toilet paper for the immediate future, so start improvising.
Only if you’re an essential worker–especially in the healthcare field–everything I just said doesn’t apply to you because we need you no matter what.
We’d say, right. And go about our business.
It doesn’t have any of the good qualities of a good prank. It’s specific and immediate, but it’s beyond anything that feels remotely possible. It’s totally not flattering, and it doesn’t sound like it gets us anywhere we are wanting to get to.
Maybe that’s why so many people are treating it as a prank, of sorts, even though it didn’t begin on April Fool’s Day. Politics aside, it’s inconvenient, it’s hard on the economy, and we don’t want to do it.
Of course there’s that pesky thing about death. I said that’s one of my cardinal rules about April Fool’s. Never tease about that. This foolishness that might have felt like a prank includes a strenuous warning that death is on the line. That our decision whether to live within the rules–now extended to April 30–could mean the difference between life and death to people in New York and New Orleans, and to people in our state, and our county, and to people we love and wish we could worship with, and our families, and our own selves.
And to healthcare workers, everywhere.
Because of course it’s not a prank. And as foolish as it sounds for each and every one of us (except the few-and-far-between essential workers) to stay put and cancel everything, it’s the season we’re in, for now, and probably for awhile yet. This time of foolishness isn’t optional, actually.
With my Foolish Church theme, I find myself frequently quoting the apostle Paul in his words about God’s foolishness, in 1 Corinthians 1.18-31. He wasn’t talking about our current challenges, but these words seem apt in this moment:
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
1 Cor 1.20
Whatever we thought was “wise” or “foolish” before the pandemic hit us, however we might have prioritized the economy or our comforts, we’re in a different time now. Call it foolishness if you like, and prank your friends with the time remaining in this precious day of April Fool’s. But then settle in, friends, and yield to what we’re being called to do for now. Stay home. Take every precaution, as if you yourself had the virus. Do it for those you already love, and for those God calls us to foolishly love.
Leave a Reply