The Fortunate Fool

"Let no man decieve himself. If any man among you seemth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.

And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.

Therefor let no man glory in men."

1Cor 3:18-21 (KJV)

Thank God that He would rather me be a fool for God than wise!! I am a fool, the archetype of a imprudent man, reckless. My existence upon the world is marked time and time again by great acts of thoughtlessness. Take my word for it; if you had known me in my youth, when I was but a pup before Jesus found me, you would most certainly agree. Indeed, I am still a fool; many things I do though with good intentions, never seem to be done with any degree of wisdom.

Take for example a thing I did a long time ago: it was a moment in the dark, turbulent history from whence my person had been shaped, a night to remember even if I never wanted to. During the summer of my Eleventh year, when school was about to end, there is what's known as a traditional Muck-Up Day, usually played out to its frightfully chaotic conclusion by Twelth year students making the best of their last days of secondary education. I on the other hand, was just a junior compared with them, but most of my friends back then had been in Year 12. So there I was following them through in their plan to raid a sister school. The plan had been laid down two months beforehand, and all eight of us had a part in it.

Just a brief reprieve from the main narrative, a little background about my school and the types that I had generally gravitated towards. It is a local boy's college, Catholic, and generally very larrikin Austra'ian character. Although not a school famous for young punks and delinquents, there are still a very prevalent sub-culture of gangs and drug-users. My year level was by far the 'cleanest', but the year above mine was by far one of the worst (strange dynamic by any measure). In my final three years at this school, I had became embroiled in this sub-culture, and naturally gravitated towards these older guys who seem to share my mood and temperament. My school has an all-girls sister school also in the suburbs not far away (by the standards of suburban living: about 10 minutes drive away from my school).

Now the plan is in motion, and the long awaited day has come. Two car load of us went to the appointed place with the equipment. These included a crowbar (of sorts), meshwire cutter, and a bag of bricks. It was about mid-evening, about 8 or 9, and the road around the school was empty and quiet. I remember hearing a dog barking somewhere in the background, almost as if warning me not to go ahead. The air stung my eyes and nose from the sheer dryness and the days heat was rising from the asphalt pavement. All of us was still wearing our school uniform as we had not gone home - it was muck-up day.

We moved in two groups, the first carrying the stuff to break into the school grounds itself, and the second carried the bricks. What we were intending to do was not attempted before, nor ever had been attempted again (I don't mean to sound like we were so COOL in doing this, but that was the initial reason why we did it). I moved with the first group, and we cut through the meshwire fence with ease. We made a hole big enough for all of us to crawl through, and helped pull the bag of bricks in as well. Once again we set off for our objective; one of the larger computer labs at this school.

By now the last rays of sunlight were disappearing over the horizon, and the shadows grew long and thick. But we were all elated from the adreneline, and were shaking from the thrill of the 'mission'. We all felt like commandoes doing some covert op in foreign territory. We made our way through the school grounds quickly and quietly, without making too much noise, though we were excitedly whispering to each other and goading each other on. By the time we reached the computer lab, we were all so high on the adreneline, the pot that we were smoking, and the beer we were guzzling down, we all broke in the windows with our bricks instead of using the crowbar to force the door in. Instead of taking a few computers and replacing them with a brick as a joke (most things done during muck-up day were done in the name of a joke - though not always funny for everyone), we ended up trashing ALL the computers with the bricks. The extent of damage was later estimated to be in the tens of thousands of dollars.

We were there for an unknown amount of time, none of us could remember; all I can remember, is that one of us heard the siren of a police car from afar off, and shouting from outside the lab. We broke into a run, abandoning everything, and made for our cars. I saw no one, no security guard, no police, until we reached the hole in the fence where we broke in. I fled on foot, not wanting to get into the car, but some of my friends went in and were stopped by the police car not far down the road. One friend fled with me, his name shall be Mike just for the sake of privacy, and we ran as far as we could, before jumping into someone's yard and hiding amongst the bushes. We saw the police car go by once, and its only until it was close to midnight were we confident enough to venture back out onto the street. We found our way to another friend's house (one who did not participate) and bunked there for the night.

Mike and I did not find out that our friends had all been arrested and given a very harsh warning before being released until the next day at school. To this day, no authorities found out about me and Mike's role in all of this, and apparently my friends did not say our names either. Indeed, at the time we counted ourselves lucky, and thanked the friends for not dobbing us in, to which one of them said "What are you talking about, they never asked!". I know not how this should be so, but now I look back, all I could say is that there was a moment when God really did something for me, though I did not acknowledge Him, let alone gave Him gratitude.

So indeed, I was a fool. And still I am a fool, with one added difference: I am a fool for God, and as Adrian shared during Easter camp, let me be a fool for God all the days of my life.