All fools day - Happy Feast
Joseph Mattam, SJ
This is perhaps the one feast that most people in the world ought to celebrate, for majority of people in the world live foolish lives. Would any one but a fool do the kind things that most people do? Take some examples out of the thousands that are available:
1. Someone does something which affects me, but to remain angry, cut off relations and refuse to forgive that person is the most foolish thing to do, for what has happened has already happened and no one can change it, yet we hold on to it and suffer from that for weeks, months and years. One who refuses to forgive is the one who continues to suffer. Refusing to forgive is the most foolish thing we can do to ourselves. Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness, telling us to forgive seventy times seven is the only reasonable thing we can do, for the other is not under my control and what he/she wants to do is not in my control and anyway, what has happened has already happened and cannot be changed.
2. Who but fools will get angry and shout at the other when the other does/says something that one does not like? By getting angry and shouting at the other, one loses one’s peace of mind and the situation only worsens instead of improving?
3. Who but fools would fight with one’s own brothers or sisters for a little piece of land, a few hundred rupees, and kill one another?
4. Most people expect others to do what they think the other should do, and if s/he does not do it we become agitated, upset and unhappy. We can never get anybody to change his/her behaviour.
5. Most people spend a lot of time in their prayer telling God what God should do, instead of surrendering to the Mystery and recognizing the power of God within ourselves and take full responsibility for what should happen on earth.
6 Most countries spend their scare resources for creating weapons of mass destruction, fighting and destroying one another, without realizing that we can survive on this earth only if we all survive together. Destruction of one is also the destruction of others, as we are one human family.
7. Who but fools would do what we are doing to nature: litter allover, throw rubbish all over the earth, dump harmful waste in the rivers, seas, lakes, on the roads?
8 Who but fools will dump dead bodies and all types of dangerous waste, and ‘gods’ made of plaster or mud into the rivers and then spend millions of rupees for cleaning the rivers?
9. Who but fools allow stray dogs go around freely and bite and kill children and others?
10 Who but fools will let cows and other animals roam around the roads in large numbers causing accidents and inconvenience to everybody?
11. Who but fools give more importance to monkeys and other animals and allow them move freely all over and destroy so much of grains, fruits, plants when people do not have enough to eat?
12. Who but fools will build temples in the middle of the roads, causing inconvenience to all?
13. Who but fools will refuse give side to the over taking vehicle and obstinately remain on the fast lane, forgetting that one day s/he may want to overtake some vehicle?
14. Who but fools will use words to children that will do them permanent damage? Who but foolish parents will fight one another in front of their children?
15. Who but fools will eat all types of unhealthy junk food, drink poisonous drinks like Coca Cola and get sick, eat so much and put on too much weight and spend a lot of money for reducing the extra weight?
16. Who but fools will destroy themselves with over work with little rest and spend all the earnings on medicines and treatment which was caused by the foolish attitude with which we live?
17 Who but fools will worry about what cannot be changed and what is entirely out of our control, like our future after our death?
18. Who would but fools would waste their time and energy in trying to improve others and they themselves carry on with the very same thing that they blame others for and demand change? Who but fools try to carpet the whole world, instead of protecting their feet with slippers or shoes?
19. Who but fools will wage wars against one another knowing that in wars everybody is the loser and no one is the gainer?
20. Who but fools will allow minor children to work in factories and other production centres and refuse to let them have their childhood?
21. Who but fools will fight over religious matters, knowing that none has a monopoly on the Mystery which we call by different names?
22. Who but fools will drive carelessly or after drinks and cause accidents to themselves and to others?
23. Who but fools will destroy public property in
24. Who but fools will declare and insist on having a bundh when people have already been affected by a terror strike or a calamity? In
25. Who but fools will spend scarce resources for building churches, temples, mosque and other religious places when thousands of people do not have a house to line in?
26. Who but fools go for suicide attacks and destroy many innocent lives?
27. Who but fools will spit all over the place, walls, roads and spread germs all around?
28. Who but fools will adulterate food, medicines, etc. for the gain of a few rupees, causing destruction to so many hundreds of people?
29. Who but fools waste food when there are so many people without a meal a day?
30. Who but fools will have sex with anybody and spread AIDS?
This list is not exhaustive; there are thousands of other foolish things that most people do everyday. When will we who call ourselves “rational beings” become truly rational and behave in a rational manner?
