The Kingdom of Fools

The Pearl of Great Price, engraving by John Everett Millais (1864)

Into the fertile fields committed to the harvest wheat and tares are allowed to grow together

And the kingdom of heaven grows from the inconspicuous seed into the noxious bush

Making a mockery of the cedars of Lebanon or the towering cypress and majestic oaks

It bears no fruit and yet it grows resiliently much to the dismay of those who would cut it down

It is a foolish kingdom where a woman contaminates fifty pounds of flour with unclean leaven

Making that which could last throughout the year begin to mold and decay within a period of days

Perhaps only a kingdom filled with gluttons and tax collectors and sinners would merit

Such a wasteful exuberance, an amnesia of common sense and self-preservation

Only in a place where the harvest is thirty fold, or sixty fold or a hundred fold

Would such a feast be possible and such a kingdom endure for more than a fortnight

This scandalous kingdom where one finds what others have missed and to one’s profit

One goes to procure the field where the hidden treasure lays concealed from the world’s eyes

Where all common sense goes out the window to acquire a pearl of exceeding size

Laying aside the needs of the day and the needs of the future to acquire the one thing

The precious result of a long lasting irritant surrounded by the excretions of the fearful mollusk

And perhaps this foolish kingdom is less about some distant and unseen harvest where

Wheat is separated from weed and good fish from bad and fires and barns and markets are fed

But about the presence of the kingdom in the midst of all kinds of fish caught in the net

Where treasures new and old are brought out and put in the service of this crazy dream

And in the midst of the world which holds on with a death grip anxious for some feared future

The insane generosity and abundant belief begins to shape the lives and actions of the servants

Caught up in the inauguration of the kingdom of fools, disciples of a lord of foolish grace

And rather than being consumed by what to include and to exclude they learn to join the banquet

And to be a part of the kingdom that emerges slowly and patiently in their midst

Neil White, 2014

Sign of the Rose