Confessions of a 40-Something (5) - You Fool! Three (3) Examples of Being One!

Fools are everywhere. Fools are anyone. Foolery is not limited to a certain segment or class of society, though, the media would have us think that certain people are fools and others are not. This light-hearted article is about how foolishness is a part of life and we should learn from it when we can.

Let's face it. Some of us will never learn because we are fools for life. Some of us are fools for life over a few things, while others are fools over everything. Let's get on with some foolishness.

This usually happens to teenagers but can victimize any person. When it all comes down to the nitty-gritty, we all want to belong somewhere. Gangs, fight clubs, knitting clubs, book clubs, churches, and a host of other organizations fulfill our need to belong. Some of that belonging can be good while others are definitely bad.

Being the butt of someone's joke is a way to belong to a group, but it is less effective for self-esteem when the others in the group esteem you as their whipping boy or girl. How is being the butt of a joke foolishness? It is not because the people are making fun of a person. It is because the person berated joins in the fun through emotional self-battery.

I just wanted to fit in.

It is easier for others to make sure you don't fit in, but stand out so that they can make fun of you! I was a teenager living in a small town. It did not help that I decided to follow new religious beliefs.

Word got out from me that I was a virgin. No boy wants to be poked fun at for being a virgin. Apparently, I did.

When I started attending church, I wanted to wear my virginity like a badge of honor--a positive thing. And it was until it wasn't.

For almost an hour, a group of my "friends" pommelled me emotionally for my choice, calling me the silliest things. Offended? Much, but I played the fool by laughing with them, though it was hurting.

Chastity was not a way for inclusion in this group as an equal since I made a choice that made me stand apart from the unchaste group members. Longing for inclusion I became the fool of the group, not accepted because I had to leave it anyway due to conflicts with my new faith.

I learned:

1. Some things are better-kept sacred to avoid negative attention.
2. It's hard to be hip and Christian simultaneously, hard, not impossible.

In each group of friends, there may be one or two who talk too much. In your group, it might be you if you cannot think of someone. Blabber Mouth may not even be a friend, but someone that you know from work, school, or other associations. Some of us cannot keep a secret, especially if we are told to keep it SECRET.

I was at a slumber party for boys!

Unconventional, I know, but it happened. Smallish for my age, I was 11 years old with a secret. The secret was I was about to lie to everybody in the house by telling the known blabbermouth a fake secret so that my real secret would stay hidden.

I told the Blabbermouth that I had wet dreams because I had started puberty. Now, any fool could look at me and tell that I was far from getting into manhood. I was a late bloomer and would not actually hit puberty until I was 14.

Of course, Blabbermouth told everyone and I feigned embarrassment until the mother of the house asked me a question. When I described it, she told us that there is no round wet spot left on the bed after a wet dream. She told me it was probably urine.

I died and went to boy-hell. She had found out my real secret. My bladder was weak and I still wet the bed! Of course, Blabbermouth boy helped me become known as Pissy Boy, though, I did not wet the bed that night.

I learned:

1. Keep my secrets, secret.
2. Know what you're talking about if you're using it in a lie.
3. Don't talk about "wet dreams" in front of someone's mom.

• Some things are better kept sacred to avoid being the butt of negative attention.
• Keep secrets, secret.

Reading in the New Testament, Jesus told the people that He blessed them to keep the blessing/healing to themselves. The most He counseled them to do is to show themselves to the priests at the Temple so that any who were healed of leprosy could be pronounced clean enough to be in the populous.

What did those people do? They told the world! That did not make them fools, no. They were happy to be normal again. The fools are the ones who think their faith makes them better than other humans when Jesus taught that God is no respecter of persons. Just like any good parent, God sends rain and sun to the good and the bad.

Nope. I refuse. I refuse to give a personal example of this, seeing as how what is listed should suffice for enough foolery.

The foolish mistake I made was to blabber on myself for being such a holy sanctified Christian. If Jesus did not go around talking about how holy He was during his mortal life, what makes it okay for me to do it? But, yeah. I used to think God loves Christians, my version of them, best. I relent, I will tell the embarrassing thing.

Serving as a missionary in South Africa I was having a hard time getting people to listen to me due to a particular group of Christians who actively taught people to fear my religion. All people said when I tried to share my faith was, "My pastor told me not to listen to you people."

Depressed about it, I went to my mission president and asked him if it was okay to pray that all the other churches get destroyed so that it will make missionary work easier. I was half kidding, only half.

"Yes it is," he said to my delight. "If you want to be destroyed right along with them." That was not to my delight.

He then went on about how God loves us all in every faith and how I should pray that people should follow their faiths' good principles because we need all the other churches 'cause God uses them to do things the others cannot do an so forth and so on.

I stopped that mode of thought. I used the egg on my face with some grits, bacon, and toast.

I Learned:

1. You ain't no better than anyone else.
2. God loves everybody.
3. Don't pray for churches to be destroyed, or you will be.

I never mentioned that the principles I learned were good ones. Social necessity warranted that I learn them so that I could survive until I was married! Think about your own foolishness and remember what you survived and how you survived it. If it is a good shareable story, write about it below in the "Share Your Foolishness Story" section or hub about it and we can link to each other.