(Now and Then) There's a Fool Such as I

Andy Crouch has written a book called The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in its Proper Place.  The book is structured around ten commitments for what I would call a critical appreciation for technology, and ordering it toward Christian flourishing.

His first commitment is about how we learn wisdom in our families.  But, along the way, being part of a family shows us what fools we are:

"Two great things happen in families - at least, families at their best.  For one, we discover what fools we are.  No matter how big your house, it's not big enough to hide your foolishness from people who live with you day after day.  We misunderstand each other, we misunderstand ourselves, and we certainly misunderstand God (when we remember him at all).  In our families we see the consequences of all that misunderstanding.  Our busyness, our laziness, our sullenness, our short tempers, our avoidance of conflict, our boiling-over conflicts - living in a family is one long education in just how foolish we can be, children and adults alike.

"And yet a second amazing thing happens in families at their best.  Our foolishness is seen and forgiven, and it is also seen and loved.  As the British writer G.K. Chesterton put it in his book Charles Dickens, this is the secret of "ordinary and happy marriage": "A man and a woman cannot live together without having against each other a kind of everlasting joke.  Each has discovered that the other is a fool, but a great fool.  This largeness, this grossness and gorgeousness of folly is the thing which we all find about those with whom we are in intimate contact; and it is the one enduring basis of affection, and even of respect." (Crouch, 53-54)

Occasionally, I feel obliged to remind people that though I may seem fairly serious in public, in my own home, I'm quite ridiculous.  It's often struck me that people often say the same thing about themselves in response. Maybe we've all experienced what Crouch is talking about.  Some of us may be more large, gross and gorgeous (!) fools than others!  But at least we can know this with great affection and even respect.