April 1. I sometimes worry that the title "All Fools Day" is a trifle over-general and unspecific. Perhaps we should rename today Dawkins Day, in perpetuam rei memoriam, as Roman Pontiffs put it.
I do hope you won't forget the Dawker's memorable description (see my heading) of our Holy Father. There is so much there - as the great Fr Zed would put it - to drill into.
Trousers, as I understand it, irrupted upon the scene when the Barbarians invaded the decaying Roman Imperium. We clergy, when properly clad, have never quite reconciled ourselves to this nasty innovation. It's not only us, however. In the Middle East as in very many parts of the world, the traditional dress for all men no less than for women is frockish. Trousers only marched in when Western Imperialism planted its economic and military feet around the globe. And today, trousers are a symbol of Western Cultural Imperialism; whether worn by male bankers or by abortifacient women flocking to International Conferences on Reproductive Health Care, or whatever it's called.
Tear off your Trousers; on to the bonfire with them. You know it makes sense. Destroy this symbol of the Vandals and the Goths, and of those who transplanted the deathly values of the 'Enlightenment' into country after country, continent after continent. And if this seems a dauntingly large enterprise, well, as Fr Zed (how that man has left his mark upon us all) so wisely puts it, Brick By Brick. We could begin with something really quite modest and specific; as a sort of proleptic synecdoche, we could debag the Dawker.
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If some pedant comments that the Vandals didn't really wear trousers, I shall delete him. After all, this is April 1, and, like the Dawker, I'm in no mood for facts or logic.
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5 comments:
Do you think one of your correspondents could design Happy Dawkins Day Cards?
Off topic, father, but could you or one of your colleagues tell me why the infinitive in the phrase 'Laetare, Jerusalem...' is translated as the imperative - 'Rejoice O Jerusalem...'
The only reason I can think of is that there is an implied Volete by analogy with the negative imperative
Nolite tangere - "Don't touch!"
Imperative of a deponent verb!
April Fools' Day is, of course, the festal day of the atheists. Remember the psalmist: "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God."
Thanks Father. Should have known that, but my O-level Latin is too far behind me!
Ian+. Good point. A similar thought has been bouncing around my mind all day.
Humour is probably the best counterattack against atheists.
They don't have any humour, alas...
Talk about old curmudgeons! (What they think to mock in the Pope, who actually seems quite young for his age, is actually more true of themselves.)
All this reminds me of the joke about another humorless regiment:
Q: "How many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?"
A: "That's not funny! How DARE you mock wimmin!" [etc. ad nauseam]
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