Thoughts on humility and love, from "Ted Lasso, Holy Fool" in the NYT by Tish Harrison Warren:

The holy fool, or yurodivy (also spelled iurodivyi), is a well-known, though controversial, character in Russian Orthodox spirituality. In his book “Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond,” the historian Sergey A. Ivanov writes that in the Orthodox tradition the term designates “a person who feigns insanity, pretends to be silly, or who provokes shock or outrage by his deliberate unruliness.” In other words, the holy fool is a person who flouts social conventions to demonstrate allegiance to God. Holy fools dwell in ordinary, secular life, but they approach it with completely different values. Rejecting respectability and embracing humility and love, holy fools are so profoundly out of step with the broader world that they appear to be ridiculous or even insane and often invite ridicule. And yet, they teach the rest of us how to live.

and

... The so-called foolishness of holy fools is tethered to their spiritual insight. They offer a change in perspective. What appears “normal” and “successful” in the world is revealed by the fool to be hollow, vain and pointless. What appears foolish, it turns out, is the true path of flourishing. Above all, a holy fool is an icon for radical humility. ...

and

... Holy fools are marked by this sort of opulent, irrational, prodigality of grace. As Dostoyevsky sketched out the main character of “The Idiot,” Prince Myshkin, perhaps the most famous holy fool in literature, he wrote: “His way of looking at the world: He forgives everything, sees reasons for everything, does not recognize that any sin is unforgivable.”

(cf Hanson on Humility (2013-03-28), Mantra - Love, Simplicity, Humility (2016-03-29), ...) - ^z - 2023-05-02