The Holy Fool

by Catherine | Apr 22, 2015 | Faith

Philip and I have been fans of the PBS show “Call the Midwife” since it started airing a few years ago.  When I saw in the beginning credits that the show is based off of the memoirs of Jennifer Worth, I knew I’d love reading them.  Last month, I finally got around to reading the first of Jennifer’s three books based on her years of service as a midwife in 1950’s London’s East End slums alongside the Anglican nuns she lived with in Nonnatus House.

Perhaps my favorite story from the memoirs is about Winnie and Ted.  Winnie was a WWII widow and mother of 3.  (Remember, this is 1950’s London.)  To make ends meet, she worked in the paper shop where Ted was a frequent customer.  He took a liking to her and starting sticking around longer than it took him to make his purchases.  One day, they learned in conversation that they had both lost their spouses.  Eventually, Ted asked Winnie out, and they began dating.  Less than a year later, he proposed marriage.  Winnie reluctantly accepted after deliberating about it for a week.  She knew she wasn’t in love with Ted.  He was much older and they didn’t have much chemistry.  Nonetheless, she knew he was a kind man who would treat her well and would take good care of her children.  Ted retired shortly thereafter, and Winnie continued her work at the paper shop part-time because she enjoyed it so much.

A few years later at 44, Winnie’s periods stopped, and she assumed she was beginning menopause.  Six months later, she noticed she was putting on weight, and Ted found a hard lump in her stomach.  He feared for the worst since he had lost his wife to cancer.  Both were shocked to hear the news that Winnie was pregnant and likely near her due date.

“Perhaps it was buying the pram and little white sheets that affected Ted so profoundly.  Overnight he changed from a bemused and bewildered elderly man to an intensely excited and fiercely proud father-to-be.”

In an era when fathers had little to nothing to do with labor and delivery, Ted was a gem.  He read books on childbirth, assembled all of the necessary things for a home birth, and coached Win through labor.  In addition, he played gracious hostess to Jennifer and the doctor by offering them meals or whatever they needed during the home birth.

Per protocol, Ted was not in the room during the actual delivery.  Eventually, the much-anticipated little baby arrived, and Jenny noticed right away that he was black.  Obviously, this meant that Ted was not the father.  Everyone in the delivery room remained silent, wondering what on earth Ted was going to do or say.  The doctor and Jenny finished the third stage and helped to clean up Win and the baby before inviting Ted into the bedroom.  Winnie seemed to expect the worst.  “I reckons as ‘ow we’d best get it over wiv.”

When Jenny told him that a beautiful baby boy had been born and that he could go up to see him, he bounded up the stairs like a child on Christmas morning.  He went into the room, kissed Winnie and the baby, and proclaimed, “This is the proudest and happiest day of my life.”  Everyone remained silent when he asked to hold the baby.  They assumed he hadn’t yet realized that he wasn’t the father.  Ted cradled the baby in his arms and examined all of his beautiful little features.  “Then he looked up with a beatific smile, ‘Well, I don’t reckon to know much about babies, but I can see as how this is the most beautiful in the world.  What’s we going to call him, luv?'”  Winnie told Ted that he could name him, so Ted did what proud fathers of his era did–he gave that little baby his name.  “We’ll call ‘I’m Edward, then.  It’s a good ol’ family name.  Me dad’s an’ granddad’s.  He’s my son Ted.”

After leaving the three in the room, the doctor hypothesized that perhaps Ted hadn’t noticed that the baby was black because the pigmentation tends to darken over time.  Yet, time went by, and Ted never seemed to notice.  Winnie went back to work, and Ted took care of his son at home.  Ted took him everywhere with him and proudly introduced him as “my son Ted.”  Of course, neighbors and those they met gossiped about Ted Jr. and called Ted Sr. a fool.  Jenny wrote that she had a different theory.

“In the Russian Orthodox Church there is the concept of the Holy Fool.  It means someone who is a fool to the ways of the world, but wise to the ways of God.”

Jenny thinks that Ted knew from the instant he laid eyes on his son that he wasn’t the father.  Yet, he knew what would be in store for that little boy if he hadn’t claimed him as his own.  “Perhaps, as he held the baby, he realized that any such suggestion could shatter his whole happiness…Perhaps an angel’s voice told him that any questions were best left unasked and unanswered.  And so he decided upon the most unexpected, and yet the simplest course of all.  He chose to be such a Fool that he couldn’t see the obvious.”

Oh, my heart!

Isn’t that such a beautiful story?  I once heard a priest say, “The best gift you can give your spouse is a bad memory.”  That little nugget makes me think of Ted.  He is the epitome of spousal mercy and unconditional love.  There was no room for score-keeping or nagging or expectations for his spouse to please him.  There was just love–and an abundance of it.  He viewed himself as blessed to be married at all and happy to be father to the child who came to him, regardless of the circumstances.

Ted makes me think of St. Joseph.  Like Ted, St. Joseph lived in an era unwilling to accept extra-marital relations.  Both men could have easily abandoned their wives, leaving them and their pre-born children to fend for themselves and become social outcasts.  Obviously, St. Joseph’s son was immaculately conceived as the Son of God and was NOT the product of an extra-marital affair, but I imagine they must have borne the same scorn from neighbors and town gossips.  Yet, both men welcomed their sons with heroic love and generosity.

How many times have I been put into a situation when I could have played the Holy Fool, especially with my spouse?  Do I allow my pride to cloud my judgement and insist on “winning”?  Or, am I like Ted, taking the longview, realizing that a short-lived victory is made sour by the pain I’m inflicting on my loved one?  How can I better play the Holy Fool in my day-to-day life?  Do you have a story of a Holy Fool?