Topic: The Fool
Event: April Fool service at First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque, Sunday April 2 2017
Date: Friday 03/09/17
Participants: Andrew Fearnside, Kathryn Fearnside, Arne Gulerud, Kristine Satterlee, all members of First Unitarian of Albuquerque’s Worship Arts Committee.

Our conversation fleshed out a shared framework for the world of the Fool. Dragsters that explode rather than race! Broken robots! Rube Goldberg machines! Pinwheels aflame! Really bad ideas failing spectacularly. A special flavor of broken that connects us with infinity while respecting our fundamental finitude.

A handful of images emerged from the process:
– a renewed version of a life-sized Fool marionette, animated by Arne’s electronic wizardry
– a juggling Fool
– Don Quixote, his mount Rocinante, and a windmill
– A Fool stepping off a cliff, with animated dog

Tonight, the Worship Committee meets to discuss the Fool’s service. The plan is to move, through conversation, from emerging images to grounded plans for things to make. This coming Friday, Arne and I will start animating the Fools we cook up. 

Arne is an engineer and maker. His maker site, a collaboration with Kristin: https://tinkertable.wordpress.com/

Kristin is a writer, blogger and chef. Her foodie site: http://unfussyepicure.com/

I’d like to thank Tomie De Paola for his lifetime of creative work. His work provided my early life with endless inspiration. In particular, I return to my copy of his profound retelling of The Clown of God (1978) over and over for its uncanny ability to reconnect me with everything.