What A Fool Believes

Here’s the song, <click> for those of you who’ve never heard it

“What A Fool Believes” a song by the Doobie Brothers

He came from somewhere back in her long ago
The sentimental fool don’t see
Tryin’ hard to recreate
What had yet to be created once in her life
She musters a smile
For his nostalgic tale
Never coming near what he wanted to say
Only to realize
It never really was

She had a place in his life
He never made her think twice
As he rises to her apology
Anybody else would surely know
He’s watching her go

But what a fool believes he sees
No wise man has the power to reason away
What seems to be
Is always better than nothing
And nothing at all keeps sending him…

Somewhere back in her long ago
Where he can still believe there’s a place in her life
Someday, somewhere, she will return

She had a place in his life
He never made her think twice
As he rises to her apology
Anybody else would surely know
He’s watching her go

But what a fool believes he sees
No wise man has the power to reason away
What seems to be
Is always better than nothing
There’s nothing at all
But what a fool believes he sees…

What a Fool Believes

The line:
But what a fool believes he sees
No wise man has the power to reason away
What seems to be
Is always better than nothing
And nothing at all keeps sending him…

Brings to mind the ending of The Great Gatsby. Its only in reading the book that you can truly get the impact of these final words…

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter–tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning—- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

The Great Gatsby

“What A Fool Believes” is about the ability of us, as human beings, to continually believe in what we think we see, against all proofs otherwise. Only a woman, or a man, who has experienced a person who no matter what. . .

Any and all words are taken as an encouragement, that there is still hope… we hope our desire will come to fruition… and it’s a fool that believes it . . . The song is about a Fool who doesn’t realize that whatever chance he had with this woman… never actually came into being, never mind hoping that it can be rekindled.

Satan’s task is to keep us believing in our idea, our GREEN light… to use a God given ability to hope against hope… but when our hope is in a lie… that’s where the tragedy comes in. That’s why The Great Gatsby is such an incredible book.

The Green light symbolized Gatsby’s HOPE to go back in time and get Betsy for his wife, and then, once that was accomplished, to live the life he’d dreamt of having with her…

We learn during flashbacks that he had happened to meet her, they fell in love, and had plans, but he got called away to be a soldier in the war. Again, because of the war, they got out of touch, and she gave up waiting for him, and married another man. When he finally made it back, and learned what had happened, he didn’t give up. He just renewed his pursuit. He set about to get what he needed to win her back. Wealth… but the book explains that he was missing something else… and that’s why you need to read the book, cuz it takes so much longer to explain THAT missing piece.

…he never realized how hopeless it was all along… that he was missing the one ingredient, that he could never ever get to have, and that is the void, empty heart that Betsy, and those of her ilk, had… our story teller… the main character in the book, tells us that Gatsby just wasn’t like them. The reason he couldn’t fit in was because he had a heart, and they were heartless… it was a mismatch…

So also when we who are born in God’s image, who have a heart after God… cannot ever succeed in the world, because of the light of Glory within us… we cannot be depraved…. Because we have his spirit living within us… but we CAN strive endlessly against the current, each wave picking us up and dropping us back where we were…

Are you swimming toward the shore? Or toward an empty dream?

I pray that you will get sick and tired of the pattern, and turn to God in HOPE, because I know he waits there with open arms to greet you…