Wisdom…this deep element of God we sometimes call the Holy Spirit, speaks in Proverbs:“I was daily [God’s] delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race (Proverbs 8:30b-31).
Humans as Wisdom’s delight: That must have been a time before we figured out how to open a hole in the ozone layer 25 miles up, before we turned atoms into poison eternal, and opened up an artesian oil well a mile down in the Gulf of Mexico.As Roland McGregor put it, “Clever we are; wise are aren’t.”[1]
If environmental destruction, atomic danger and oil spills aren’t enough, I heard just this last week of a new diagnosis: A.A.A.D.D. which stands for, “Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.”A description of this malady follows, and reads like a diary or journal entry.
“I decide to wash the car.I start toward the garage and notice the mail on the table.Ok I’m going to wash the car but first I have to go through the mail.I lay the car keys down on the desk, I discard the junk mail and notice the trash can is full.Alright I’ll just put the bills on my desk and take the trash out.But since I’m going to be near the mailbox anyway I’ll pay these bills first.Where’s the checkbook?Oh, only one check left.My extra checks are there in the desk.Oh, there’s the Coke I was drinking.I’m going to look for those extra checks, but first I’m going to move this coke further away from the computer, or maybe I’ll just pop it into the refrigerator to keep it cold for a while.I head towards the kitchen and my flowers catch my eye.They need some water.I set the coke on the counter and Oh… there, my glasses.I’ve been looking for them all morning.I’d better put them away first.I fill the container with water and head for the flower pots.Oh, someone left the TV remote in the kitchen.We’ll never think to look in the kitchen tonight when we want to watch TV so I’m going to put it back in the family room where it belongs.I splash some water into the pots and onto the floor.I throw the remote onto a soft cushion on the sofa and I head back down the hall, trying to remember what it was I was going to do.At the end of the day the car’s not washed, the bills not paid, the coke is sitting on the kitchen counter, the flowers are half watered, the checkbook only has one check in it, and I can’t find my car keys.When I try to figure out what I did today I’m baffled because I know I was busy all day.”[2]
Perhaps we aren’t even all that clever after all.On this Trinity Sunday, after an introduction like that, I’m a little too intimidated to take on explaining the mystery of the Trinity; I’m afraid I may score pretty high on the test for A.A.A.D.D.So let’s think together about something a little less daunting and ethereal—Wisdom (that’s a joke by the way).
Wisdom.The Book of Proverbs focuses upon Wisdom or Sophia—that part of God that patterned the universe and infuses it—dances within it—delights in it.Sometimes we link Wisdom or Sophia with the Holy Spirit.Other times we associate it with the Logos—the divine ordering principle that the Gospel writer John talks about when he says, “In the Beginning was the Word…”
So what does this ancient name for part of God have to do with us?It is my sense that there is some deep wisdom to paying attention to the Wisdom of God as we go about our lives.Clever we are; wise we aren’t, and I believe we are called to pay attention to this Wisdom within.It is God’s gift to us, and if we hope to get out of this world alive, together, we will need the salvation that real Wisdom can offer.
Proverbs tells us some things about Wisdom.First of all, it is offered to all: “…My cry is to all that live.”Now before you yawn at that and say of course, consider it.God’s wisdom is available, present to all who live—all people.Even Presbyterians, Baptists, Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, those who don’t believe in anything and those who live in Wisconsin.God is revealed beyond the narrow scope of the church and the Bible.That is why Lady Wisdom is mentioned as being “on the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads…beside the gate.”These are the equivalents of the supermarket, the courthouse, the schools, and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.The point is clear: God is revealed in nature, in science, in philosophy, in simple human reason.St. Paul argued that the gentiles who had never heard of God should have figured it out with this knowledge.As John Calvin put it:
“Wherever you cast your eyes, there is no spot in the universe wherein you cannot discern at least some sparks of his glory.You cannot in one glance survey the most vast and beautiful system of the universe, in its wide expanse, without being completely overwhelmed by the boundless force of it brightness.”[3]
The second thing Proverbs tells us about Wisdom is that her work with God is from the beginning of time and is imbedded everywhere in creation—thus the revelation we find within it.“The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1).
Wisdom’s fingerprints, blueprints, are all over creation, including ourselves.This is the Word / Logos / divine ordering principle John speaks about.
Our own clever knowledge will only take us so far.Our intellectual reasoning reaches a limit.Science can only show us a relatively narrow spectrum of knowledge (useful yes, in this sphere, but limited).There is another way of knowing and we call that special revelation. We see it most clearly in Jesus Christ, who revealed the heart of God and the intention of human life.Jesus Christ helps us to recognize those fingerprints of God in the mundane of our lives.
But beyond that even, there is another way of knowing, and it involves taking seriously the wisdom within us.Jesus said, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…”
We all have a measure of this God-wisdom within us.Some sense it as intuition, others life experience, others a perspective and insight deep within or underneath our consciousness.It is hard to nail down and define, but we know it is there and we’ve all experienced something of it.This is a way of knowing that is beyond the conventional categories of thought and reasoning.Women don’t have the corner on the market on this—nor is it reserved only for those who have a superior intellect or are advanced in years.Children have a window into this wisdom as clear as any senior citizen.We’ve come to associate wisdom with age, but I believe we’ve got a choice when it comes to this type of knowing.To gain wisdom one must be open, responsive to an inner voice.Hopefully, the older we get, the more we’ve heard this voice, listened to it, trusted it, built our lives upon its truth.But as we all know, not all older persons are wise.
We have in our souls this Wisdom—sometimes we talk about it as God’s Holy Spirit.Do we listen to it?When you know something to be true—even if you don’t know how you know it—do you pay attention to that?Are you open to God’s inner voice of wisdom speaking in your soul?Martha beck experienced it and trusted it enough to follow it.
Jesus talked about the sin against the Holy Spirit (Mt. 12:31-32) as being the only one that is unforgiveable.One way to read that is to say that if we don’t listen to the deep truth within our souls, there is no returning from the disastrous consequences.
It is our responsibility to be in touch with God’s Spirit-wisdom within our souls and respond to it.
Cynthia Bourgeault writes about an experience she had as a child in which this deep knowing dawned upon her.When she was about twelve years old she lived next to a family who had four children who became good playmates.In the fall of her sixth grade, the neighbor boy Dan Hoopes’ kidneys began to fail—gradually at first, then with alarming rapidity.He went to the hospital via ambulance and went immediately to the Intensive Care Unit.Not long after this, her parents sat her down and told her that Dan was dying.She had grown up in a Quaker school, which valued silence and the inner life.Her family was Christian Scientist, believing that illness was an illusion, a fallacy of thinking and knowing—and this threw her into a crisis.How could this be happening?With her head swirling she slipped outside and took refuge in the park across the street.It was a snowy evening in November or December.She raged at God, “What’s wrong here?Is there something wrong with me or with you?Why isn’t this working?How can this happen?”
She writes about the experience:
All of a sudden I felt myself suffused in golden light, very much like I’d experienced in those Quaker meetings, and I heard a voice distinctly saying, ‘Shhh.Dan will die…and all will be well.”While I certainly couldn’t understand the message itself, I understood that warm, golden light and somehow relaxed and rested.I discovered in that moment that there was something in me that knew.It didn’t know what it knew, exactly, but it knew that it knew.Deeper than all the precepts that had been drilled into me in my childhood religious training, it simply recognized the voice of truth when it heard it and let go into the presence.[4]
We can fine-tune the ear of our souls to listen to this voice.Prayer, silence, meditation, spiritual practices all sharpen our ability to tap into this wisdom.But it does take consent on our part…openness.
We can ponder with our intellects and reasoning all the mysteries of the Trinity and not get very far.But there is another way of knowing—deep within us.Let us trust this inner wisdom voice of God.Let us be open to it, listen to it, live into the synergy of life it provides. Clever we are; wise we aren’t.This spiritual work is vital for the salvation of the planet I believe.We must tap into the wisdom God provides and bring it forward into our treatment of ourselves, each other, and God’s creation.
[1] Thanks to Rolland McGregor, McGregorPage #715, Trinity Sunday, 5/30/10
