It is not as easy as it sounds to differentiate wise from foolish action, words and thoughts. Spiritual leaders like St Paul have said deep, spiritual wisdom is mistaken for foolishness by most people. How, then, can we recognise it when we see it?
Thanks to Wonder Woman0731 under Creative Commons.
Read today’s lesson from the first letter of St Paul to the new church in Corinth, chapter 3 and verses 18 - 23.
Reflection
“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight”
In the last few weeks, numerous examples of foolish thinking that might be called worldly wisdom have had an impact on our life together. The storage of explosive material in the middle of a large city; reliance on algorithms to decide exam grades; massive vote rigging to decide a presidential election.
No doubt you can think of more.
From a distance, we may point out how obviously foolish these things are. No doubt it did not seem so, in the planning stages.
Foolishness is endemic in the assumptions that drive the world’s economic systems, the racism and tribalism that dehumanise many, inequality and injustice, in our own poor choices that spoil our relationships. God sees this - can we learn to do so, too?
Another recurring spiritual idea is that children are born with a natural wisdom that gets clouded as we grow. You may like to read this reflection by Richard Rohr, which considers the relationship between a child’s wonder and the deepest kind of wisdom. Here is a quote:
“Wonder is our birthright. It comes easily in childhood—the feeling of watching dust motes dancing in sunlight, or climbing a tree to touch the sky, or falling asleep thinking about where the universe ends. If we are safe and nurtured enough to develop our capacity to wonder, we start to wonder about the people in our lives, too—their thoughts and experiences, their pain and joy, their wants and needs. We begin to sense that they are to themselves as vast and complex as we are to ourselves, their inner world as infinite as our own. In other words, we are seeing them as our equal. We are gaining information about how to love them. Wonder is the wellspring for love. . . .”
The ‘stranger’, other creature or growing thing is ‘a part of me I do not yet know’. Is this the essence of a wisdom that, for fearful creatures struggling to survive, can seem like foolishness?
Spend some time thinking, praying or meditating on what this might mean for you.
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One local charity helping people see how their own life is bound up with that of others is Hope for the Future - find out more here.
Closing prayer
O Great Love,
thank you for living and loving in us and through us.
May all that we do flow from our deep connection with you and all beings.
Help us become a community that vulnerably shares each other’s burdens and the weight of glory.
Listen to our hearts’ longings for the healing of our world.
[Feel free to add your own concerns.]
Knowing you are hearing us better than we are speaking,
we offer these prayers in all the holy names of God
Amen.