The Wisdom of Fools

"I prayed, and prudence was given me; I pleaded, and the spirit of wisdom came to me. I preferred her to scepter and throne, and deemed riches nothing in comparison with her, nor did I liken any priceless gem to her; because all gold, in view of her, is a little sand, and before her, silver is to be accounted mire. Beyond health and comeliness, I loved her, and I chose to have her, rather than the light, because the splendor of her never yields to sleep. Yet, all good things together came to me in her company, and countless riches at her hands." -- [Wisdom 7: 7-11].


Wisdom -- Is it in short supply today? Or, is Wisdom under-counted? Under-recognized, because we do not value Her enough to even discern Her presence?

This Scripture was written after the Israelites returned to the Promised Land after their Babylonian exile. Only, when the Israelites returned to Jerusalem, there was practically nothing left. Their Temple? -- gone. The city walls? -- gone. The houses of their prominent citizens? -- gone.

This verse in Wisdom was written to attempt to console the Israelites over their loss. This passage makes clear that, as much as the Israelites are devastated by the loss of their beloved Jerusalem -- scepter, throne, riches, priceless gems, gold, silver and splendor--  are of these are worthless, really:  merely "a little sand", "worthless mire".

What IS priceless, beyond any riches imaginable, is Wisdom.

Critics like to say that Christianity, and Catholicism in particular, are "conservative", set in their ways, the total opposite of counter-cultural.

But if you read these passages in Wisdom, Christians believe that wealth is mire. And gold is mere sand.  This belief is totally opposed to what anyone in the Western world would teach. You cannot get more radical than that.

All of those TV shows on the lives of the famous and fabulous? Pointless. All of the lives devoted to getting straight A's in school, and going on to work 80 hours per week, to accumulate the trappings of a wealthy lifestyle? Muck and mire.

And so, if we are not working feverishly to acquire more riches than the next guy, then what ARE we doing on this planet? It seems as if there are two kinds of people on this planet, Survivors-  those for whom life is a mad scramble for subsistence. Then, there are Acquirors, those for whom life is a mad scramble to amass way more than will they ever need.

Sooner or later, we will all be forced to ask ourselves the big questions. What is our purpose in life and where is our Wisdom?

NY Times Columnist David Brooks wrote about this in a piece on October 5, 2015. He said, "[We] feel a hunger to live meaningfully, but don't know the right questions to ask, the right vocabulary to use, the right place to look or even if there are ultimate answers to all."  We are losing our Wisdom.

We have also lost our cultural references. In schools, we teach students how to master Tests that are gateways to university and beyond. The result: All we have taught them is how to test well.

 Years ago, I went on a field trip with my son when he was in kindergarten. The kids on the hay ride were insisting that pumpkins grow on trees.  Then, when school was closed for Good Friday, students were asking, "What was Good Friday and what was 'good' about it?" In middle school, my son and his classmates read the Alice Walker short story, "Flowers."  When the narrative gets to the part about some bones lying in the woods next to a knotted rope, some of the kids insisted that the bones were from a dog on a leash. No one made the connection about a lynching.

The lack of Wisdom and cultural references is more than a mere aberrational, collective "blind spot". This deficit is dangerous. In a recent article, [WS Journal, 10/3/15], Lord Jonathan Sacks, former chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth, said that the rise of Islamic State caught the West unprepared, but the "unpreparedness was not accidental."

Lord Sacks goes on to say, "Ever since the rise of modern Science, intellectuals have been convinced that Faith is in intensive care, about to die. . . When secular revolutions fail, we should know by now that we can expect religious counterrevolutions. Science, technology, the free market, and the liberal democratic state have enabled us to reach unprecedented achievements in knowledge, freedom, life expectancy and affluence. They are among the greatest achievements of human civilization and are to be defended and cherished."

"But, they do not answer the three questions that every reflective individual will ask at some point in his or her life: Who am I? Why am I here? How then, shall I live?"

"The result is that the 21st Century has left us with a maximum of choice and a minimum of meaning.. Religion has returned [and must return] because it is hard to live without meaning. That is why no society has survived for long without a religion."



We have, as a modern society, largely abandoned Religion; and Religion has become instead a brutish, narcissistic, ravaging substitute for what passes as Wisdom, shockingly carried out in the name of the Divine. . .  Heaven help us.

Into any deep vacuum, Darkness falls. Someone once said, "Teach your children WHO God is, . . before the world teaches him what God isn't."

Teach your children what really matters, the strengths and wisdom of the heart, the moral vocabulary to discern a life for the good, an abiding Faith in One much larger than ourselves.




[Related Postings: "Prayer For Wisdom", July 23, 2011.]

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