I have a friend. At least I think that I do. She and I seem to flit in and out of one another's lives from time to time. She has a deep wisdom that has been forged over time. It has been forged in experience as well as knowledge--the kind that is gained through reading and handed on from generation to generation.
Wisdom is something that is hard to measure. It's is a treasure. But treasures can become diminished if they cannot be rightly (and lightly) carried. On the one hand, it is good to be wise and wisdom is one of those things that carries you, especially in those more difficult stretches. However, it can also feel like a burden. Like a backpack that you take with you even when you are going on a short hike. Like a reliable backpack, experience and knowledge are not easily set aside, even in moments of rest. But that can be cumbersome at times, a bit like bringing an encyclopedia to book club.
Sometimes we need to just be. Just sit and laugh and enjoy the moment. This too is wisdom, though wisdom of a different kind, I think.
Advent is a season of preparation. The wise (like the wise men) follow the star. Yet, when they arrive, they find a very modest scene. They set down their gifts and humble themselves before the mystery. As far as we know, they do not feel the need to speak or expand on all the lessons that their wisdom has taught them. It is apparently enough simply to be there. And to offer their respective gifts.
Today I am thinking of my friend. I am thinking of her journey and of mine. I know that we carry our blessings and that they are sometimes burdens. I know that we both want to carry wisdom rightly and lightly. And I hope for both of us to find those moments where we are blessed to simply be there.
May we all be blessed as we once again prepare ourselves for the mystery of the ages.
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2 comments:
I see that the Rev. Frank Schaefer has been defrocked by the United Methodist Church for his refusal to forsake the Good News of Jesus Christ for false teachings espoused by right-wing hatemongers to advance their secular political agenda. And yet Bishops Paul Hardin and Nolan Harmon remain honored members of the Methodist pantheon. If interviews with Bishops Hardin and Harmon conducted when they were in their 80's and 90's are to be believed, they both remained unrepentant racists all their lives, convinced that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was nothing but an outside agitator stirring up a docile underclass that was previously contented with their station in life. So if this defrocking places Rev. Frank Schaefer in the same Methodist doghouse as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., then that is to Rev. Schaefer's credit and to the eternal shame of the United Methodist Church. As far as I can tell, the only substantive difference between the United Methodist Church and the Southern Baptist Convention is that the Baptists have actually apologized for advocating slavery and the Methodist haven't.
Hi John,
I am sorry that I did not see your response until just now. Thank you for your passion and your clarity. I have known Methodists who are not defined by organizational attachments. Over the holidays, I lost one of my great friends, Bob Crandall, who in my best estimation was probably a Franciscan, though he served via Methodism and Methodist agencies in Iowa his entire career. Please be careful about babies and bathwater. I assure you that I feel your pain-though in a slightly different way. I feel like a hypocrite at times because of my love for those whom the Church has despised and disrespected (Native Americans, women and the natural world). However, the story, as you know is not as it seems. There are sinners and saints throughout and probably on all sides. So the desire for purity (and God knows I know that desire) is sometimes a little vain, or at least potentially misleading. Be angry with the institutional church. You have good reason. But know that within it, there are some who have stood valiantly. Light and Darkness--an education is it not?
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