Maturing persons, who are also attentive, learn to read signs pointing to impending problems and benefits – in some contexts which they share with others. Those cooperative persons are most wise, and possess the leadership needed for the moment, to reduce the negative factors and embellish the affirmative. The Bible suggests that one of the tools for living, in an orderly context of life, belongs to wisdom relating to future experience. It may seem prophetic, but society expects such insight, especially from its leaders. Without attention and application of perceptions related to currency, wise persons likely do not serve much better than those with limited insights. Wisdom ought to be related to modest prophetic insight.
When the revered Joseph Paterno, football coach at Penn State University, heard about a violation (sexual) of an Assistant on his staff, he reported it to the official to whom he (Paterno) was responsible in the University administration. Nothing was done about the serious infraction, an infraction both moral and legal in meaning. When the story exploded in the news, the information became national, depressing, and socially troublesome. The president of the University and Paterno were quickly and summarily fired by the trustees. Paterno, the most winning college football coach of all time, and a community inspiration, was punished for not meeting the legal requirements that would carry him beyond the university to the police, in that his professional superiors had not done so, and he had remained tranquil. A few months after the scandal broke, Paterno died of lung cancer. This week (in late January, 2012), the faculty of the University issued a No Confidence vote in the trustees of the institution for the management of the affair that had fallen on two highly respected persons of the community – one now dead whose death inspired the reaction. Paterno, the father of Happy Valley is gone, but, at least for this period, happy is also gone. Had wisdom prevailed, this sordid story, its impact on a large community, its draining of a popular university and its changing image, would likely not have occurred as it has. One is rightly appalled at the event, and the general treatment of it. Mankind often makes a context worse in the management of events.
It doesn’t seem difficult to evaluate the issue noted above, and to distribute blame or approval to this or that person or group. Likely in the blame and shame attitudes of the general culture, we can’t count on solving problems to the degree that they could be solved with wisdom at work. At the time of this writing, we are informed that the main cause of divorce is not money management or sexual preferences, but nagging. Experienced counselors can vouch for large meaning of nagging in a marriage. Everything has been tried from the silent treatment to learning how to fight fair. Nagging has not been notably reduced with shaky designs of those who want to help. Most marriages that have terminated because of nagging, or stayed together with it to preserve appearances, could have been saved for loving beauty had wisdom been incorporated. I am disappointed by the counsel of persons who, by wisdom, contribute to the solution of problems at work, at church, at school, but not by wisdom in personal relationships within their families. Wisdom insists, in interpersonal difficulties, to take time out. What questions need to be answered, either by the persons or by a sympathetic counselor? Are the questions objective and non-judgmental? Are attitudes really agreed in desiring solution? Do persons have respect for dignity, and a point-of-view not their own? In short, do these persons desire to apply to themselves that they perceive ought to be applied to others? Until maturity is applied to the intellectual understanding of our lives, we will fail in love and life victory. Our learning offers tools; our character in love offers patience in application; and, our body energies are geared to better things than we sometimes permit in life. We tend to blame others close to us for the problems. It is amazing, or seems so, how quickly a problem may be addressed effectively by the assumption that I may be an important part of the problem, perhaps in the way I manage the problem. That fault may be ancillary to the problem itself in that the offended assumes no role in taking responsibility – so does not take a role in the solution. The wise problem solver assumes that there may well have been some subliminal influence, not overt, which may need attention to gain desired ends. We can reduce the number of accidents in our lives. There are effective safety plans. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020