Even those who lack wisdom tend to respect it. We want to be wise for the good of ourselves, and others. If we decipher Scripture rightly, wisdom is a kind of earned mental/emotional wealth put to practice in life events and discourse. Wisdom must be practiced to become a meaningful factor. Wise practice is to perceive and espouse the wholeness of an event, related to context, and tie human responses to realities. Wisdom is a magnificent gift to self and society.
We need not prove to self or others that we are wise. We tend to know wisdom when it visits us. We feel it, as if supportive evidence were presented to us in the ethos of a person. The wise affirmation or warning leaps out at us and verifies its wisdom in our best approval. It seems fair and good. We like it. It can move our beliefs and conducts – and ought to.
In the American Heritage series, Martin Marty, the eminent professor at the University of Chicago, and a churchman, wrote about the historic Anne Hutchinson trial for heresy in early colonial days. He wrote of the event related to Hutchinson: Hers was a religious culture and ours is pluralistic and secular, but the troubling issues from back then have analogies now. In facing state (John Winthrop) and Church (John Cotton) she represented dissent against establishment. As so often the case since neither side looked good, and from other angles, both sides made a favorable case. They fought over the covenant of grace and the covenant of works, ideas almost incomprehensible to many today. Yet they are signal issues about liberty and license versus law and responsibility, and remain alive. The Marty statement is insightful. (Sense of History – Pg. 3-A, slightly edited)
We are told by Marty that both sides were right and both wrong. That resonates. We feel inside that Marty could readily evidence his point. Neither side held whole virtue, but both had some. What was left was not wholly virtuous, resting often in a neutral position, with leanings to both truth and fiction. This paradox for natural life helps to set us free, especially when we repeat it in our contexts, and conclude with appropriate conviction about rightness. It is the human condition. In so many ways we are correct and truthful. In so many ways we are wrong and lacking some insight or conscience. In some matters, we just don’t know. This is humbling. There is no room for arrogance. Many times we must accept the least wrong options.
This mixture of right and wrong is found in Jacob, in Moses, in Joshua, in King David (and the kings from his issue), in Peter, in the rich young ruler, and in us all. The wise person finds that conflict within self, and works on the assignment to become better – by accenting the affirmative side, and dismantling whatever can be found that is unwise in him. We know real life is not clearly stroked in black and white. Even the best of us could be better, so we seek knowledge and understanding, according to Solomon – which become the strong legs of wisdom. In any serious proposal there is something that can wound, and something that can heal. Learning this lesson, we discover factors of wise faith and conduct, vital to persons and society. In this I listen for both correction and affirmation. Therein is learning to wisdom. Our concern is to analyze even our own approaches, seek confirmation, and move forward. In this context we can make excellent marriages, become effective parents, be respected for pointing to solutions to problems, make proper citizens, competent employees and feel fulfilled. In the practice of wisdom we accomplish a first line requirement of God – faithfulness within adaptations. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020