Rambling A Bit About Wisdom

What are the traits, attribute or values that our society, particularly our American society, esteems? Independence? Strength? Power? Comfort? Ease? How do these traits, or variations of them, show up in the aspirations and hopes and daydreams of our students? What can we learn from what folks refer to as “The American Dream?” What does this “dream” have to do with the notion of the kingdom of God? In which direction are we consistently pointing our children? Can they have both?

Matthew 18: 2 – 5 For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, "I'm telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you're not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God's kingdom. What's more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it's the same as receiving me.

Back in our beginning discussions of wisdom in August, we talked a little about our images of wisdom. A few of us connoted the idea of wisdom with being old and we joked a little about the incongruity of this image with the realities of the youth who sit in front of us every day. Is wisdom available to the young?

And then this word of Jesus comes in. Does this have anything at all to do with wisdom? In fact, I think that it may have everything to do with wisdom. As usual, Jesus turns popular conceptions on their heads and calls us to an upside-down way of thinking and believing. The societal values I mentioned a few paragraphs ago are undoubtedly the values and attributes we pass on quickly to each generation. But in their essence, this is not the way a true child is. Children represent dependence, trust, and what I often find the most endearing about them, a sheer ecstasy in the joy of the now, the joy of being in this moment. Perhaps the thing that frustrates us so much about children is that they learn so quickly to become just like us. This is the terrible and terrifying dichotomy of teaching – and parenting – from a Christian perspective. Our societal instincts tell us to teach them to grow up (how often do we actually even say those words?) and our Savior tells them – and us – to grow down.

What will it take for us to incorporate the notion of wisdom into our thinking as teachers? What will it take for NSCS to become a community of the wise? I’ll say again that I believe it will never happen unless we are invested in it very personally and very, very deeply. If we do not consistently, vigorously and vigilantly model wisdom and the wise way of being and seeing, it can never produce much fruit. Perhaps the root of wisdom stems from this going deeper and living our lives as if we were indeed utterly dependent upon God. When Proverbs proclaims that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, perhaps this is what the writer is really saying – that we cannot even think about moving in the direction of wisdom until we come at this from a position of complete and deep dependency and trust.

In our teaching, this notion will mean perhaps, less breadth and more depth. It may mean deeper and more enduring understanding that will transpose to a variety of other events that we may not take the time to study in detail. For example, studying the nature or revolution gives us understanding that we may apply to all revolutions, while at the same time employing compare & contrast categories to understand uniqueness as well as commonality. Understanding how this organism lives, survives, changes will give us a solid basis for understanding how all organisms experience the same phenomena, again employing similar evaluative criteria.