Note: On Saturdays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
Wisdom is there for the asking. Or rather, wisdom is there for the asking for those who are receptive.
Consider Ben Sira, the Jerusalem sage who lived about two centuries before Christ. His thirst and desire for wisdom—a deep thirst for an acceptance, if not an understanding, of God’s love, mercy, and truth—led him to a “level path,” one on which he stayed for his entire life. The more he understood, the more he sought to understand.
Consider the chief priests, scribes, and elders who asked Jesus on whose authority He was acting. They weren’t really interested in the answer. They posed the question in an attempt to trap Him. As usual, Jesus’s response flummoxed them, even though they were well practiced in answering a question with a question. Their “We do not know” was not sincere. It was evasion. Instead of drawing closer to wisdom, their subterfuge drove them further away.
We live in a society where honest questions, the kind Ben Sira asked on his level path, are ridiculed or drowned out, where to fit in we are tempted to stay silent, to get along to go along. Too often, our “We do not know” or “It’s not for me to judge” do not come from a place of desiring answers to be drawn closer to God but rather to evade deeper conversations where we might find wisdom… or be the vessel for imparting it.
Wisdom is there for the asking for those who are receptive. For those who are not, it will never be found.
