"Dad, have you cut all four of your wisdom teeth?" asked the teenager. "Yes, son," replied the father. "I have bought a used car, accepted a nomination, been chairman of the civic association, and married your mother." That man obviously thought that he had cut his "wisdom teeth" by chewing on four tough experiences. The four "third molars" have been given that name "wisdom teeth" because they usually appear during late adolescence or early adulthood. Wisdom, however, does not automatically come to us with the passing of the years or the accumulation of knowledge. As Bertrand Russell has said: "Wisdom is a harmony of knowledge, will, and feeling, and by no means necessarily grows with the growth of knowledge."
As far back as the days of Solomon in all his glory (and long before that!), wisdom was held in high esteem. God, however, gives people wisdom as he gives them precious metals; his treasure house is not the mint, but the mine. Because the quest for the best in effective living calls for an active, energetic search, the author of The Book of Proverbs wrote: "Look for [wisdom] as hard as you would for silver or some hidden treasure" (Proverbs 2:4, TEV).
The English word wisdom itself gives us a clue to the nature of this key for coping with the world. The word wisdom comes from the Old English word "wis," which meant wise. That word in turn came from the Latin word "videre," meaning to see. Our familiar term "video" comes from that same root. Wisdom, then, which means knowledge and good judgment based on experience, is a certain way of looking at life with the mind’s eye. "Look for [wisdom] as hard as you would for silver or some other hidden treasure," advises Proverbs. As we ponder his words, we ask ourselves, "Where Can We Find Wisdom?" Let us explore the possibility that the prize which makes us wise is found in looking - looking behind, looking between, looking before, looking beyond.
I
First, we can find wisdom by looking behind. Sir Isaac Newton, the seventeenth-century English scientist and mathematician, once hired a skilled mechanic to build a small mechanical replica of the solar system. A gold ball represented the sun; dull gray balls stood for the planets. By turning a crank, Sir Iaaac could make the model move, so that the tiny balls traced the orbits of the heavenly bodies. One day an atheistic friend of Sir Isaac came to see his work. The friend was fascinated by the mechanism which the great scientist was using for his investigation of the solar system. "This is marvelous!" exclaimed the visitor. "Who made it?" "No one," replied Sir Isaac. "It just happened. We had some balls, rods, and gears lying around and they got together and started going." Sir Isaac’s friend found it hard to believe that the tiny model of the solar system arose by chance. Wisdom, then, looks behind the surface appearances of things to their causes. This is the wisdom which Saint Paul had in mind when he wrote his Letter to the Christians in Rome: "Ever since God created the world, his invisible qualities, both his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly seen; they are perceived in the things that God has made" (Romans 1:20, TEV).
When a person looks behind the surface appearances to the cause of an action, an event, or a thing, we call him "wise." For instance, at a construction site anyone could see laborers carrying wood and laying bricks. But, it is the wise architect who looks behind these actions to the idea which has inspired the work and measures its progress. Similarly, an ambulance driver would see the flushed face and feel the fevered body of a sick person he was called to transport. It is the wise physician who can look behind these symptoms to the cause of the illness.
We can look behind not only in a logical fashion; we can also look behind in a chronological way. We can find wisdom by reading and making our own the words of previous generations with their wealth of experience of God and the world. Nowhere is "the Communion of Saints" more evident than in the sharing of ideas between generations. Listen again to Sir Isaac Newton in a letter he wrote to Robert Hooke on February 5, 1675: "If I have seen further (than you and Descartes) it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants." With their help we can find wisdom by looking behind.
II
Secondly, we can find wisdom by looking between. In a certain grade school one week before Christmas, a cynical teacher hung a string across the top of the blackboard at the front of the classroom. The children thought that the teacher was going to put Christmas decorations on the string. The teacher, however, had different ideas. She placed large letters of the alphabet on the string, so that they spelled out the message, "GOD IS NOWHERE." One little girl in the classroom found wisdom by looking between the letters on the string and seeing another possibility. She had been well-taught the significance of the Christmas celebration. She had a different way of looking at things. While the teacher and the other children were out of the room for recess, she stood on the teacher’s chair and made a slight change in the message by separating a few letters. When the other students took their seats again after recess, they had the happy surprise of an unexpected new message of good news on the string. Now the letters there spelled "GOD IS NOW HERE."
There has been an instructive dispute over the etymology of the word religion. Lactantius Firmianus, a Christian writer of the late third and early fourth centuries, traced the derivation of the word religion to the Latin word "religare," which means "to bind." "We are tied to God," wrote Lactantius, "and bound to him by the bonds of piety." A century later Aurelius Augustinus, better known as Augustine, the bishop of Hippo on the northern coast of Africa, traced the derivation to the Latin word "religere," to recover. "Having lost God through neglect," wrote Augustine, "we recover Him and are drawn to Him." Earlier than these Christian writers, however, is Marcus Tullius Cicero, the Roman orator and statesman, who lived in the century before Christ. Like the little girl who found wisdom by looking between the letters, Cicero took the word religion from "relegere," to reread. Cicero wrote: "Those who carefully took in hand all things pertaining to the gods are called religiosi, from relegere." Such persons look between the lines, as it were, and reread the meaning inherent in the events of life. Often, it is the tears of suffering which cleanse our eyes to see more clearly. As Aeschylus, the Greek dramatist, wrote: "He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God." (Prometheus Bound, 1, 177).
III
Thirdly, we can find wisdom by looking before. Luther Burbank was an American plant breeder and horticulturist. He developed many new trees and plants and improved existing ones. He found wisdom by looking before him and seeing in his mind’s eye the possibilities in the common field daisy. These flowers were despised by farmers in the East. Looking before him and seeing far ahead, Burbank said, "I crossed it [the common field daisy] with a Japanese daisy and an English daisy and produced the Shasta daisy. The bloom of my Shasta daisy has grown as much as two feet in circumference and seven inches from tip to tip." Burbank had similar success with cactus. "I also took the despised Arizona Desert Cactus and bred out of it its poison and all of its spikes, and made it edible for horses and cattle." Why was Luther Burbank successful in looking before him and seeing the possibilities in flowers and plants? He testified to his own outlook in this way: "It is my theory that there are no outcasts in nature; everything has a use, and everything in nature is beautiful if we are eager to ennoble it. Every weed is a possible beautiful flower."
How similar was the wisdom of the Divine Gardener, our Lord Jesus Christ! When Mary Magdalene first saw the risen Christ in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea, she thought he was the gardener. Maybe that title is closer to the truth than we have realized. "Christ," wrote Paul, "is the wisdom of God" (1 Corinthians 1:24, TEV). In Christ we see the Divine Gardener who considered many a human weed and looked before him to the possible beautiful flower that person could become. In Lloyd C. Douglas’ sermon, "The Mirror," Christ speaks to Zacchaeus, the despised tax collector of Jericho whom our Lord had befriended " ‘Zacchaeus,’ said the carpenter gently, ‘what did you see that made you desire this peace?’ ‘Good master [answered Zacchaeus] - I saw - mirrored in your eyes - the face of the Zacchaeus I was meant to be!’ " John Oxenham has written about this dimensions of
God grant us wisdom in these coming days,
And eyes unsealed, that we clear visions see
Of that new world that he would have us build
To Life’s ennoblement and his high ministry.
IV
Fourthly, we can find wisdom by looking beyond. In a certain classroom a professor took a piece of paper and taped it to the blackboard, so that the class could see it. With a felt-tip pen, he made a circle and colored it in with black. Turning to the class, he asked, "What do you see?" One student answered, "I see a black dot." Another student replied, "I see a circle colored black." A third student said, "I see a spot on the paper." With a smile the professor said, "Do you realize that no one has yet said that they see a piece of white paper!" Sometimes we are so hypnotized by some black spot, some negative element in our situation, that we fail to look beyond that spot to the positive elements which are also present.
Wisdom is found in looking beyond the present circumstances. The word circumstances means "that which stands around" us. Our present circumstances can surely be depressing. It is in such times that we need to remember the prophet Elisha. Elisha had warned the king of Israel about an ambush planned by the Syrians and their king. The Syrian king decided to capture the prophet. When he learned that Elisha was in Dotham, he sent a large force there with horses and chariots. They reached the town at night and surrounded it. "Early the next morning Elisha’s servant got up, went out of the house, and saw the Syrian troops with their horses and chariots surrounding the town. He went back to Elisha and exclaimed, ‘We are doomed, sir! What shall we do?’ ‘Don’t be afraid,’ Elisha answered. ‘We have more on our side than they have on theirs.’ Then he prayed, ‘O Lord, open his eyes and let him see!’ The Lord answered his prayer, and Elisha’s servant looked up and saw the hillside covered with horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha" (2 Kings 6:15-17, TEV).
To see beyond the present circumstances to the invisible, powerful forces at work in our world is wisdom. For example, the forces of the atom were present when the caveman lived, but he did not see them. He did not see the possibilities that were at hand. The forces of electricity were present long before Ben Franklin flew his kite and had that electrifying experience. Although unseen, those electrical forces were present in our universe, awaiting discovery and use. Isn’t it the same in our religious life? In one of the Eucharistic Prayers of The Book of Common Prayer used in the Episcopal Church is this petition addressed to God: "Open our eyes to see your hand at work in the world about us" (page 372). With God’s help we can find the wisdom of looking beyond the present circumstances to those positive factors we are apt to overlook.
Christians believe that the wisdom we have been seeking has already sought us and been embodied in a unique human life. This is the wisdom which looks behind the things which have evolved to that Divine Intelligence which has been involved in the process from the beginning. This is the wisdom which looks between the lines of history and discerns a Divine Purpose running through the seemingly perplexing parade of events. This is the wisdom which looks before and sees the flowers of the future in the unpromising weeds of the present. This is the wisdom which looks beyond, "not on things which are seen, but on things that are unseen" (2 Corinthians 4:18, TEV). In one of his stories, "The Higher Pragmatism," the American writer O’Henry faced the question we are facing today: "Where Can We Find Wisdom?" Listen to his puns as he writes: "Where to go for wisdom has become a question of serious import. The ancients are discredited; Plato is boilerplate; Aristotle is tottering; Marcus Aurelius is reeling ... Solomon is too solemn; you couldn’t get anything out of Epictetus with a pick." O’Henry, it is appalling that you forgot Paul! Remember his words to the Christians in Corinth:
... Greeks look for wisdom; but we proclaim Christ - yes, Christ nailed to the cross; and though this is a stumbling-block to Jews, and folly to Greeks, yet to those who have heard his call, Jews and Greeks alike, he is the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:23, NEB)
It is in Christ that we find the wisdom which looks back, looks between, looks before, and looks beyond.
