“For now we see in a mirror dimly……” 1 Corinthians 13:12

For several months now I have been wrestling with an idea, a concept, a thought about what I have come to call wisdom. It is a wisdom that evolves, is not set in stone, grows with one’s experience and understanding. I know that this wrestling finds its source in the seemingly on-going dissension that seems to be everywhere in our culture. Government. Churches. Schools. Cities. Neighborhoods. Between so many individuals. It seems that, someplace along the continuum of the time in which we are living, in an effort to live together as people who are floating on one amazing planet, there has come a place in which we have little or no ability to work in civil ways with one another. I have tried to figure out when the fabric began to unravel.

This predicament has led me to think on the wisdom that comes from sticking with a person or a situation long enough to change and be changed. Take parenting for instance. Before I became a parent I had a list a mile long of things ‘ I was not going to do. ‘, things my children were ‘never going to have.’ Once I was in the trenches of being a parent and I was in moment by moment connection with these living, breathing, unique beings, I came to see these non-negotiables in a very different way. I learned that some of the things that seemed so very important to me pre-children were quite immaterial in the bigger picture of helping a child find their way in the world.

I recall how,as I approached my freshman year of college, I had ideas and goals that were quite well defined. I had a plan for exactly where I was going and how I was going to get there. But as the days and years flowed out, the experiences I had, the people I met, the successes and failures which I experienced, all contributed to the changes I made in the plan I had so carefully constructed. Some of these experiences were difficult and painful. Some wrenched at values I had held as sacred. But if I had not been open to those forces which provided a certain dose of wisdom, I would not be in the place I am today, doing the work I love so much.

This work I love so much has also provided spoonfuls of humility. Coming into the work of the church in my early adult years, I was so full of what was ‘right’ and what was ‘wrong’. I was so often ready to stand my ground on a particular issue, theological or otherwise, only to have my heart softened and my behavior gently chastised by a word or a tear offered by a mentor who was walking a very tenuous path. I have learned that even in the world of faith, or perhaps particularly in the world of faith, there are no black and white answers. There is much gray and the more we experience of it, the more wisdom comes our way.

Many of our elected leaders have come to office while riding a chariot of promises that are unkeepable. These sound bites that were part truth and part marketing can be dangerous to try to uphold. Over the last weeks I have often thought of the late Senator Paul Wellstone who was criticized for changing his mind on a few of the issues he had campaigned on. I remember what a breath of fresh air it was to me when he made a comment that he didn’t have all the knowledge or information he had gained once he was on the ‘inside’. It was only right to change his mind once he moved from being a freshman to being a senior.

It is the hope of every individual to grow in wisdom, I believe. Wisdom does not come without its fair share of mistakes, embarrassments, and recognitions that we are not as smart as we thought we were. I think of Moses as he began his journey with the people of Israel. He was as green as leaders come. But over the years he led this grumbling, thankless lot through plagues and parted seas. He grew in wisdom and applied each failed attempt to build these people into a nation to his next effort. It wasn’t easy or pretty. And, in the end, he didn’t even get to cross over to the Promised Land.

My prayer this day is for wisdom that continues to evolve, day by precious day.