This Week

This week at praxis...Wise Up!

Wisdom cries out in the street; 
in the squares she raises her voice.
At the busiest corner she cries out; 
at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:
"How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? 
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing 
and fools hate knowledge? 
Give heed to my reproof; 
I will pour out my thoughts to you; 
I will make my words known to you. 
Because I have called and you refused, 
have stretched out my hand and no one heeded, 
and because you have ignored all my counsel 
and would have none of my reproof,
I also will laugh at your calamity; 
I will mock when panic strikes you,
when panic strikes you like a storm, 
and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, 
when distress and anguish come upon you. 
Then they will call upon me, 
but I will not answer; 
they will seek me diligently, 
but will not find me.
 Because they hated knowledge 
and did not choose the fear of the LORD, 
would have none of my counsel, 
and despised all my reproof, 
therefore they shall eat the fruit 
of their way and be sated with their own devices. 
For waywardness kills the simple, 
and the complacency of fools destroys them; 
 but those who listen to me will be 
secure and will live at ease, 
without dread of disaster."								--- Proverbs 1:20-33
----Proverbs 1:20-33

When I reach through the hole at my center 
the gift eludes my grasp.  
Whatever it may be I can possess it 
only as that mystery which beckons 
from the greatest distance and draws 
my heart deeper into the quest.  
The journey waxes full and then wanes dark, 
again and again.  I stare into my 
hole focusing on a single point, 
waiting for her to dart wildly through my landscape. 				----Meinrad Craighead, comments on her "Wisdom" painting

 
Wisdom is harder to do than it is to know. 		
----Yula Moses, in John Langston Gwaltney, Drylongso

Daddy knows better...
He has eaten more salt than I have eaten rice. 	
----Jade Snow Wong, Fifth Chinese Daughter





The perfection of wisdom, 
and the end of true philosophy, 
is to proportion our wants to our possessions, 
our ambitions to our capacities. 	
---- Frances Wright, A Few Days in Athens



 
The result was that I began to look 
more widely for wisdom.  Only much later 
did it dawn on me that I was following a 
tradition that dates back thousands of years: 
the search for the Holy Grail, for meaning, 
for the true self - the path that Joseph Campbell 
called the hero's journey.  
I also realized that I was seeking a 
form of wisdom suited to my own life and 
to the culture I lived in.  
I wasn't interested in renouncing my material desires, 
moving to an ashram, or giving up 
my professional ambitions.  
I wanted to continue passionately in the world, 
but I also wanted passionately to connect 
to something deeper in myself and others.
----Tony Schwartz, What Really Matters:  Searching for Wisdom in America


It is no surprise that this is the information age.
It will never be dubbed the Age of Wisdom.
----Frederick Schmidt, at the Living Christian event, 9.16.2000




Questions:


	Where do you find wisdom?  
	How do you see it? How do you seek it in your life?
	How do you find wisdom on the street? 
	Why is wisdom on the street?
	Which quote or story best fits your understanding of wisdom?
	Why do we refuse wisdom?
	How do we listen for wisdom in the midst of information?
	Can you search for wisdom and still "continue passionately 
	in the world", as Tony Schwartz wants?  How?