LEARNING THE WORK OF LOVING
The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel:
2 For learning about wisdom and instruction,
for understanding words of insight,
3 for gaining instruction in wise dealing,
righteousness, justice, and equity;
4 to teach shrewdness to the simple,
knowledge and prudence to the young—
5 let the wise also hear and gain in learning,
and the discerning acquire skill,
6 to understand a proverb and a figure,
the words of the wise and their riddles.
7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.
8 Hear, my child, your father’s instruction,
and do not reject your mother’s teaching;
9 for they are a fair garland for your head,
and pendants for your neck.
20 Wisdom cries out in the street;
in the squares she raises her voice.
21 At the busiest corner she cries out;
at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:
22 “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing
and fools hate knowledge?
23 Give heed to my reproof;
I will pour out my thoughts to you;
I will make my words known to you.
It is one thing to say “Love one another” and quite another to do so—especially in times of conflict. The book of Proverbs seeks to impart practical wisdom and guidance for life. It is designed to be applicable for the wise, the foolish, the naive and the discerning. There are none of us who cannot benefit from instruction and wisdom. But as usual, understanding the concept turns out to be a whole lot easier than living it.
When my grandchildren came to ‘shelter in place’ with us, we sat down together and tried to make a list of house rules. The list included: Be kind; No yelling; Respect each other’s property and space; Ask permission; Listen to the grownups etc. Such simple, basic concepts—too bad that in real life, they are so hard to implement. In real life, the problem of conveying instruction and wisdom is complicated. There are very few of us who accept unsolicited advice very well. Knowing the right way does not mean we can teach it or that someone will listen. As a matter of practical living it behooves us to learn how to teach, how to learn and what actually works.
For the writer of proverbs, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” is the foundation for all learning.
The word ‘fear’ does not refer to terrorizing us into learning. Fear of the Lord has more to do with humility than terror. Awe, respect and reverence for the Lord are closer to the meaning of the phrase. At its most practical level, ‘fear of the Lord’ is the acknowledgement that there is something greater than us. That seems very simple. But acknowledging that we do not have all the answers, that there are other ways besides what we know creates space for learning. In real life, we can neither learn nor teach if we insist on our own way. While it is true we have the phrase, “You better do that or I’ll put the fear of the Lord into you.”, Neither intimidation or the fear of judgment actually work very well when it comes to instruction—not to mention the fundamental incongruity of trying to threaten people to love better. You might be able to get short term compliance but long term change is much harder to come by.
On the other side of the equation, an insistence upon doing things our way blocks learning. Even with something as basic as reading, our grandson likes to do things his way. This week he was reading about a little boy who was acting like a monster with his mother. He kept confusing the words ‘monster’ and ‘mother’. It took him repeating the error three or four times before I realized he was skipping the middle part of the words. Both words start with ‘mo’; both end in ‘er’ and both have a ‘t’ in the middle. It was a fairly simple processing error but he was skipping steps and resisted rereading to discover his errors. He saw what he saw. Why ask questions? The fact that what he saw did not match the page didn’t matter.
Real life is rife with examples in which our knowledge is partial and our opinion is rigid. And the terrible thing is that we don’t know what we don’t know. It actually takes a great deal of effort to learn that there may be more to a situation than what we see. But unless we can entertain the idea, our blinders and assumptions will prevent our learning. Unless we have a counter weight—the knowledge that God’s truth is greater than our own, we will not even inquire much less learn.
Reverence for God opens our self centered minds and hearts. Looking outside of ourselves is hard enough but walking in someone elses shoes is harder still. That is how Jesus lived and it is how God loves. We may be lousy at it but it is still the way we gain knowledge about loving.
In the spirit of practical wisdom, here are three ways to keep your mind to more than your own conclusions.
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Be humble. We are all sinners and don’t think for a moment our good intentions change that. Everyone of us is complicit in stereotyping, assuming ‘facts’ that don’t fit individual people. Everyone of us tries to simplify the world by talking about ‘us’ and ‘them’. Try to discern the ways you are complicit. Instead of assuming you understand, assume you don’t. It will lead to a lot more understanding.
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Acknowledge before you add. We must interrupt our assumption that what we heard is what someone meant. The only way to check that out is repeat it back and ASK if it matches. This is one of the most basic of listening skills. Especially in a conflict situation, it validates and shows regard.
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Be more curious. Consciously avoid using racial or gender descriptors. Saying,” women are…” or “democrats believe…” might be convenient generalizations but the language is lazy. Learn about the person rather than use the label. None of us can speak for a race or a gender.
These principles apply to our day to day relationships and they apply to our national conflicts. Words matter. Are we in the midst of rioting and/or are we in the midst of rebellion? Which lens do we use? Do we say, “It is terrible that a black person was killed but this destruction of property must stop.” Or do we say, “It is terrible that there is so much destruction of property but the killing of black people must stop.” These are not, nor should they be, mutually exclusive. Neither is ok. But our choice of language will reveal our priorities and our prejudices. And as often as not it depends upon whose ox is being gored. Was the Boston Tea Party a group of vandalistic insurrectionist or were they heroes in a just cause? At least in the 1700’s, you’re answer depended upon if you were a colonist or British citizen.
Finally, notice that Wisdom is crying out in the street, in the squares, at the gates, and at the busy street corners. She cries out: “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?It is way too easy to do it our way, to assume we know and to see labels instead of people. None of us are immune. Such behaviors are simple and are sinful. Wisdom is a tough sell—especially in adversarial times. It takes a lot of work to practice humility, to listen carefully and to be intentionally curious.
Such mindfulness is only possible when we actually live like “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” Let it be so.
Vernon Gramling is a Parrish Associate at DPC. He has been providing pastoral care and counseling for over 45 years. You can find more about Vernon, the Faith in Real Life gatherings and Blog at our staff page or FIRL.
