Day 138: Leading with Love

"The ways of righteous people are acceptable before the Lord, and through them even enemies become friends."  Proverbs 15:32

This proverb is inspiring to me, and the first thing that comes to mind is: lead by example.

We are to lead by example because that's the way to establish a way or a path.  Paths are formed by lots of effort.  It can be over the span of ages, with the feet, hooves, and paws of many trodding on the same path, or it can be made with the effort of one or more workers making the path.  The important thing to remember, though, is that all our examples should be things that will bring others towards God.

Indeed, the proverb says, "through them even enemies become friends," which means that there is a clear path that leads to righteousness.  And, in Godly terms, we understand that our notion of righteousness involves transforming our lives to bring us closer to becoming manifestations of the unconditional love that God has for all of us.  This means that we need to put aside all our prejudices along our journey of purification.  It's not enough just to confess with our mouths and words.  We need to live our faith.

Leading by example will involve lots of effort on our part, especially because we have to know where we ourselves are going.  We can figure this out with our prayer and our bible reading.  We will find out that God is always calling upon us to love our neighbors.  And, when we truly adopt this principle of love, we will start to bring others into our community purely by our example of love.  Leading by example doesn't just mean to teach others about our ways.  Leading by example means that we will lead ourselves forward with this example.  It'll be a process, but it will be rewarding for us and for all those around us.

Day 135: Being Students

"Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious."  1 Peter 2:1-3

As Christians, we are devoted to living a life as a student.

We will forget that sometimes.  In school, there are usually some students who might understand concepts more easily than others, so those students can help those around them.  But, in the end, the teacher still has more knowledge than the students.  Perhaps later on in their lives, the students will have the same, if not more, knowledge and wisdom than their teachers.

As students, we are called to maintain certain disciplines.  I'm sure there are many teachers out there who wish to have students who are not judgmental, kind, patient, and, above all, willing to learn.  We are not supposed to be correcting our teacher, and we are definitely not supposed to be correcting our fellow students.  Think about this: we are students of the ultimate expression of wisdom (some would even say we are students of Wisdom herself); so how can we even know more than the teacher?

We are called to desire to continue in our learning and our application of our learning.  But the only way that will work is if we put aside all evils around us.  And, in this passage, evils are things that separate us from one another.  Being students requires us to make the classroom into a community of love, support, friendship, and help.   That's how we will be able to apply what we learn, as well.  We are learning how to live with one another to build up the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.  When we start to apply all the love, all the acceptance, all the understanding that Christ teaches us, we will grow into greater beings.

Day 047: Spiritual Wisdom

"Let no one deceive himself.  If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.  For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.  For it is written 'He catches the wise in their own craftiness'."                          1 Corinthians 3:18-19

How can this be?  Don't we want to have the best thinkers in the Church?

That's kind of my first reaction to this advice and to the quoted text.  We have enough trouble these days with people misleading masses of people because of their lack of discernment and knowledge and wisdom.  At the same time, some of the theologians that I respect the most, from ancient to modern times, were wise in both Scripture and philosophy.

However, the beginning of this advice gives the whole message away.  One can consider himself to be wise if he truly wants to.  Eventually, there will be someone out there who will believe him.  In the same way, it shows that there are so many wise people out there today who constantly take steps deeper and deeper into admitting their ignorance before God.  They allow themselves to become empty vessels, blank canvases, so that they may receive more and more revelations of God. 

Throughout the history of our spiritual tradition, God became known through revelations over time.  In the bible, we have many examples of people receiving the revelations, but we probably have just as many of people refusing them.  Of course, the stories of those who received the revelations end well, and those of those who refused the revelations end terribly.

How, then, do we make ourselves fools before God?  The first thing is to understand that we will never know more than the all-knowing and omnipresent God.  The next step is to let God take care of us.  We should start to listen to God for guidance in all of our questions.  Obviously, the only way we can accept a revelation is by opening our eyes.  As Job said, "But now, my eyes see you," when he received an astonishing revelation of God, so should we as we receive revelations from God each day.

We can open up our spiritual eyes by coming into communication with God.  When we read the bible, we can start to understand more about who God is.  When we pray, we have a conversation with God, where we can hear the answers to our questions.

Day 006: Courage

"And do not be afraid of intimidation when it comes upon you, nor of the attack of the ungodly when it comes at you; for the Lord will be over all your ways, and He will plant your feet firmly, that you may not be shaken."  Proverbs 3:28-29

With today being the celebration of the Epiphany, I can only think that this relates so strongly to the occasion of the magi coming to see Jesus.  They had to go their way through land at night, it seems. Now, I feel scared enough when I have to drive at night and only my headlights are guiding me.  I can't even imagine how terrifying it must have been for these people to be going at night with nothing more than a bright star among many other stars.  It was sheer faith that kept them going in order to bring their gifts to Jesus and then to return to their home land.

But where does this courage come from, for I don't feel it all the time.  Even in this section of Proverbs, the writer tells his reader to remember wisdom at all times.  The magi are considered to be wise men in some translations.  According to the Middle Liddell Ancient Greek Dictionary, magi in ancient times were priests or wise men from Persia who were experts at interpreting dreams.  So it seems that they had such great wisdom that they couldn't care less about intimidation.

Then again, I find myself thinking that there is a consolation, and that's taking the time to listen to God's voice.  God speaks to us constantly by different means, but we need to be receptive to it.  Think about how the radio works: there are many broadcasting towers releasing information in the form of sound all around us, but it is only when we use a device that is tuned to a certain frequency that we can hear what is going on.  With older radios, one has to adjust a dial carefully enough so as not to receive just feedback.

We should approach prayer and meditation and reading in this same way.  I don't know if the magi were Jews, but if they were, they were probably well versed in the Hebrew Scriptures enough to have such encouragement swirling around in their heads when they traveled.  They were, though, probably skilled enough to know when God was speaking to them in dreams, and they probably had the skills to be silent and listen to God.  So, I find that reading the Bible and listening to what God is trying to tell me through my reading is one way of making sure to have wisdom always in my heart.  If I can just tune myself into more and more spiritual frequencies, I'm certain I will be able to experience God in that many ways.

Day 005: Truth Abounds

"God by wisdom founded the earth and prepared the heavens with discernment. With perception the depths were broken up, and the clouds flowed with dew."               Proverbs 3:21-22

I adore reading the Scriptures that are usually bunched up and called "Wisdom Literature" because of the way they make me think.  I can't take anything just for its face value, but at the same time I can't forget the value of the words.

Of course, what comes to mind is the opening of John's Gospel, which states that the Word, or Reason (which is an older meaning of the word logos), was present in the very beginning.  And that then brings about the idea that Jesus has always been around.  Going even further, I can also say that this passage from Proverbs explains that Jesus is Wisdom, Discernment, and Perception.

A few years ago, when I was starting out in my creative writing program at the University of Houston, I learned some major guidelines for writing poetry.  The two that were always passed around were, "Avoid cliches", and, "Avoid abstractions."  Taking these two to mind would help any poet avoid writing a poem that belonged in a Hallmark card (two words that meant that one's writing was not worth reading).  Avoiding abstraction, though, meant to avoid words that encompassed the world in a concept, such as wisdom, discernment, or perception.  Does this sentence really mean anything: "The wisdom of discernment is the beginning of perception"?  I find that each word is just too broad.

However, the best poetry would be whenever we students could find a way to incorporate such great terms into concrete ideas so that we could understand them better.  By wisdom, God founded the earth.  God prepared the heavens with discernment.  With perception God broke up the depths.  In keeping with the words of Proverbs, I can see that the writer is trying to tell me something, that there is wisdom, discernment, and perception all around me.

After reading this, I understand that God has prepared a world for me that will teach me in so many different ways.  Just as nature inspired the Romantic poets and urban life the Beats, there are so many more aspects that can teach me and everyone.  The only thing left to do is to seek it out, to trust in God with all my heart and not exalt my own wisdom (Proverbs 3:5).