The Hard Road ... In search of wisdom ...

There’s a story of a man who was visiting his family at their cabin in rural New Hampshire. From the paved highway that lead towards the cabin, there was a thin, very rough gravel road that ended in a rougher dirt road that stopped at the door of the cabin. The dirt road that lead to the door of the cabin ran along the slope of a hill and down to where the lakeside cabin sat. In the dirt were very large rocks and boulders that made traveling along the path very challenging. Cars and trucks were tossed about as they bounced over the rocks.

One morning, the son of the owner announced over breakfast that he was going to go out and spend the day removing some of the big stones and making the path to the cabin smoother.

“NO,” said his father firmly.

“But dad,” the young man protested, “the road is very rough. It’s not comfortable to bounce in and out that goat path all the time. If we remove the big rocks and smooth the surface it will make the journey much more pleasant.”

Dad laughed and said – “And what happens when the rains come in the fall, and the snow melts in the spring?”

The son said nothing.

“When that happens the road will turn to mud and be impassable, and it will simply wash away and we will have no road leading to the cabin. The rocks hold everything in place. The rocks keep the road from being washed away.” The dad then looked his son in the eye and said – “We need a hard road not a smooth one …”

The young man remembered those words years later as Lou Gehrig’s disease began to claim his body … The road he trod was a hard one … not a smooth one … but he repeatedly observed – “that for many of us life has not turned out exactly how we expected – but in that moment when life takes a turn, we learn a lot about ourselves …and who we are.”

His father knew that … When the rains come … when the storms break upon us we can be washed away, or we can hold steady … The big rocks in the path are what holds the road together … our faith … our sense of self … our knowledge of who we are inside are what holds us together in those moments … they keep us intact in the face of storms …

The challenge in the midst of the down pour is to move from the words on a page and to live them out … unfortunately in our society we want the quick fixes and the easy answers. We want the smooth and easy way … and that’s not always the best route to choose …

In the Jewish faith there is a tradition called Wisdom. In our Bible there are a number of wisdom collections. Ecclesiastes and Proverbs are the most obvious … but even in the words of the prophets, the Wisdom tradition slips in.

In Judaism, Wisdom speaks not about salvation, or even our relationship with God, but wisdom speaks of the lessons gleaned from everyday life – lessons accumulated through successive lifetimes of people who were able to note the passing of the seasons and see patterns – people who could glean from life understandings and lessons worth sharing …Much of the wisdom literature is what we might even call Common Sense.

Wisdom is faith lived and shared day by day in our comings and our goings. It’s not about grandiose pious pronouncements – it’s about how you live your life in the moment by moment decisions you make in your home, in the grocery store, at work or even walking down the street.

Wisdom is about how we interact with the world … and our Bible … our faith … is filled with wisdom, if we dare to open our eyes and our hearts.

The reading from Proverbs today is offers us the dramatic personification of wisdom as a divine and very female entity – Lady Wisdom as she has been known through the ages. Now, it is tempting to launch into a discussion about why this aspect of the divine is characterized as female. There are volumes written on this passage – and it is a very important discussion in our understanding and experience of an inclusive God … but today, it is the WISDOM of Lady Wisdom that looms large in my thinking, not her gender, nor her relationship to God. We’ll leave such things for another day …

In reading this passage from Proverbs we learn some key concepts: Wisdom is divine. Wisdom has been present in the cosmos since the very beginning. Wisdom had a major role in Creation. Wisdom is a gift from God …

Wisdom is also very precious … I did a search of quotations on wisdom this past week and was delighted by what I found …

Biblically, the Psalmist tells us that awe is the beginning of wisdom.

Plato considered that we will never have peace until the Kings and the princes of the world find greatness, knowledge and wisdom together within themselves.

And even the figure of Job, in the midst of his suffering and trials announced that wisdom had a price that was beyond rubies …

Yet, we also often hear it said of supposedly learned men, that “he is smart, but not really wise …”

Wisdom is not taught in institutions … Wisdom is not learned in a book … wisdom is a gift from God found in the unfolding of our lives … Traditionally, our grandparents were the wise people we went to for their thoughts, reflections and opinions. When we thought we had all the answers – we would go to the grey haired elders and see what questions we’ve over looked.

So, Lady Wisdom is calling … crying out … inviting us to join her …
It is wisdom that teaches us that the smooth road will wash away when the storms come … but the hard road – the road that is at times uncomfortable to travel on – will be the one that holds in the torrents …

This past week I’ve been reading a book by Rabbi Kushner. In the book he’s been reflecting on how our bruises can teach us profound lessons.

In his own life, Rabbi Kushner’s son was born with progeria, the disease that sees children biologically age very rapidly, only to die as very old people when they are chronologically teenagers. From that struggle of losing a son, he wrote the book many of us have encountered entitled, “When Bad things happen to Good People.”

With courage and faith, Kushner took the hard road and used it to offer wisdom he’s gleaned from his experience … in his current book he cites the examples of Stephen Hawking and Christopher Reeves as people who have found themselves on a very hard road, but who never gave up, but used the experience to teach themselves and other – that is US, about the strength that we ALL have within.

Hawking has plumbed the depths of the cosmos and his thoughts and writings have taken us to corners of the universe no one dared contemplate until, he sitting in a wheel chair showed us the way … Reeves, the Superman of Hollywood movies had his life forever altered in the blink of an eye – but to his dying day he NEVER gave up – he inspired others to do more then they could imagine … And Kushner himself took the tragic loss of his son and through sharing his story, his pain, his bruises – has inspired countless others …

The examples of those wise folks among us who embrace the fullness of life is legion, another example Kushner cites is that of the leadership of Abraham Lincoln. He notes that Lincoln made no secret of the fact that he suffered from debilitating depressions, but it was from those depressions that Lincoln drew great strength and compassion.

Another US president he cites is Franklin Delanor Roosevelt, who didn’t let a little thing like POLIO slow him down …

Kushner knows that it is in naming and owning our vulnerability that we will find our healing … it is in knowing our sensitivities that we find our compassion and care … it is in stepping on the hard road that we will find our way … Seeking the easy way will save us from some hurts and pains along the way, but the easy way may never lead us to our salvation …

Jesus knew this when he challenged Peter – life won’t be easy for you Jesus said … The Psalmist knew this when he dared to call out to God – even in the fullness of creation life will be challenging … James knew this when he called the Church to a better way – watch your tongue he warned it will not always speak well … and the writer of Proverbs knew this when he challenged the people to listen for Lady Wisdom calling …

And so we stand … listening for Lady Wisdom calling to us … The road we’ve stand on varies … for some it has been easy … for some it has been hard … as a community … we’ve been on a hard road … but it is a road that has held fast in spite the storms that have broken upon us …

When the bumps and rocks and bounces along the way jar us from our complacency, the challenge – our challenge is to open our eyes to see what lessons we can glean from that moment … It doesn’t make the hurt of that jarring suddenly go away, but with wisdom and time we can look back and see those jarring moments are the beginning of something different … A new path as it were …

We’re called as people of faith to take up our Cross and follow … there is no promise of an easy path … just the promise that in that moment, we are NOT alone …
We might be on a hard road … but it’s not as hard as we think … we are not alone, we live in God’s world … thanks be to God …

Let us pray …