Walking in the Dark
Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
Mark 9:30-37 Jesus and his disciples passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.
example of the opposite of practical wisdom - which is cooperative and peace making not argumentative and destructive
He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
Reflection It was the early 1980s when I found myself in an unlikely situation, hiking pueblo ruins with Good Bear, a South Dakota Sioux. Having recently arrived in New Mexico from New England I was getting to know the staff at a program for Native American youth. Good Bear was a counselor for the treatment program. I was their new consultant
A bevy of program staff invited me to join them on a hike in Bandeleir National Monument. Replete with cliffs, cave dwellings, all manner of prickly things and snakes, this cautious New England transplant kept her eyes safely glued to her feet. Gradually people moved ahead or fell behind along the trail. Good Bear, whose name could fittingly have been Great Bear to accede his towering height and presence, fell in next to me and for three hours intermittently wove a story that culminated in wise counsel. “Let your feet walk and your eyes be where you are.” My hard-boiled blurt, “Why did you not tell me that three hours ago?” evoked no response. Over the next several years Good Bear taught me to talk to trees, listen to birds, smell the air and walk through forrest at night without flashlight neither stumbling nor having my eyes poked out by aberrant limbs. Good Bear invited me to stretch beyond my left brain apprehension of the world to experiencer something deeper, something that connects me to all that is. With imperturbable patience he opened for me the experience of my rootedness in creation which I have come to understand as the source of practical wisdom.
Among indigenous people wisdom and right living emerge from an all inclusive integrative relationship with all that is. It is not hierarchical. This stands in stark contrast to the intellectual morality to which 21st c western civilized people subscribe and has plagued the human situation since, well, at least the time Jesus and his disciples were entering Capernaum.
Jesus asked, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. “ I believe this snap-shot of life epitomizes the opposite of practical wisdom because practical wisdom is cooperative and peace making. It understands everyone and everything is interdependent and interconnected. By contrast, cultural wisdom is argumentative and destructive, understanding everyone and everything to be in competition, fighting to survive. Although the gospel text does not delineate it in such terms clearly Jesus is a proponent of practical wisdom rooted in the understanding of the all inclusive nature of creation.
The writer of Jame’s letter notes, “ The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. “ If only the leaders of our cities, states and countries and religious institutions would put down their argumentative and destructive ways and pick up practical wisdom. And, if every one of us would do likewise we might well be surprised by how handily we can walk in the dark without tripping or being poked in the eye and, as one body, one people we could stop the degradation of every aspect of creation.
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