Wisdom

One characteristic of the human race is to pack our learned wisdom into song and story. We preserve it, pass it on to the future, and have it readily available when we need it ourselves. One of my best theology teachers often resorted to the classic Broadway musicals when he wanted to us to “get it.” We’d be working on some deep and difficult concept in Christian thought or practice, and he would suddenly sit down at the piano and begin singing something from Porgy and Bess or South Pacific or Paint Your Wagon – and there it was. We’d get it, clearly and powerfully, our hearts beating wildly and our faces wet.

Eugene Peterson once said that what makes any story a good story is that somehow it tells the Great Story. The Tom Hanks character in You’ve Got Mail hysterically illustrated the principle to Meg Ryan when he told her that all human wisdom can be found in The Godfather. Twice in the last couple of years we have held “Theology at the Movies” series at St Mark's. Robert Fulghum’s, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten notes that the wisdom we need for effective and happy lives is not all that distant and esoteric, but already known and passed on to us

(eg., Share everything, Play fair, Don't hit people, Put things back where you found them, Clean up your own mess, Don't take things that aren't yours, Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody, Wash your hands before you eat, Always Flush, Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you, Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some, Take a nap every afternoon, When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together, Be aware of wonder -- remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that, Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we, and then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.)

Truly effective and happy Christian lives are not that difficult to figure out. It’s really a matter of reflecting on what we all know is true, and then putting it into practice. It’s all there for us in Christian Tradition (our Scriptures, our Hymns, our Liturgy, our Practices), and in most of our great literature as well.

The Lord be with you