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Wisdom
Reverend Brian J. Kiely, Unitarian Church of
Edmonton, March 21, 2004
I want to thank the children and Karen Mills for dramatizing the
story of Kumba today. It’s a wonderful and very old story about
the getting of wisdom… a frequent theme in folktales from around
the world. And no wonder. What parent does not want to see their
child get wisdom as soon as possible? There are so many things to
be concerned about. Some of them are touched on in the story. A child
who does not learn to say thank you does not begin to learn the basic
social rules that hold a community together. A child who does not
play with other children does not learn essential socialization skills.
That child can become dangerously isolated. A child who does not
learn to help others will not likely learn to look at life from another’s
point of view. They will lack perspective.
And then there are other elements of wisdom parents wish they could
simply inject into a child like a vaccine… We want them to
be aware of the sharp and hot things around the house when they are
toddlers. We want them to look both ways when crossing the street.
We want them to be friendly and life-embracing, and still be wary
of strangers who can do them harm. We want them to understand that
they don’t have to try everything their school friends dare
them to try. We want them to hold off on becoming sexually active
until they are much older…say 35. We want them to know that
all people can be beautiful no matter what their body shape. We want
them to stay in school and stay off drugs. We want them to choose
a good career path that will be fulfilling and provide them with
security. We want them to become wise before their years. We want
to save them from the failures and painful experiences we had.
We can’t do that, of course, although some have tried. St.
Augustine was something of a rake and ne’er do well in his
youth. Back in the fourth century he pretty much tried every pleasure
available in the city of Hippo, usually to excess. Then one day he
had a revelation and changed his ways. He went on to become a very
influential bishop. He once wrote that he had tried all the sins
of the flesh and found them wanting. Therefore, he concluded, no
one coming after had to consider those temptations. They could take
it from him that they weren’t worth the effort. Do as I say…not
as I did, as it were.
The problem was that Augustine was confusing knowledge with wisdom.
He did his deeds and then pondered the experience. Then and only
then did he find wisdom and change his ways. But you cannot teach
wisdom, only knowledge. And knowledge, while useful is just not the
same. It is dry fact unleavened by personal experience. And knowledge
that someone thinks something is bad for you seldom stops anyone
from trying something tempting for very long.
Each person must acquire their own wisdom, sometimes through hard
lessons. That’s the very nature of wisdom. The Oxford Canadian
Dictionary defines the word as “experience and knowledge and
the ability to apply them judiciously”.
Experience and knowledge. That’s one key to wisdom. In the
early seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation a frequent theme
was the education of Mr. Data. Now you probably know that Data was
an extremely complex and human looking android, capable of doing
everything humans can do – and better – except for one
thing. He felt no emotion. Data arrived on the Enterprise only a
couple of years old, but fully programmed with more pure knowledge
than the whole crew put together. But he had no experience. He had
not been given the opportunity to put his knowledge to work, to test
the truth of the things he had learned.
Most of us who have lived a bit know that the world is not black
and white, yes and no, or for Mr. Data, 1 and 0. We live in a world
shaded with nuance. There are few, if any, absolutes. A thought expressed
in one context can have far different meaning when used in another.
A co-worker bringing a much-needed mocha-latte caffeine jolt first
thing in the morning might just earn an, “I love you!” from
a sleep-deprived friend. But the meaning is very different from that
of a parent saying the same thing to a child or of two lovers whispering
as they drift arm and arm into the bedroom.
A running theme of the early Star Trek episodes involved Mr. Data
trying to sort through such odd moments, trying to grasp nuance and
context, trying to differentiate between casual comments and literal
orders. The writers had a lot of fun helping Data convert knowledge
into wisdom.
The catalyst is experience of living. One-time Unitarian minister
and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson offered an address to the Harvard
Divinity School wherein he attacked preachers who rattled off only
bookish knowledge in their sermons. He chastised them for not preaching
the wisdom they had learned from, “life passed through the
fire of thought.” I have always liked that definition of good
preaching and have tried to follow it. I like it because it recognizes
that you have to live a little, come outside of your own small world
a little in order to gain wisdom. It is not enough to read books
or watch it all on TV or even… and this feels slightly like
heresy – listen to life being discussed on CBC Radio One. No
you have to live it.
“Life passed through the fire of thought.” Like iron,
knowledge alone is useful, but brittle. And experience of events
without knowledge of why they happen is equally brittle. Even a fact
can be shattered by a change in perspective. How many of us have
thought we had something all figured out, only to be challenged and
confused by a fresh perspective? I grew up believing that women stayed
at home and had babies while the men worked outside. Those were the
facts as I knew them. Then I started meeting women my own age who
had other ideas, who found the prospect of having to stay at home
all the time as distasteful as I would. Okay, all women should work
side by side with men in the workforce, fully equal in all respects.
Then I met women who wanted to stay home to raise their children
because they felt it was better for the child. Ooops, time to open
up my thinking again. My knowledge had limits. My experience also
had limits. The so called facts were shattered by spending time with
others who had a different view.
I also grew up thinking gay, lesbian and transgendered persons were
somehow sick. Then I began to meet and befriend people who lived
those realities. Through them I came to realize that they weren’t ‘bent’,
evil, dishonorable or any of those other things they were accused
of being… or at least not in any greater measure than any other
segment of the population. No, they were just like me, trying to
make their way in the world playing the hand they were dealt just
like me. I saw my new friends live, love, feel joy and pain… and
learn from their experiences.
The human store of knowledge has increased about gay, lesbian and
transgendered people, but until society’s wisdom catches up,
they will still be persecuted.
“Life passed through the fire of thought.”
But experience of living alone is not enough. Knowledge alone is
not enough. As iron is made into the stronger and more flexible
steel by fire, so must we take the raw materials of knowledge and
experience and reflect upon them. We must examine our lives. We
must compare our ideas and our actions against the principles by
which we live and see where we have been successful and where we
have been lacking. Only when we have done this, do we get wisdom
That’s the point of the story of Kumba. In animistic religions
around the world, animals serve as spirit guides. In rituals, children
about to become adults often go off into the wilderness and seek
wisdom. Often that wisdom is said to come from these spirit guides.
It’s not that an actual rabbit or elephant or leopard sat down
with Kumba and had a wee chat, but rather that in reflecting on his
actions, Kumba was able to summon the spirit of the animal guides.
They helped him reflect on his experience. They helped him pass it
through the fire of thought and so there was the dawning of wisdom.
William Ellery Channing, the first leader of Unitarianism in America
and a contemporary of Emmerson understood this. In our responsive
reading he reflected on the ‘Great end in religious instruction”.
He understood that teaching had its limits. He knew that for the
really important lessons about life, all you could do was give the
child the tools to help develop wisdom and then lead them to a place
where they could make their own decisions.
“The great end in religious instruction is not to stamp our
minds upon the young; but to stir up their own…Not to give
them a definite amount of knowledge, but to inspire a fervent love
of truth… In a word, the great end is to awaken the soul, to
excite and cherish spiritual life.”
And really, that’s all we try to do for people of all ages
in Unitarian Universalism and in this church. There is no body of
knowledge we insist people learn by rote. Heck, I bet not one in
20 ministers could even recite the seven Principles and six Sources
from memory. There is no creed or even defined set of interpretations
of the Principles people must follow. Instead we affirm the inherent
worth and dignity of every person and encourage them in their free
and responsible search for truth and meaning. In other words, the
great end of this church, and of this ministry is no different from
what Channing said. The great end is to stir up minds, to encourage
them to take their knowledge and their experience and pass it through
the fire of thought.
The great end of Unitarian Universalism therefore is to affirm individuals
in their quest for ever-deepening wisdom.
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