“I Know Nothing” – Sgt. Schultz
AM: Psalm 23, 121 • Job 42:1-6 • 1 Peter 1:3-9
PM: Psalm 27 • Isaiah 43: 8-13 • John 14:1-7
Outside my office door on campus is a New Yorker cartoon. A ragged and disheveled Job stands leaning on a staff. A friend strides toward him with a huge smile and outstretched arms. “Job!” he says, “I hear you’ve got a book out!” I fell in love with the Book of Job my freshman year in college when I wrote a term paper comparing Job with the Roman stoics. I still love it, although its meanings and lessons have grown and changed many times.
In ten days I will retire after teaching and studying history for more than fifty years. Right now today’s passage especially speaks to me. Deep into his suffering, Job has questioned God, and God responds in effect with “Who do you think you are, Mr. Smarty Pants?” In turn Job replies: “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand/Things to wonderful for me to know.”
That comes close to summing up what I feel as I take this step away from that long stage of my life, but although there are certainly regrets, I don’t “despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Looking back, I realize how much more there is to know and to understand about the history of the American West, and while that would have been pretty demoralizing years back (when I thought I knew much more than I did), now it is a source of comfort. What a wonderful life I’ve stumbled into, one that blesses you with an inexhaustible ignorance and promises that in a story you love there will always be more wonderful things to learn and to understand, or at least try to.
I think something similar is true of our spiritual life. There is that early stage when we are smitten with discoveries and lessons and, often enough, an unrecognized sense of certainty about it all. Then, given enough time, we find ourselves looking over the edge into a depthless unknowing. We’ve all known some who choose certainty, who step back and refuse to look over the edge. But what an odd and unexpected comfort it is to remain there and to accept that we are part of an all-embracing Mystery, “things too wonderful for [us] to know.”Outside my office door on campus is a New Yorker cartoon. A ragged and disheveled Job stands leaning on a staff. A friend strides toward him with a huge smile and outstretched arms. “Job!” he says, “I hear you’ve got a book out!” I fell in love with the Book of Job my freshman year in college when I wrote a term paper comparing Job with the Roman stoics. I still love it, although its meanings and lessons have grown and changed many times.
In ten days I will retire after teaching and studying history for more than fifty years. Right now today’s passage especially speaks to me. Deep into his suffering, Job has questioned God, and God responds in effect with “Who do you think you are, Mr. Smarty Pants”? In turn Job replies: “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand/Things to wonderful for me to know.”
That comes close to summing up what I feel as I take this step away from that long stage of my life, but although there are certainly regrets, I don’t “despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Looking back, I realize how much more there is to know and to understand about the history of the American West, and while that would have been pretty demoralizing years back (when I thought I knew much more than I did), now it is a source of comfort. What a wonderful life I’ve stumbled into, one that blesses you with an inexhaustible ignorance and promises that in a story you love there will always be more wonderful things to learn and to understand, or at least try to.
I think something similar is true of our spiritual life. There is that early stage when we are smitten with discoveries and lessons and, often enough, an unrecognized sense of certainty about it all. Then, given enough time, we find ourselves looking over the edge into a depthless unknowing. We’ve all known some who choose certainty, who step back and refuse to look over the edge. But what an odd and unexpected comfort it is to remain there and to accept that we are part of an all-embracing Mystery, “things too wonderful for [us] to know.”
Written by Elliott West
Elliott (for a few more days) teaches history at the University of Arkansas and has been a member at St. Paul’s for more than thirty years.