Gratitude, Horror, and Learning to Walk
Friday in Easter Week:
AM Psalm 136 • PM Psalm 118
Dan. 12:1-4,13 • Acts 4:1-12 or 1 Cor. 15:51-58 • John 16:1-15
Fact number one: all the horribleness. Plainly, a great deal of horror is public. Additional vast amounts are private: borne by individuals or shared quietly between friends & families. Fact number two: the gratitude of the psalmist is still a fundamentally creative, responsive way of seeing the world and maintaining a pathway through the daily contradictions of life. Two irreconcilable data; not written on a page, but tattooed on our bodies. Today, the readings remind us that we are not alone with this.
A spiritual teacher once told me that wisdom begins with learning to walk. Hmm. A week later, still puzzled, I realized that walking does indeed have its own deep contradiction going on, too. Walking is not standing, but neither is it falling. Or actually it is both—a chemistry working within their difference. The skill of walking takes these opposite facts (standing & falling), and through certain efforts and experiments, an entirely new thing begins: movement. Eventually, gentle, decisive movement. Wisdom shares this same chemistry.
Sacred wisdom is a living craft tasked with the irreconcilable facts of our lives and offering practical next steps and the inner skills to take those steps. Sometimes this wisdom takes the form of simple things to try and make it through the hour. Other times, wisdom offers big-picture insights into life, death, and time. Or it tells us to open our eyes or look under some rocks. While our own Christian wisdom tradition has become obscured (often in plain sight) there are signs an awakening is underway.
In today’s final reading, Jesus tells his people, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” There you have it. Jesus being a little scary again, but teasing us with something new and different and hopeful.
Written by David Orth
If this Christian wisdom tradition intrigues you, too, Cynthia Bourgeault’s book The Wisdom Jesus helped bring some of it into better focus for me.