Walking Toward Wisdom

Photo by Inbal Malca on Unsplash

I spent the morning in a retreat, taking stock of the year that’s been by looking through photos on my phone, reading journal entries and Substack posts. I noted words and phrases I’d used often, considered my motivations for choices, acknowledged gratitudes and victories as well as failures and places of separation. It was all a little exhausting and intriguing.

One of the sources of continuity for me in every year is the way that I am drawn to myth and story. I reflect from story, I share stories, I am drawn into truth and able to touch my own soul more deeply in story. Framing life in story is natural for humans. It enables us to see connections and imagine possibilities.

So I began to reflect on the story of my year and to put that story together. I sifted through words and images that had been important to me in these months past, through the information my body had revealed to me, and through the seeds that had taken root and begun to flower and the ones that had been planted in shallow dirt and failed to find a way to rooting. It became an examen story, a story of tender observation. And it led me to a particular story I’m leaning into this year’s end.

I believe, as Mark Twain is rumored to have said, that the truth should never ruin a good story. Whether you or I believe a story to have happened exactly as it’s told, doesn’t matter as much as the story’s ability to grow a richer understanding of the heart of life and the possibility for reflection.

So, imagine with me, long ago, yet somehow not so long ago, a land wracked by war and dissension, split by power hungry rulers bent on spilling innocent blood and keeping people on the margins far from view. In this land, a baby is born. Because the parents are unable to afford good healthcare and most people look upon them as unwelcome strangers, the baby is born out of sight in a place that is unusual for a human birth to take place.

But somehow, like all really good stories, the birth doesn’t remain entirely secret. A few men, the wise ones, happen to be paying attention. We might say they’re simply not distracted by the noise of life and are able to see that something important has happened, a miracle possibly. They’ve heard rumor there’s a different way than discord, injustice and fear. They’ve heard there’s a way of love and peace, and a truth bigger than the falseness the rulers would have them believe. And perhaps it’s because there has been so much hate, so much hardship in the world, that the sweet smelling bundle of a new baby human is exactly the miracle these men need in order to believe it could be possible for love to be reborn in their lives.

These men are an interesting lot—foreigners, strangers in a strange land, their only GPS the light of a star. Of course, without cell reception, the stars would be the their best bet. So they begin their walk toward something new, someone they’ve heard is special. Because they are said to be “wise,” it is as if wisdom itself is walking toward this new life.

In this story, wisdom walks not in plain sight or under the glare of sunlight; not during the constant noise of daytime or revealed in plain sight. Wisdom here walks in in the quiet of darkness, when only the soft light of the stars shines. Wisdom walks away from riches and rulers, and toward that which is vulnerable, soft, tender and innocent.

I imagine these men—wisdom—walking softly, eyes wide with anticipation and wonder, hearts beating with excitement and anxiety. What will they find as they walk toward that which has been born anew? They have gifts to offer from the life they’ve lived, yet somehow they sense that the gift they’re moving toward will be worth more than anything they can carry in their hands.

This is the story I consider in this in-between season. This season hangs like an empty thought bubble above the world. It’s a time in which we are both ending and beginning. Perhaps, some wisdom from the year or years before begins to move toward the possibility of rebirth.

This year, I am imagining mysef into this story, walking with soft footsteps from this time into the next, holding riches from what has been while I keep my eyes open for all that is beautiful, waiting in the silent and still darkness ahead. I am holding the story with tenderness, allowing soft and shimmering starlight to point toward a way of greater love—for the past and for the future. I am imagining, what if the static in my head and in the world doesn’t drown out a better story? What might the world know, what might my heart know then?

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Dear Reader, thank you for being here, together, a community. I like to imagine us as a curious lot, people with imaginative wonder, who know life’s messy intensity and refuse to let the messy be the last word or only story. I like to imagine this community as people who long for connection, who have experienced the pleasure of their breath and body moving together, and who desire wholeness over perfection. Thank you each and all for being here with me through 2023. I am excited to grow with you in the coming year and welcome your thoughts to the table. Be well and see you 2024.

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From for who you might become, by Kate Bowler and Jessica Ritchie

God, I'm haunted by the shadows
of the old me.
The one who's tried every five-step plan,
every guru's solution to what ails me.
But nothing seems to stick.

I'm the same old me
with the same problems
and the same quiet hopes.

Is it my lack of discipline?
Or am I just a lost cause?
What new beginnings are possible?

Blessed are we, the incomplete,
standing at the edge of what could be
in this perpetual season of waiting
and looking and longing
for the fulfillment of hope.

Blessed are we, the restless,
grieving what's over, but isn't done,
what is gone, but isn't finished.

Blessed are we,
in our midnight struggle with past
and future,
while the present has already arrived 
outside our door
like flat-packed furniture
with missing parts.

God, what can we do
with what we have now?
And who we are?
And who might we become?

Blessed are we in the place
where desire and will
are beginning a conversation
about what this day,
this moment is for...

This is the clearing
where the light shines through,
where the new can begin.

Never doubt it.
God is writing you into the story
of the world's healing.
And your own.