Each time I look out from the landing between the ground and first floors at Gladstone’s Library, the place I call home this month, I pause a moment to ponder Lady Wisdom. She commands a view of the garden area at the back of the Library.
How do we become wise? Does it simply come with age? Or with learning? Or with experience? Or with ‘hard knocks?’ Or with poverty? Or with books? Or with degrees and education? Does one need money to get it? Yet, even as I pose those questions, I – and we – know each answer would be a resounding ‘no!’ Though acquiring wisdom is aided immensely by a willingness to consider viewpoints not one’s own and by reading widely and – yes, age and experience can help – none of those things assures wisdom.
It would seem the single most important quality of the wise is captured beautifully in the sculpture of the Lady in the garden. She is caught in an eternal pause, a moment of pondering. At the crossroad of life, she stops and notices – what? Who? Does she know I watch her from the window? No matter . . . she teaches a simple lesson and invites an entirely do-able -and wise – response. Notice your world and the people in it. Observe the Sabbath. Take time. Leave a little space between the moments of busy-ness to breathe. None of these things, of course, assures wisdom . . . but I think they can help us touch toward wisdom.
As I observe the Sabbath this lovely July Sunday, I will walk today to a little Methodist Church I found on a road called ‘The Highway’ in a village named Ewloe (You-Low) about a 20 minute walk from here. And then, I will walk in the Wood and visit a castle.
Wherever in the world we find ourselves, may we each find the time to open the windows toward wisdom today.
And now, a poem by Wendell Berry. . .It is called simply “X”. And some pictures of Lady Wisdom.
Whatever is foreseen in joy
Must be lived out from day to day.
Vision held open in the dark
By our ten thousand days of work.
Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat.
And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled
And left to grace. That we may reap.
Great work is done while we’re asleep.
When we work well, a Sabbath mood
Rests on our day, and finds it good.
-Wendell Berry (1979, Sabbaths)