What's Important
Sunday,
September 13, 2009
Rev. Janice Palm
Proverbs 1:20-33; Mark 7:27-30
I have heard it as I read; I have heard it in people's exchanges of what's happening in western New York; I have heard it as general announcements are being made about what the policy will be. Anxiety. As if there isn't enough anxiety just starting a new school year, it seems to be a bit higher this year for some as we begin with a silent partner – H1N1. Schools are offering hygiene lessons – cough into your elbow, wash you hands regularly, don't come to school if you're sick. After the springtime outbreak and many schools closing that wisdom is being questioned. People are weighing the costs of the lost work of parents and the lost number of learning days from schools with the questionable benefits of closing a school: the number of outbreaks just isn't decreased greatly when a school is closed.
There is a wonderful article on the pandemic flu that spread among young people – as the present-day H1N1 appears to do – in thie current Washington Post National Weekly Edition. The article is about the 1957 pandemic. We have been through this before! It was a similar virus; it had a similar outbreak pattern. It created an onslaught of research to develop a timely vaccine. It created a similar dilemma for schools. It made for a similar kind of push where certain states should have priority in receiving the vaccines.The article does conclude with many helpful questions and answers about H1N1. I have posted them along with the rest of the article on the bulletin board in the hallway across from the church office. The primary rule for us is to use common sense and let hygiene be our priority. Consult your doctor if your symptoms go beyond seasonal flu symptoms or if you have on-going health risks.
Toward the end of the article, David Brown writes that “today, few people remember either” the 1977 N1N1 Russian flu outbreak or the 1957 H2N2 flu outbreak. “Many historians have noted that even the “Spanish Flu” of 1918-19 which killed at least 50 million people worldwide, left surprisingly little trace in the collective memory.” It almost seems like we loose any collective wisdom we learn from similar situations. And so when we are confronted with the situation again, we grasp after automatic ill thought out actions because we are at a loss for learned wisdom immediately.
Sometimes we can be right in the midst of a situation and not see clearly. We are too caught up in some of the details to be able to see clearly, to think clearly.
Just as close to home, perhaps even closer to home, there are times when I find myself responding out of frustration or anger, and I go into an automatic mode of fixing the situation. Do you ever do that? Sometimes I recognize I'm making passive aggressive motions as I put things back into the order I once had that someone else disrupted – saying to myself, ‘there! He won't disrupt that again. It's obvious it's supposed to be this way.' or I try to create an environment where a situation couldn't possibly happen again. I find myself doing those kinds of things on occasion rather than sitting down with the other to discuss the situation to gain some understanding.
Sometimes the automatic, not thought out response is what comes from mouth. Sometimes I recognize that what just came out of my mouth was not me but a previous generation – a parent's or a grandparent's – set of words, mode of reasoning or lack of reasoning. Do you ever find your self doing that? Do you ever find yourself saying things like: ‘Wait until your father gets home.' ‘What a dummy!' ‘I can't believe you did that.' ‘I can't believe you thought that.' ‘Honey, don't forget to….' ‘You can't do that.'
Sometimes when we are right in the midst of a situation, we do not see clearly. We get tripped up by triggers of familiarity and we loose our ability to see clearly, to think clearly as we go into automatic.
For each of you who have an Order of Worship, there is a part of the insert which is a colored picture. You may want to take it out and look at it. Don't read the title just yet, just look at the picture. For me, it helped illustrate how we can be in such a situation where our sight, our insight is not clear. The crosshatchings of gold, yellow and orange are threads of a veil. For this artist, Joel Isaacson, the veil is one of an Orange Burqa. For us it could be any veil that restricts our view – a wedding veil, a hat's veil, a veil of a mask, for my mother one Halloween night, it was a stocking veil pulled over her head. For Paul, he says, we see through a veil only dimly now. Can you make out what's beyond the orange veil in the picture? Only studying it perhaps or holding it at the right distance and angle perhaps, you might be able to make out a Twin Tower standing.
The burqa, a veil, restricts our vision whether looking from behind it or trying to peer through to see clearly who's wearing the veil.
As a nation, as a people we are still trying to understand how to respond to the horror of eight years ago. How do we obtain true information from real enemies? How do we memorialize the many victims and heroes of that day? We are eight years beyond 9/11 and we are still seeking answers – wisdom perhaps. And I ask further, can we put our suffering in perspective? How do we put into perspective the suffering our country lived through on that day with those who suffered the flooding and its long aftermath of recovery that is still yet fully developed today in New Orleans ? How do we put into perspective our suffering as a nation with respect to the ongoing worldwide suffering of starving children and war and famine and genocide? We seek answers perhaps. Perhaps it is discernment, perhaps it is wisdom.
Our scripture says: “Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice.” But can we hear; do we listen for her voice? “At the busiest corner she cries out, at the entrance of the city gates, she speaks: “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple. How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?” “…those who listen to me will be secure and will live with ease….”
This is one of my favorite readings. In fact, it was a very dangerous point in the development of the Hebrew writings and thought. The religion of the Hebrews was noted for its monotheism and yet here we hear intimations of two to be adored. Wisdom became personified, became a separate being. The Hebrew thought was on the verge of creating a separate feminine image of God in Wisdom! And yet, in another portion of Proverbs we hear that this Wisdom had limitations in the face of the ambiguities and mysteries of life; for Hebrew thought finally Wisdom personified could not prevail against the Lord. For Christian thought, Lady Wisdom, speaks of the work of the Holy Spirit. Wisdom is the discernment of how the work of God. Seeking wisdom is discernment through prayer and the gifts of others.
It is good to be gathering the fullness of our community again. Perhaps Homecoming is a way for us all to be back in touch with the foundation of our lives. Perhaps Holy Communion is a reminder of that which binds us together and that which calls us back into more thoughtful, discerning ways of living. Perhaps in our reconnections, we can hear Wisdom speak to us again and help build firm foundation. Wisdom does speak for everyday lives for she speaks on the very streets. Wisdom is crucial for our lives today. Events do and will happen to us that cannot be understood without Wisdom. Wisdom needs to be sought out over a lifetime; it is not acquired instantly or even quickly. It is not the instant cure-all of Ibuprofen. In the midst of calamity it is too late to try and gain its rewards.
But here, gathered here, we can be reminded that the foundation of Wisdom is built on a true understanding of and a real relationship with God, the originator of all that is. Wisdom can have us come to the point the disciples found for a moment in our gospel reading: recognizing Jesus for who he is.
Come then: let us Taste Him; let us know Him. As we journey together this year, let us find Wisdom.
