January 3, 2012
Excerpt from Proverbs 1: 20-33
"Wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord, but fools despise wisdom and instruction."
Reflection by Anthony B. Robinson
When I think of wisdom I think of my grandmother, Victoria Moon Robinson. Orphaned as a child, she was raised by a kind family in Ohio. As a young woman she became a licensed pharmacist, not all that common for women in the World War I era. She also played the organ at church and for services at my other grandparents’ funeral home there in the remote but beautiful town in northeastern Oregon where they all lived.
In her later years, she was crippled by arthritis. Nevertheless, she presided, with love and wisdom, from a large chair in her living room.
One day, I was probably about twenty at the time, I must have said something that struck my grandmother as arrogant or callow or too full of myself--perhaps all of the above. She fixed me with a stern look and said, "Mister, don't you ever think that you are any better than anyone else."
Her words had a bite to them, which in my experience, real wisdom often does. In the Book of Proverbs, what separates the wise from the foolish is not that the wise have no need of correction, but that when they get it they listen and pay attention, even if it bites. The foolish, on the other hand, neither listen nor pay heed. The foolish can't handle correction.
Part of what made me pay attention when my grandmother spoke sharply to me was that I knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that she loved me. I knew she was and always would be in my corner. But she loved me enough to challenge me. We’re blessed when we have such people in our lives. Is there someone like that in your life?
Share your appreciation for your "Grandma Victoria's" on Facebook. . . .
And we're blessed when we listen and pay attention, even when wisdom bites.
Prayer
Holy One, grant me the grace to hear and heed your wisdom, even, or perhaps especially, when it bites a little. Amen.
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