Proverbs 3:13-18
Happy are those who find wisdom,
and those who get understanding,
I spent a couple of hours yesterday listening to arguments before the Supreme Court of the United States. I’d never heard this before – it appears it’s never been on radio before – and it was fascinating.
I’m sure the legal experts have all kinds of things to say, and good guesses as to what the decisions will be. And it’s not that I’m not interested in that, but what fascinated me yesterday was how pleasant it was, how encouraging it was, to listen to all those people – men and women – engaging in thoughtful, intelligent discussion of such very important issues, thinking about all the sides of an issue, not just the quickest way forward.
It’s not that easy, you know, to take the time to think through the implications of our decisions. And most of us don’t….don’t think about the next step. We just take it one step at a time. At one level that’s right, but if we think “one step at a time” means we don’t need to lift our heads to figure out where this path is taking us, we’ve missed the point. That was the lesson I took away from the Supreme Court Justices yesterday. Live for today but plan for tomorrow.
Listening to the Justices was listening to a group of people whose minds are awake. Age didn’t matter: Justice Ginsburg’s questions were as well-formed as those of the youngest Justice, Neil Gorsuch. Experience, it turns out, did matter. Former professors asked different kinds of questions than former trial attorneys. But what mattered the most was that each and every one of the Justices clearly had invested time to study the case, to look up background, to think about implications, and had brought all of that to the table.
In Proverbs, we’re told that happiness lies in finding wisdom and understanding, and this is a great example of that truth. For us in our current position, the understanding we seek lies in learning as much as possible about covid-19 and in taking the time to be as sure as possible that we understand the implications of our decisions. Even more than that, however, the conversations I heard were a reminder of how much sheer pleasure it is to be around people who take the time to really know their subject – whether it’s the law or the best ways to make strawberry jam! Learning is one of the great gifts of life.
May you all have a wonderful day of learning and joy,
Easter blessings, Pastor Virginia
To Believe is to Care. . . To Care is to Do 