A farmer in Maine was approached by a stranger one day and asked how much he thought his prize Jersey cow was worth. The farmer thought for a moment, looked the stranger over, and then said: “Are you the tax assessor, or has she been killed by your car?”
A shoe manufacturer decided to open up a market in the Congo in central Africa, so he sent two salesmen to the undeveloped territory. One salesman cabled back, “Prospect here nil. No one wears shoes.” The other salesman reported enthusiastically, “Market potential terrific! Everyone is barefooted.”
A woman wrote to Dear Abby. “Dear Abby: Our son was married in January. Five months later, his wife had a ten-pound baby girl. They said the baby was premature. Tell me, can a baby this big be that early—{signed} Wondering”
Abby responded, “Dear Wondering: The baby was on time, the wedding was late. Forget it.”
In most cases, regardless of the situation and the circumstances, there is more than one way of interpreting it.
In 1925, following World War I, T.S. Elliot wrote the poem “The Hollow Men.” Through the poem, he expresses a sense of hopelessness that he is experiencing in the world and personally. The poem begins,
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
After going further into the experience and the emotions, the poem concludes:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
I pray you are feeling thoroughly uplifted at this point.
Given the current state of the world, “This is the way the world ends” is a topic that is near the surface for many. Some will pull out their Bibles, dust them off, flip to the last book, Revelation, and start trying to sort it out (I wish you the best of luck.) Others will watch, shake their heads, and be afraid. But what we are all doing is looking at various situations and circumstances and attempting to interpret and understand them. In the end, we come to all sorts of conclusions. Why?
A clinical psychologist, Natalie Dattilo, says that when we are on the outside and look at situations, we have gaps in the information needed to come to the correct understanding, so she says, “Most of the time, we fill the gaps with our own biases, assumptions, beliefs, thoughts, ideas, and conclusions.” She adds, this is “a person’s adaptive capacity to ‘construct their own reality’ and is the way a person makes sense of things in the face of incomplete or ambiguous information.” (Source)
We take the situation in the world—a situation that we can’t come close to fully understanding—and begin to fill in the information gaps with our own biases, prejudices, ideas, etc, and come to a particular conclusion. For some, the conclusion is, “This is the way the world ends.”
An example: the current crisis in the Middle East. Do you understand that situation? I’ll answer that question for you—No. You do not. I don’t know that anyone fully understands it, so we all have gaps in the information we need to reach a proper conclusion. However, that will not stop anyone from drawing conclusions. How do we do that? We start filling those information gaps with our biases, prejudices, and so on. In other words, we start seeing that situation through various lenses.
If you are pro-Israel, then you will be biased in that direction and see the current situation through a pro-Israel lens. If you believe Hamas/Palestine are in the right, then you have a pro-Palestine lens. See how that works? If we had only one lens through which we viewed such situations, we might be able to sort it out, but there are many. For some, there is the Biblical lens: the Jews are God’s chosen people, the Bible says the Temple must be rebuilt, and the land is God’s gift. All of these are lenses. There’s the economic lens. What’s this going to do to the price of gas? The fear lens: does Iran have nuclear weapons, and will they use them? Will this spill over to the rest of the world? Lens after lens and the true picture of what is going on is completely distorted, and there is no way to establish the truth. So, how do we go about this? How do we interpret the world around us?
Bishop Robert Barron—he’s Roman Catholic, so don’t tell our neighbors I was quoting him—Bishop Barron says, “What was peculiar about ancient Israel was their reading the world through theological lenses. When they wanted to read the signs of the times, they wondered what God was doing and why. The deepest and truest reading is the theological one that seeks after the divine causality and purpose that works under and through all the other lenses.” Instead of trying to interpret the world through your self-constructed lenses, ask, “What is God doing and why?”
Jesus spoke to His disciples about the end of days. It was then that the disciples asked Him, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3) In answering the question, He told them many things, including the Parable of the Ten Virgins that we heard today. “Five of them were foolish, and five were wise.” Five did not have enough oil for their lamps to last the night, and five did. The wise ones were allowed into the wedding feast, but when the foolish ones arrived late, the bridegroom told them, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.” Jesus concluded his answer about the end of the age come by saying, “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”
Jesus gave the disciples many signs of the end of days, and individuals have been attempting to interpret those signs through what they see taking place in the world. Still, those same individuals have gaps in their information, so they are using those self-constructed lenses to see the world, and, in the process, they are misinterpreting what is taking place. Therefore, to correctly interpret what is going on, we must set aside our lenses and seek to answer the question, “What is God doing and why?” And to come even close to an answer, we need something that is in very short supply.
Punch was a weekly satirical publication in England. In the April 10, 1875 issue, they printed the following poem (not nearly as deep as “The Hollow Men”).
“There was an owl liv’d in an oak The more he heard, the less he spoke The less he spoke, the more he heard. O, if men were all like that wise bird.”
The poem is where the expression “Wise as an owl” originated. We will never completely know the mind of God, but to come close to answering the question, “What is God doing and why?”—we need to be wise. We need wisdom.
In the Book of Proverbs, a father is speaking to his son and says,
“Let your heart hold fast my words;
keep my commandments, and live.
Get wisdom; get insight;
do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth.
Do not forsake her, and she will keep you;
love her, and she will guard you.
The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom,
and whatever you get, get insight.”
(Proverbs 4:4-7)
“Get wisdom; get insight.” Will this give us crystal clear answers so we can rightly interpret everything? Nope. But it will allow us to take off the lenses we’ve constructed, which means we will set aside all those biases, prejudices, opinions, and misinterpretations and at least begin to try to see what God is doing.
“Get wisdom; get insight.” Where is wisdom to be found? St. James tells us, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” (James 1:5)
The word that gets batted around frequently these days is misinformation. In some cases, the misinformation is deliberate. Individuals and groups intentionally distorting the truth for their own benefit, but a lot of misinformation enters into the discussion because of ignorance due to a lack of wisdom. Don’t contribute, and don’t participate. If you want to begin to understand the world around you and the signs of the time, humble yourself, set aside what you think you know, and ask God for wisdom and insight. God will not deny you this request.
Let us pray:
God Almighty, Your Wisdom includes
An understanding of what is fair,
What is logical, what is true,
What is right, and what is lasting.
It mirrors Your pure intellect!
We entreat You to grant us such Wisdom,
That our labors may reflect Your insight.
Your Wisdom expands in Your creations,
Displaying complexity and abundance.
Your Wisdom is an eternity ahead of us.
May Your wisdom flourish forever!
Amen.
Candle in a Cave 