Wisdom is another way of knowing and understands things at a higher level of inclusivity, which we call “transformation” or nondualistic thought.
—Richard Rohr, Things Hidden
Richard Rohr considers wisdom a path of transformation based on humility and honesty and grounded in reality.
There is a necessary wisdom that is only available through the liminal spaces of suffering, birth, death, and rebirth (or order, disorder, and reorder). We can’t learn it in books alone. There are certain truths that can be known only if we are sufficiently emptied, sufficiently ready, sufficiently confused, or sufficiently destabilized. That’s the genius of the Bible! It doesn’t let us resolve all these questions in theology classrooms. In fact, nothing about the Bible appears to be written out of or for academic settings.
We must approach the Scriptures with humility and patience, with our own agenda out of the way, and allow the Spirit to stir the deeper meaning for us. Otherwise, we only hear what we already agree with or what we have decided to look for. Isn’t that rather obvious? As Paul wrote, “We must teach not in the way philosophy is taught, but in the way the Spirit teaches us: We must teach spiritual things spiritually” (1 Corinthians 2:13). This mode of teaching is much more about transformation than information. That changes the entire focus and goal.
It is very clear that Jesus was able to heal, touch, teach, and transform people, and there were no prerequisites. They didn’t need to have any formal education. His wisdom was not based on any scholastic philosophy or theology, in spite of Catholic fascination with medieval scholasticism. Jesus, as a teacher, largely talked about what was real and what was unreal, what was temporary and what would last—and therefore how we should live inside of reality. It required humility and honesty much more than education. In a thousand ways, he was saying that God comes to us disguised as our life. Later, we learned to call it the mystery of Incarnation and, as Walter Brueggemann called it, “the scandal of particularity.”
Consider the concrete teaching style of Jesus. He teaches in the temple area several times, but most of his teaching involves walking with people on the streets, out into the desert, and often into nature. His examples come from the things he sees around him: birds, flowers, animals, clouds, landlords and tenants, little children, women baking and sweeping. It’s amazing that we made his teaching into something other than that.
Jesus teaches with anecdote, parable, and concrete example much more than by creating a systematic theology; it was more the way of “darkness” than the way of light. Yet it was Jesus’s concrete examples that broke people through to the universal light. “Particulars” seem to most open us up to universals, which is what poets have always understood.
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, rev. ed. (Franciscan Media, 2022), 135–136.
Image credit and inspiration: Mishal Ibrahim, untitled (detail), 2022, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Jesus found wisdom in the transformative truths of everyday life.
Story from Our Community:
As an 85-year-old woman, I no longer respect the church’s male-dominated hierarchy…. I am increasingly finding solace and a deeper understanding of Jesus’ love, mercy, and presence through my participation in centering prayer groups and a small, intentional Eucharistic community. Through contemplative prayer, I’ve been graced with the gift of detachment from my past and early indoctrination in the institutional Church. I’m committed to taking full responsibility for my own spiritual path and relationships with other seekers. With God’s help, I find my faith is stronger than ever.
—Gina S.
