Because you hated Knowledge and had nothing to do with Fear-of-God,

Because you had nothing to do with my (Wisdom’s) advice and brushed aside all my offers to train you,

Well, you’ve made your bed–now lie in it; you wanted your own way–now, how do you like it?

Proverbs 1:29-30

My chemistry teacher in high school read a chapter of Proverbs to the class every day. When he got to the end, he’d start again.

At the time I thought it would get boring, reading the same thing over and over. Now I appreciate much better that it’s never the same thing twice. The world has changed, my life has changed, my thinking has changed since last time, even if it wasn’t that long ago that I read it last.

I’ve since read Proverbs a number of times, including the section with Wisdom calling in the street. This time it feels even more appropriate than ever before, the picture of Wisdom literally calling to people and those people blithely ignoring her in favor of their own foolishness. On a national scale, that’s exactly what we’re doing.

Of course, it’s easy to say “oh, those people are fools who are not listening to Wisdom. But I’m not among them.” But I think part of the point here is that Wisdom calls to all of us, and we all–I–continually turn away. I need to seek the places where I turn from Wisdom and change those places first: take the plank out of my own eye, so to speak.

Something to remember.