Tag Archives: wisdom

Wisdom’s Apprentice

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Who is wisdom’s apprentice?  What sort of person is on the path to wisdom?

  1. A person who is self-aware, and has a longing to understand her place and connection with God and the Cosmos.
  2. A person who longs for goodness, truth, and beauty.
  3. A person who seeks to walk in equanimity, gratitude, and awe.
  4. A person who seeks to live empathically and compassionately.
  5. A person who acknowledges their need for grace, and seeks to be full of grace: forgiveness, acceptance, and completeness.
  6. A person who seeks a vocation they enjoy by which they can bless themselves and others, and by which they can earn a living.
  7. A person who seeks to live simply and within their means; who is moderate in all things.
  8. A person who enjoys a civil discussion about ideas that matter; who can bless a person who disagrees with her.

Is the wise person an expert?  I don’t believe the qualification of expert is either necessary or sufficient to be wise.  Oftentimes experts are arrogant.  Their skill can lead to hubris that leads them to believe they are beyond the need for grace, compassion, or empathy.  But neither do I believe it keeps them from being wise, or seeking wisdom.

It takes discipline to stay on such a path.  It takes community to stay on such a path.  Since the dawn of civilization, persons have formed communities to help one another pursue these very ends in one form or another; whether as political communities, religious communities, or academic communities.

We need each other to grow.  It is hard, if not impossible, to grow alone.  Can we form such a community online?  Could such an online community meet face to face?

Interplay Between Domains of Practice

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The different domains of practice inform and strengthen one another.  My spiritual practice involves my mind, my mind is invigorated by the practice of my body, my body is relaxed by the stilling of my emotions, etc.

The book Spark discusses the connection between aerobic exercise and cognition.  In nearly all of his books, Mortimer Adler explores the relation between a liberal education and “the good life.”  Plato thought mathematics so important that he inscribed above the door to his Academy the words, “Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here.”

Life is a systemic network of connections between disparate entities, even in our own quintessence.  We function best as chorus singing in harmony, whether as facets of the self, or as facets of the community.

When one part grows out of control, or out of balance, a cancer develops.  Unregulated growth is almost the very definition of cancer.

Oftentimes we want to group like with like.  We may seek out those who share our interests, our beliefs, our culture, etc.  I have talked at some length about doing that very thing in this blog.

However we need the balance of opposites to keep our lives in proportion, to give perspective to our world view, to bring our melody into harmony with the world around us.

Wisdom is a melting pot of praxis, of faith, of art.  It is seeing, listening, and feeling at multiple levels, with multiple modalities.  It invites challenge, invites discussion, and allows for disagreement.

Seek out a variety of voices to sing in your group.

Circling Domains of Wisdom

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Have you ever wondered where wisdom is found?

Where are you and your group of seekers going to look for wisdom?

I’ve come to believe wisdom dwells nearly everywhere and nowhere; kind of like the idea of quality in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

There’s a scene in The Last Samurai where Tom Cruise describes with awe these Japanese people who have turned nearly every aspect of life into an art form; whether it’s arranging flowers, drinking tea, writing, fighting, or planting, everything is done with discipline and an eye toward beauty and simplicity.

I want my life to be like that.

I tend to think of my own life in terms of domains: spirit, mind, body, and emotion; social, vocational, financial, and household.  I have “practices” I associate with each.  I would like to discuss each of these in the context of a “practice group.”  But how?

Consider for a moment the scope of these domains:

  • Spirit: scripture, prayer, service, worship, vision, planning
  • Mind: reading, writing, art, math, and science
  • Body: athletics, fine arts, martial arts, yoga
  • Emotion: meditation, aerobics, therapy
  • Social: family, friends, acquaintances, and affiliations
  • Vocational: formal education, certifications, continuing education
  • Financial: budgeting, financial statements, investing
  • Household: meals, organizing, cleaning, and maintaining the home

The point is, I think wisdom is present in each of these, but perhaps isn’t necessarily predicated of any one of them.  Do you discuss all of these under the auspices of one group, or many?

The idea of having one group address all these ideas appeals to me, because I think one circle informs all the others.  Franklin’s Junto addressed many of these, and was very active in the community.  The goal is for the group to act on these conversations.

Why is it Important for you to be here Today?

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OK, so we are a group of seekers who have come together whose intention is to practice wisdom.  We are familiar with talk dancing, and the marginal cost of bandwidth on our conversation.

Now what?

I believe the title of this post is one of Peter Block’s six questions or conversations he developed in “A Small Group.”  I am familiar with Peter and “A Small Group” only by second hand.  But I read a post that refers to this question, “Why is it important for you to be here today?” and its follow-up, “What cross-roads are you at?”

I’ve grown tired of lectures from experts on how to live.  But I am energized by self-revealing conversations with other people who talk about their passions and struggles.  I want to learn from their practice.  I want to be inspired by their persistence.  I want to discover what keeps them on the path, with the hope that together we can all stay on the path.

I want to learn from other learners how they push through to the other side of transformation and transcendence.

Maybe these questions can get us started on the path together.  We learn to listen to each other’s story, about what matters to each person, and the decisions they face.

I say path, but there could be many.  Yet they will have threads in common; seen in different perspectives, maybe painted in different colors.  But wisdom is justified of all her children (Lu 7.35).

Building the First Circle of Wisdom

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I take as my model for a “community of wisdom” Benjamin Franklin’s “Junto”, a club of about 12 men who got together weekly for their mutual improvement.  They would take turn about in leading a discussion on morals, politics, or science, and committed to produce and read to the group an essay of his own writing once every three months.

Our debates were to be under the direction of a president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute or desire of victory; and to prevent warmth, all expressions of positiveness in opinions, or direct contradiction, were after some time made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary penalties.

The first step is drawing up a list of likely candidates to form such a group.  Alternatively, you might use a resource such as meetup.com to find a group of individuals so inclined.  Or you might resort to joining a formally organized group such as Rotary or Toastmasters.

Franklin also drew up a list of questions (see questions under the link above) that I believe are indicative of what is a matter of concern to an “elder” or “wise one.”

In order for the group to be well run, for its members all to take part in the discussion, and for the group to eventually become viral, I believe the first meetings should address the ideas of channels of communication, of talk dancing, hand signals, and self-organization and self-replication of groups.

Why viral you may ask?  The group should have the goal of going viral so that the wisdom of the group can be shared with the world.  As the group grows and divides the elders become mentors to others seeking meaning and significance in their life.  This later became a goal of Franklin’s group as well, which eventually evolved into the American Philosophical Society.

Building a Community of Wisdom

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What are we working for?  What is the end of practice?

Some writers, like Buford or Rohr for instance, talk about two halves of life: the first half that seeks success, and the second half that seeks meaning or significance.

I was in middle school when Kung Fu came out.  The fighting got my attention, but it was the mastery and wisdom of the old men that filled my heart with longing.

It is mastery and wisdom I seek now.  I want to seek it in community with other seekers, not alone; much like the monastery in Kung Fu, only one that is in the world and not shut off from it.

Is there a community of “wise ones,” where one can go to be trained in the ways of mastery and wisdom?  Why am I even putting these two words “mastery” and “wisdom” together?

I suspect that the two somehow go together.  That wisdom somehow grows out of the discipline and focus required to pass the trials inevitably required for one to become a master of anything sufficiently difficult.

Does that mean that our community of wise ones should consist of practitioners of the same art?  It could, but I think it could also consist of masters of different arts; that one art could inform another of its own particular species of wisdom; or even masters of science with masters of religion, with masters of the arts.

What if you don’t know any masters to hang out with?  Is it enough to hang out with seekers of wisdom, or seekers of mastery?  How do we build a community of elders, of wisdom?

Could we build such a community ourselves?