This Sunday is the first Sunday in Lent -- also Scouting Sunday when we welcome the children and families of Winona's Beaver, Cub, Scout, Brownie and Guide groups. Our theme is one of the promises made by the Scouts -- to be "wise in the use of our resources."
What resources are we talking about? Natural resources come to mind -- water, air, land, animals, fruit, etc. Also personal resources like skills, imagination, money, love. What about things like time, relationships, tradition, the future?
And what is it to be wise? It's something different and more than smart. How do you define wisdom? And who has it?
We talk of the wisdom of the elders. We also marvel at the wisdom of children. Can it be that the only folks that need to really work at growing wise, are the bunch of us in between -- the ones in charge of most of the world?
And how do we cultivate wisdom? What practices help make us wise in how we live and what we do?
Some aboriginal teachings say every major decision is made well only when we bear in mind the needs and well-being of the seventh generation after us. Something about seeing ourselves as responsible participants in a larger story.
I also heard an interview with a woman who has developed a discipline of double-shopping. Especially when she shops for clothes, cosmetics, shoes and leisure goods, she shops once to see what she likes and wants, then leaves to do something else for a while, and returns to buy only those things that she still really wants and knows she needs. Shopping takes more time, but she spends and accumulates less, and feels she shops more wisely. Something about finding ways to break addictions and check impulses.
All of this seems to fit well with Lent -- the season where we adopt practices to help us become more focused, more spiritually intentional, less under the control of addictions and obsessions, and maybe wiser.
Do you have any practices that help you live wisely, and make wise decisions?
The translation of Psalm 1 that will be read in worship is a new one by Stephen Mitchell, so I'm reprinting it here:
Blessed are the man
and the woman
who have grown beyond their greedand have put an end to their hatred
and no longer nourish illusions.
But they delight in
the way things are
and keep their hearts open, day and night.
They are like trees
planted near flowing rivers,
which bear fruit when they are ready.
Their leaves will not
fall or wither.
Everything they do will succeed.
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