This is one of those days when I have loads to say and am trying to decide when, where and how to say it!

Frankly, I’ve become somewhat of a cynic and skeptic while growing more ‘chronologically mature’. I take a "jaundiced" view of much that passes as ‘news’ or ‘expert opinions’ or otherwise purported ‘wisdom’.

I think it’s a healthy perspective to adopt, given the state of our culture and society today, and that includes what I’ll refer to as the "Christian" culture.

Thursday while driving to the Ohio event, I noticed a church sign. I notice them often and marvel at how they range from totally not theologically correct to how assinine most of them happen to be. This one took the cake as the old expression goes. Here’s what it said:

"Wisdom is having a lot to say and saying nothing!"

"What?!", I shouted as I drove by. "How in the world of sanity could anyone believe that is wisdom!"

I’m taking on this subject today because we do a lot of talking here about "wisdom". I believe wisdom is part and parcel of what occurs as we travel through the 2nd half of the journey; knows no particular gender, but is something that women have intuitively and is of profound importance when we seek to apply it to daily life - ours and that of those we care the most about.

Because many of us at AWP are Christian by desire, I’m looking at this from that perspective. But the same applies regardless of the faith tradition to which we adhere.

For too long, folks of faith have kept still. We used to be called the "silent majority". We stood idly by while others of a lesser persuasion took ‘pot shots’ at us and then began to take action to strip us of our rights and privileges as citizens of the USA.

As women, myself included, we kept still while women of any persuasion, around the world, were brutalized, violated and otherwise held in the same contempt that much of the world, including the Christian world have always held women. I recall hearing the story of a woman in our community who was brutalized by an abusive husband being told by her "pastor" that if she "left and divorced him", she wouldn’t be welcome in the church anymore because she would have "committed a sin".

And we wonder why folks leave the church or don’t want to adopt our way of viewing the life and the world around us!

This may not be of interest to you and you may wonder why I’ve gone in this direction this weekend day. It’s a combination of things that began with that ridiculous statement on a sign in the yard of a building called "church".

I’ve gone here because one of the things that I believe is part of the vision and mission of AWP is that we owe it to each other to ‘mentor’ ourselves in such a way that we grow in grace, stature, intellect, understanding and wisdom. We grow in care and compassion for each other. And we call into account those things that are phoney expressions of a great truth so that not one of our ’sisters’ here - or anywhere for that matter - falls prey to misrepresentation(s)!

Page 1 of 2 :: First | Last :: Prev | 1 2 | Next