(The Wisdom of Learning)
We are - because -
we have come to know who we are not.
This is why we must ask our questions
sincerely seeking for answers.
For when we learn any truth,
we do not learn to use it - unless -
we are led by an understanding
of our need of it.
We become wise
not by the conception of what we know how to do
- but by the sheer weight -
of what we know we ought not to do.
Wisdom never applies where danger is absent.
We become wise - only -
when we become broken enough
by the wrong things to ask ourselves why.
Fear of the LORD must lead to a reverence of Him.
For the safety of God is the beginning of wisdom.
To be able to surrender a measure
of our own freedom to the ennobling of others,
submit our independence to their discipline
and strive to remain in the humility of our youth
- the agelessness of little children -
to be able to absorb their constant teaching.
Fear of the instruments of the LORD
must also lead to a reverence of Him.
For wisdom that is learned
and wisdom that is transmitted
are one and the same thing.
In the former,
we expose ourselves to the presence of things
we must learn to never trust.
And in the latter,
we expose ourselves to the presence of things
we must learn to trust.
Both of these - being those things -
that we should never expose ourselves to in the first place.
Such is the condition of our exile!
For if our bliss is to never know danger,
to never know wisdom, makes it perfect.
The safety of God is the beginning of all learning.
And a knowledge of the truth is its own lineage.
For all true things ascend to God - just as surely -
as all our learning must eventually disappear
from the confines of both mind and heart
to return again to the infinite depths of the Divine.
All knowledge is a giving that begins with God
and a receiving that must end forever in God.
All our learning is nothing we can possess.
All our knowledge may only be kept in trust.
We possess it for a while as a means to find our way
and then we must return it - again and again -
to the LORD Who possesses all means.
Indeed,
learning that does not lead to wisdom
is like water that never flows - without purpose -
and like a river with neither beginning nor end - meaningless.
All learning that is kept like a treasure rots.
For every knowledge that must remain - as truth in the heart -
must be something we forever give away.
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