When I say “Wise Men” I certainly mean to include “Wise Women.” You may have heard the joke: Do you know what would have happened  if the “Wise Men” had been“Wise Women”?  They would have asked directions, arrived on time, helped deliver the baby, cleaned the stable, made a casserole, and brought practical gifts.

I guess, however, that we must be content with the “Wise Men.”  They were also known as the “Three Kings” and the “Magi.” According to some scholars these “Magi” were considered to be magicians or people of magic and of the occult in their culture. Through elaborate ceremonies, using sacred scents or aromas such as frankincense and myrrh, they would divine the future.  So it was natural that they would bring the gifts they had on hand. It seems to me that a “casserole” would have been a better gift.

Much of this in my mind, is poetry, beautifully, simply but powerfully told to sustain a story and to present a value. Even though this Christmas story be a myth, there have been, through the ages, people whose gifts of wisdom enriched and enlightened the world in which they lived. Their gifts were more useful than frankincense and more valuable than gold. Do we know where to find these gifts of wisdom in our times and in the circles in which we live?

To uncover or to discover all of this, we must have some idea of what wisdom is.  I asked my wife, Beverly, what she thought wisdom was and she responded, off the top of her head, that it was seeing things with a long-range view and it was always very humane and filled with kindness. I asked a friend, a rather analytical person and very concrete and practical in his thinking, who said that, to him, wisdom was understanding priorities and always living within one’s capabilities. I wonder what your definition would be? The definition I like best is the one I heard in my philosophy class in Rye Beach, New Hampshire, in 1957.

I remember that day well and the scene is still vivid in my mind these many years later. The professor was drawing the distinction between wisdom and knowledge. He said that knowledge was information or individual facts, but wisdom was the ability to see how all things fit together as one. It’s like our seventh UU principle: “the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” Everything fits together and has its own value, so necessary to the whole. Wisdom, though,  may be that kind of thing that we don’t know how to define but we know it when we see it. There is something so spiritual about wisdom. Wisdom is ageless. It makes us humane and caring.  It sets us at peace -- nothing is broken, out of place, or useless. There is no clutter but only precious gems everywhere. Wisdom  touches on the sacred which is the same as the precious  The wise person, the more I think of it, is the holy one, who sees things as a whole. The wise one is the saint, if we dare ever use such a word.

Who are the people of wisdom today? For me, using just a few seconds of reflection, I would name the Dalai Lama and Jimmy Carter. They immediately spring to mind. I had a much harder time trying to name the wise women of today. My perceptive wife pointed out that women don’t promote themselves and don’t have the visible positions in our culture, thus are not readily recognized in the ranks of the wise. One wise woman that finally came to mind is Maya Angelou. I am sure there are many others and I look forward to hearing from you who you consider them to be.

These, whom I have named , are distant figures, and I have never met them. I will name one person, whom I did meet, whom I considered to be so wise and who fundamentally changed my life. It was a man named Ivan Illich. He was a priest though he never acted like one, and wouldn’t consider himself to be one in the traditional sense. He started a Spanish immersion school in Curenavaca, Mexico, in the early 60’s. Many of the priest and nun missionaries, who would work in Latin America, studied there. Cuernavaca was much more than a school where one learned Spanish. It was a hotbed of radicalism, which I later learned would be called “liberation theology.” This man Illich looked like Ichabod Crane -- a gaunt man, six foot four in height with stooped shoulders. He had high energy and was always thinking, always confronting, shaking people from the smugness of their bourgeois values. From the day I met him I have always been wary of organizations and so-called tradition. I was never one who sought power or position or aligned myself with the rich, but his passion for the poor, the disenfranchised, has continued to haunt me and to radicalize me to this day. In my mind, this man was a man of wisdom. What man or woman in your life has touched you in a special way and opened your eyes to a glimpse of wisdom?

Looking back now, I also see Illich as a man of many faults. He didn’t listen well. He was belligerent. He didn’t take care of himself. Now I realize that there is no completely wise person. They have bits of wisdom in them but also vanity, and foolishness, and a host of other imperfections Thank goodness this is so. We have had too much veneration of gurus, shamans, and priests, and popes, and so-called saints. We need to find these specks of wisdom and try to piece them together.  And so often we find wisdom in the least expected people.

A Yiddish saying puts it correctly: “Wisdom travels by oxcart.” When I first heard this, I was a bit puzzled. What did it mean? Then it came to me. Wisdom comes slowly and in simple guise. It comes slow enough for anyone to see it and to grasp it. And there can be as much wisdom in the peasant as in the professor, as much in the cleaning lady at Holy Cross Hospital as in Bill Gates. I found as much wisdom in that cold, dark garage on the West Side of Manhattan, waiting and talking with other cab drivers of minimal education than I did in my many years in the academic halls where I studied theology for four years. There is wisdom everywhere and I believe in more concentrated form among those who spend more time experiencing life than reading books.

When thinking of wise people, I usually think of those with gray hair and weather-beaten faces. It takes time to be wise. Anyone can be a “wise guy” but few can become wise men. The Chinese probably have it right when they venerate the old. We “enlightened” Americans in this 21st century store the old away in the backroom or the back wards. We feel that life and technology have passed them by. They are obsolete, like dinosaurs in this fast-paced world. I love how Alice Walker phrased it: “We must cherish our old men.  We must revere their wisdom, appreciate their insight, love the humanity of their words.” The humanity of their words. It probably takes many years to become fully human. Listen to the humanity of their words.

I have begun to read the best-selling book, “Tuesdays with Morrie.” It’s the story of a very successful sportswriter who had a college professor who he thought very wise. He had lost contact with him for many years and only by chance did he hear that his much admired professor was dying. He sought the professor out and they met every Tuesday to talk--the much acclaimed sportswriter and the old professor. The younger man sitting, as it were, at the feet of the elder, to catch those precious drops of wisdom before the old man died. As I read I thought: How many opportunities have I missed to gleam wisdom from the old. Have you ever thought that? Wisdom is so often condensed and distilled in the old and it seems it is “washed out to sea, before we can snatch it.”

Yes, there is wisdom to be mined in the old--and in the fresh, unaltered minds of the young--and in everyone else in between. There are specks of wisdom everywhere. In fact, I think everyone has a piece of wisdom. Each of us is so unique that we see wisdom from an entirely different angle. We won’t find it if we don’t look hard and long to see it. Each person has this gift to give us. We won’t find it if we are too selfish, too cynical, too busy, too material. Our eyes have cataracts that blur and narrow our vision. We will find it if we are open, positive, quiet and reflective. Wisdom is everywhere--in every particle of nature, in every person big or small--it’s there for the taking.

Benjamin Franklin said: “The doors of wisdom are never shut”. I particularly think that we find wisdom in the simple, in the unexpected. The more artificial, encumbered, detached, isolated we become, the more wisdom will elude our grasp.

Books are also full of wisdom but we need to reflect upon and savor what we read. Edward Thorndike said: “Colors fade, temples crumble, empires fall but wise words endure.” I find myself, when reading, passing one wise thought after another through my brain and then discarding it rather than claiming it. The Bible has endured these many hundreds of years because it contains so much wisdom.  The word “wisdom” appears 318 times in the Old Testament alone. The book of Job says that “the price of wisdom is above rubies.” Have we found any wisdom in the Bible or does it lay dusty upon the shelf? 

Speaking of the Bible, there is one phrase in that book that, at first and even second glance, confounded me before I was able to stretch it out and find a rich meaning hidden there. The disturbing quote is: “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” That certainly is the message of the old time religion and the religion that I grew up in. I wonder if the original Hebrew word really meant “fear.” I’ve used my poetic sense to change the word “fear” to the word “reverence” and, as I always do, I’ve substituted the word “creation” for God. Indeed, if we have reverence for everything we encounter, then this is the beginning of wisdom. As the Buddhists do, bow in reverence before everything we meet and we begin to be wise.

Wisdom can be quite non-verbal. We can find it in dance and music.  The jazz musician, Charlie Parker observed: “Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. [But] if you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.” We have this speck of wisdom in us but it lies useless if we don’t act upon it.

The new year has barely begun. We have a fresh start. The feast of the Epiphany has passed, the Wise Men of the East have returned to their homes. Where will you find wisdom today? And yes, we are also challenged to be the wise people of this moment, following the star of wisdom as we travel through this desert of our lifetime.