Words of Wisdom

I am nearly finished with Aunt Jane's Hero. I find myself turning to its pages when I see my heart and mind turned towards worldly things. I--probably foolishly--watched a chick flick this evening (I will not name it for fear of ridicule, heh) and found my heart stirred with desiring a type of love that I know is not real and that would not satisfy any heart outside of film and make-believe. And so there seemed no better remedy than picking up this book that presents such a simple yet real picture of love and life.

One of the striking aspects of the story is how the characters speak to each other. On the one hand, it seems unreal and is surely an artifact of a different time and place and yet there seems to be a caution and purpose in their conversation that I think we would do well to consider. (I think I spoke of this in an earlier post, as well.) On the other hand, I often find myself eager to reprove a certain person in the tale when they speak and surprisingly find the the wise listener offer a response of warmth and love and laughter instead that makes me sure that I am missing some sort of grace and kindness and joy in my perception of people that should be there as a Christian.

I am a listener. Always have been. And at times I am glad of this and other times frustrated. I know that it is a gift of sorts, but often I feel that it is half a gift without the ability to respond to what is heard appropriately and wisely. I want to be a woman who offers wise words, and at times I feel pressure in this regard in that I feel an expectation from myself and others that I will have something helpful, meaningful, poignant, and powerful to say when I can hardly think of what such a word might be. God has granted me the wisdom to know that even in these instances I may speak what little thoughts do come and trust that He will do with them as He will, but I do wish I had more confidence in the words I speak and that I found myself more ready with an apt reply.

This makes me think of a plaque I have in my room at home displaying my name, its meaning, and a verse: Jennifer, Fair Lady, "She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness" Proverbs 31:26. I had remembered it saying something about speaking wisdom, and I am glad to see the actual verse. I feel more confident praying for the strength and ability to walk in this than had it said "in her tongue is the law of wisdom."

And now a few quotes from Aunt Jane's Hero that I wanted to share:

Aunt Jane [wrote] a kind little note to Tom, to tell him how she rejoiced over and sympathized in the Christian work to which he was giving himself.
...
But a few days later Tom came to her, and said in his simple, honest way, "Aunt Jane, your note has puffed me up so, that I almost wish you had not written it... It made me very happy. But then I caught myself thinking, 'Tom, there must be something uncommon about you if people can write to you in that way!' And then I felt mean that I had thought anything about it." He looked in her face like an ingenuous, very good boy, and she said:

"I don't see but you'll have to pray that you may get back to thinking yourself common again. We have all of us a great deal to learn on these points, but we must learn to bear praise and blame with equal equanimity. We shall, in this world, get most of the latter, but we need shrink from neither as long as both drive us to Christ."

Of course this passage caught my attention as everything I see and hear is filtered through the virtue of humility these days (through thoughts concerning the virtue not through the virtue as I have it, ha). A good part of learning to be humble is just this--learning to bear praise and blame with equal equanimity and getting back to thinking yourself common. No?

And finally:
"We ought to learn to love our friends for what they are, rather than for what we wish them to be."

I think as Christians this is particularly difficult at times because it is easy for us to see what our friends could be and we want this for them out of love, but we must remember that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners and that for whatever reason He holds, our Father has decided that we would go through a process of sanctification and it is wrong for us to expect or desire our friends to be any place other than that place where their Creator has them at this very moment. This is not to say that we are not to encourage, challenge, inspire, and correct... but always in love. And I think we must first love our friend just as he or she is this very moment before we think of pushing him to love and good deeds.

Some might challenge my thoughts by saying that to "love" someone is to push them to love and good deeds. Speaking the truth to someone, pointing them towards the right path--this itself is love for love is active. But I think in this quote, love is meant in the sense of appreciating and valuing. We must learn to value and appreciate our friends just as they are for God values and appreciates us as we are. He is ever patient with us, and if He who is capable of moving us is so, surely we who cannot move our friend, we who know the weakness of the human heart, surely we should be patient and gentle and kind towards our friends in whatever position we find them.

Well, this has grown a lot longer than I expected, which is a shame because I know that the length of posts and the number of readers are inversely related. At least I know my mother will read it, so that makes it worthwhile ;-)