Wisdom Within
Failure and falling short are the best teachers; success has virtually nothing to teach us on the spiritual path. Richard Rohr
Gregg’s Reflection
As we learned in the post on Divine Indwelling, there is a spark of God within us all. And, as the post on False Self/True Self describes, our True Self is buried deeply within us waiting to be uncovered. Thomas Keating said, “We all have a divine spark, buried under the emotional debris of a lifetime.”
When we connect with that divine indwelling, the divine spark of God, we connect with wisdom. It will well up within us, as we live more deeply into our journey. I aspired for two decades to become a wise leader, until I realized that aspiration was my ego wanting to be seen as wise. I’m living into being a fool for my next season of life, as instructed in 1 Corinthians 3:18: Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise.
Practicing Meditation for decades, and spending the last decade in daily contemplation, a new way of seeing slowly emerged within me. I could begin to discern faint movements of the Spirit, bringing things to my attention, and opportunities to serve coming across my path.
When I‘m doing a coaching call, often Spirit prompts me with a Scripture verse or quote from the saints and mystics that is appropriate to the issues being raised. I notice an inner calm, and peace that is becoming a normal state, not the rare exception. I have been learning to be a nonanxious presence, and equanimity is often present.
All of this is emerging from deep within me. I am grounded as my soul opens to deeper wisdom and guidance from Spirit, the Divine Spark within me and each of you. It must only be uncovered and claimed.
Enjoy a short audio introduction:
Journaling Prompts
When have you experienced revelation from God that awakens you in a deeper place? What spiritual disciplines have drawn you closer to God and God’s wisdom? What does discernment look like to you? How do you discern things from God?
Scripture
Indeed, you delight in truth deep within me, therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
Psalm 51:6
Happy are those who find wisdom, and those who get understanding.
Proverbs 3:13
Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise.
Proverbs 13:20
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and humility goes before honor.
Proverbs 15:33
Do you see people wise in their own eyes? There is more hope for fools than for them.
Proverbs 26:12
Wisdom gives life to the one who possesses it.
Ecclesiastes 7:12
Wisdom is a spirit, a friend to all.
Wisdom of Solomon 1:6
I prayed and understanding was given me; I called on God and the spirit of wisdom came to me.
Wisdom of Solomon 7:7
In every generation wisdom passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God, and prophets.
Wisdom of Solomon 7:27
Wisdom brings with her virtue: self-control, prudence, courage, and justice. Wisdom cannot be separated from righteousness. We can only be wise if our ends are good and worthwhile.
Bible notes on Wisdom of Solomon 8:7
All wisdom is from the Lord, and with him it remains forever. There is but one who is wise.
Sirach 1:1, 8
Wisdom teaches her children and gives help to those who seek her. Whoever loves her, loves life, and those who seek her from early morning are filled with joy.
Sirach 4:10-11
Happy is the person who meditates on wisdom and reasons intelligently, who reflects in his heart on her ways and ponders her secrets.
Sirach 14:20-21
Among the mature we do speak wisdom. We speak God's wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. These things God revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. No one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. We speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit. Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit. They are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Those who are spiritual discern all things.
1 Corinthians 2:6-14
Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise.
1 Corinthians 3:18
What do you have that you did not receive? Also, if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?
1 Corinthians 4:7
If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given to you.
James 1:5
Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. Wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.
James 3:13, 17-18
Ancient Writings
Eagerly enter into the treasure house that is within you and you will see the things that are in heaven.
St Isaac the Syrian
Of all the pursuits open to men, the search for wisdom is most perfect, more sublime, more profitable, and more full of joy.
Thomas Aquinas
Keep within. And when they say, ‘Look here or look there is Christ’, for Christ is within you. And those who try to draw your minds away from the teaching inside you, are opposed to Christ. For the measure’s within, and the light of God is within, and the pearl is within, though hidden.
George Fox, Epistle 19 (1652), Works (1831), Vol. 7, p. 27.
Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice, to which we may continuously return. Eternity is at our hearts, pressing upon our time-torn lives, warming us with intimations of an astounding destiny, calling us home unto Itself. Yielding to these persuasions, gladly committing ourselves in body and soul, utterly and completely, to the Light Within, is the beginning of true life.
It is a dynamic center, a creative Life that presses to birth within us. It is a Light Within which illumines the face of God and casts new shadows and new glories upon the face of men. It is a seed stirring to life if we do not choke it. It is the Shekinah of the soul, the Presence in the midst. Here is the Slumbering Christ, stirring to be awakened, to become the soul we clothe in earthly form and action. And He is within us all.
Thomas Kelly, A Testament to Devotion, p. 3
The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
William Shakespeare, As You Like It
Modern Writings
What we seek cannot be elsewhere than in ourselves.
Raimon Panikkar, Christophany, p. 41
In prayer we discover what we already have. You start where you are and you deepen what you already have, and you realize that you are already there. We already have everything, but you don’t know it and we don’t experience it. Everything has been given us in Christ. All we need is to experience what we already possess.
Thomas Merton, James Finley, Merton’s Palace of Nowhere p. 82
God’s Kingdom is within. The words of Jesus "Set your hearts on God's kingdom first . . . and all other things will be given you as well" summarize best the way we are called to live our lives. With our hearts set on God's kingdom. That kingdom is not some faraway land that we hope to reach, nor is it life after death or an ideal state of affairs. No. God's Kingdom is, first of all, the active presence of God's Spirit within us, offering us the freedom we truly desire.
How do we set our hearts on the Kingdom first when our hearts are preoccupied with so many things? Somehow a radical change of heart is required, a change that allows us to experience the reality of our existence from God's place.
Henri Nouwen, Nouwen Society Daily Devo, 2/27/24
The more united we are to God in prayer, the more naturally that source flows out from its inner spring, becoming a stream of action in relationship to others. To abide in this spring and let the living waters of Christ flow freely through us, we must be committed to regular contemplative prayer.
Phileena Heuertz, Mindful Silence, p. 43
True happiness, like true enlightenment, always occurs from the inside out.
Richard Rohr, On the Threshold of Transformation, p. 82
Surrendering to our identity in God is the beginning of all wisdom.
Richard Rohr, Spring within, p. 307
All the information in the world does not itself accumulate into wisdom, St Bonaventure noted, “Wisdom is confusing to the proud and often evident to the lowly.”
Richard Rohr, Naked Now, p. 59
Wisdom is never just mine, but always a shared experience. Believers would say it is a participation in the very life of God. Wisdom is inherently shared—the Holy Spirit, the collective consciousness, if you will. You or I can never possess wisdom, but merely share in it.
Richard Rohr, Naked Now, p. 146
Wisdom is a way of being—a way of being whole and fully open to a knowing beyond rational thought alone. To see in such a way requires the hard work of keeping all our inner spaces open—mind, heart, and body—all at once. This is at the center of any authentic spirituality, and it does not happen easily or without paying respectful and non-egoic attention to the moment in front of me and within me—which I could call prayer.
Richard Rohr, CAC Morning Devotion, 2/16/20
A Wisdom way of knowing . . . requires the whole of one’s being and is ultimately attained only through the yielding of one’s whole being into the intimacy of knowing and being known. . . . It doesn’t happen apart from complete vulnerability and self-giving. But the divine Lover is absolutely real, and for those willing to bear the wounds of intimacy, the knowledge of that underlying coherence—“in which all things hold together”—is both possible and inevitable.
Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Way of Knowing, p. 10.
Wisdom is a way of knowing that goes beyond one’s mind, one’s rational understanding, and embraces the whole of a person: mind, heart, and body. The intellectual faculty is one way of knowing, to be sure, but it is joined by two additional faculties: the intelligence of the “moving center” and the intelligence of the “emotional center.” These three centers must all be working, and working in harmony, as the first prerequisite to the Wisdom way of knowing.
The heart is our antenna given to us to orient us toward the divine radiance. The heart is not for personal expression but for divine perception. When a person is poised in all three centers, balanced and alertly there, a shift happens in consciousness. Rather than being trapped in our usual mind, with its well-formed rut tracks of issues and agendas and ways of thinking, we seem to come from a deeper, steadier, and quieter place.
We are present, in the words of Wisdom tradition, fully occupying the now in which we find ourselves. Presence is the straight and narrow gate through which one passes to Wisdom. This state of presence is extraordinarily important to know and taste in oneself. For sacred tradition is emphatic in its insistence that real Wisdom can be given and received only in a state of presence, with all three centers of our being engaged and awake. Anything less is known in the tradition as “sleep.”
Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Way of Knowing, p. 27, 36-37