All who are prudent act with knowledge, but fools expose their folly. (Proverbs 13:16)
I’ve improved. I used to give regular lecture on the issue if feelings as a foundation of decisions. It still drives me more than a little nuts to hear someone say, “I feel ______ to be true.” You don’t feel truth or falsehood. You believe, you know, you understand, you have faith. Scripture doesn’t say, “You shall feel the truth, and the truth will set you free.” It says, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” (John 8:32) As I said, I’m better, but if you post something that tells me that we’re supposed to live from the heart, you’re still going to get an argument because that translates to me that we should chuck our minds in the garbage. It seems to me this idea is most often shared by people who don’t think they measure up intellectually. They can claim to have a “big heart,” and somehow, that makes them better than someone thinks. After all, someone can think something to be true and be wrong. Yes, and one can also feel something to be true and be wrong. That’s OK because they have a big heart. The person who thinks and is wrong has no excuse.
There was an article in the paper that illustrates this, I think. The headline shouted that a mother of five had been killed by a stray bullet. Our hearts all break. “Oh, a mother of five….” There have been other headlines about celebrities or “people that matter” dying. Yesterday, I learned that Stan Lee died. He entertained many Marvel Comics fans. Our hearts break. Still other headlines warn of the injustice of people of African American descent dying (at least if there’s a cop involved.) Our hearts break. The adjectives all make the person who died seem connected to us. Our labels are what win the heartbreak of those who would not apparently care if some middle-aged (or older), single, childless person of European descent. Should it really matter that the person was a woman, or that she had five children? Would a father of four merit twenty percent less heartbreak? What percentage of heartbreak is appropriate for a ninety-five-year-old widower who never had kids? Who cares if a person dies? It only matters if someone wearing the right labels, someone in the right identity group dies. It’s psychology. I don’t know if there’s anything that can be done about it. The more labels a person has, or the more a person shares labels with another person, the more our hearts get broken when something bad happens. The fact is that a person, a human being was killed by a stray bullet.
Today’s passage seems to agree with that idea that it’s OK to have a brain. Prudence has to do with having thought and care for the future. That means it requires both heart and mind. I’d say it goes even further, involving the will, and even the body and one’s connections with others. In other words, prudence is a soul thing. I find myself wondering whether when it talks about fools exposing their folly, it’s not at least suggesting that those who try to convince us to cut off any part of what makes us a person are fools who expose their folly.
There was an article in the paper that illustrates this, I think. The headline shouted that a mother of five had been killed by a stray bullet. Our hearts all break. “Oh, a mother of five….” There have been other headlines about celebrities or “people that matter” dying. Yesterday, I learned that Stan Lee died. He entertained many Marvel Comics fans. Our hearts break. Still other headlines warn of the injustice of people of African American descent dying (at least if there’s a cop involved.) Our hearts break. The adjectives all make the person who died seem connected to us. Our labels are what win the heartbreak of those who would not apparently care if some middle-aged (or older), single, childless person of European descent. Should it really matter that the person was a woman, or that she had five children? Would a father of four merit twenty percent less heartbreak? What percentage of heartbreak is appropriate for a ninety-five-year-old widower who never had kids? Who cares if a person dies? It only matters if someone wearing the right labels, someone in the right identity group dies. It’s psychology. I don’t know if there’s anything that can be done about it. The more labels a person has, or the more a person shares labels with another person, the more our hearts get broken when something bad happens. The fact is that a person, a human being was killed by a stray bullet.
Today’s passage seems to agree with that idea that it’s OK to have a brain. Prudence has to do with having thought and care for the future. That means it requires both heart and mind. I’d say it goes even further, involving the will, and even the body and one’s connections with others. In other words, prudence is a soul thing. I find myself wondering whether when it talks about fools exposing their folly, it’s not at least suggesting that those who try to convince us to cut off any part of what makes us a person are fools who expose their folly.
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