I’m intrigued by the idea that wisdom calls to us.
We tend to think of wisdom as something entirely learned through experience and reflection, and that’s surely the main way that we find it. But Proverbs starts with a vision of wisdom as a woman calling to us, and reaching out to protect us.
It may be a literary image, or a bit more – I can’t help but think in the later terms of seeing Wisdom as an early version of the Logos of John’s prologue (John 1:1-18, writing about the ‘Word’) – in other words, as the second person of the Trinity, before the incarnation in Jesus, still the organising and interpreting principle of all creation.
To choose wisdom, then, is to choose to place our lives to go with the grain of the universe, or to use a different image, to sing in tune with creation’s music. That is more than simple understanding, more even than right choices in life – it’s about hearing and walking with God.
Nick Watson 