Sister Wisdom and the gift of time.
Wisdom will multiply your days and add years to your life.
(Prov 9:11) NLT
Some things you don’t see until you see. We bought a cute Japanese import car, more lego than sleek machine. We thought it was pretty rare and unique until we bought it. Afterwards we saw them everywhere. For a while.
I first caught a glimpse of Sister Wisdom standing in the Sea of Glass, luminescent and glorious. Following that encounter I saw her everywhere. A songbird who never ceased singing her invitation. It’s interesting how quickly a new sound recedes into the white noise of everyday. I didn’t even notice that I missed her deeply until I missed her. Deeply.
I didn’t hear her, but she never stopped singing. I’ve been thinking about what it would be like if she stopped. What the universe would sound like without her song weaving the threads of meaning into the fabric of life. Whether time itself would still.
I left Daniel knowing that Sister Wisdom had laid a path for me into Ecclesiastes, a wisdom book written by one called Qohelet, or the gatherer/assembler. I set out into the book looking for the path. It didn’t take long before I realised I was lost. I turned to the wisdom of scholars but nothing helped. I didn’t want to exchange the possibility of knowing for information. There was something about the way Qohelet wrote that resonated with me. At times he reminded me of Smeagol from the Tolkein tales. He speaks this way, and then that way. He rants, complains, and waxes lyrical. As I read I am reminded of my interior conversations when I can’t find the North Star. Like when I’m trying to make sense of life without turning towards Sister Wisdom’s singing. Like when I’m found offering my imagination to an offense I’m carrying. Losing time and clarity in the process. Time and clarity. It’s strange. I’ve had more of the first this year. Less of the second.
Two years ago the Father spoke a simple directive to me. He said:
I want you to be thin enough to slip through an hourglass.
There was no context or explanation to aid me. My first honest response was to promise to quit the cinnamon buns with my whole heart. Maybe I’d even start running, or go full keto for fun. The Father kept smiling at me and said no more about the matter. I kept hold of the carbs and the instruction I was given and progressed no further in my understanding of how either related to me. So this remained until now, autumn 2020, the head of the year.
I have notes to myself everywhere referencing the words Qohelet wrote. In my journal, my phone, my tablet. Words but no inspiration. I don’t know where Sister Wisdom has led me, and I’m more aware of Pete Seeger hovering around me singing his song than I am of hers. I’m haunted by Qohelet’s description of hevel, meaning breath, but specifically the exhale: the waste product from breathing. Stark in contrast to the ruach: the life giving Spirit, the breath we inhale as a gift.
I’m stuck here until, without any warning, Sister Wisdom appears as I’m sorting washing. She’s holding out an hourglass and a teeny bit of clarity. Then she’s gone. It’s like catching the scent and giving myself up to adventure again. Like Jesus has passed this way.
So I stop and sit: an hourglass. Now my imagination is a mash-up of Steampunk and Disney’s Aladdin. I remember the Father’s words to me, and I wonder if Sister Wisdom will show me what to do with them. A YouTube video of an artist blowing glass holds my attention. The movements are so graceful. Fire heats the glass reed until it glows a sunset. Hands move, and the hevel fills the reed. The thin tube of glass is formed into the two bulbs of a sand timer, an hourglass. Perfectly proportioned. Beautiful. I ask the Ruach to fill me and shape me as I inhale. I want to see. I watch the hourglass as it is created. Polished sand encased in heated-sand-become-glass. Time materialised in matter so we can watch it as it passes.
I begin to read about the origin of these timers. There are many stories about who invented them. Some say they were first created in Babylonian times. Some say they were invented by a French monk in the 8th century. I’m intrigued by the first appearance they make in church art. In 1337 Lorezetti painted Temperance holding an hourglass in his hands. I look at this picture and it reminds me of a god often preached from the pulpit. Once time is easily measurable it can be divided. Once divided it can be apportioned, value given to how it should be spent, and attention drawn to how fast it passes. Father Time is often depicted holding a scythe and an hourglass. A quasi-papa figure. One who watches, measures, and calls time. I realise I’m getting cold now as I’m sitting seeking wisdom, finding fear. I don’t want to meander into fruitless thoughts, so I open Ecclesiates 3 and read:
There is a time for everything……
Before I can read anymore I feel a soft pressure on my forehead. She is here. I close my eyes and I find myself sitting with her in the bottom bauble of an hourglass. Sand falls on me like rain, but I’m not afraid or uncomfortable. It feels like soft kisses. As the last grains fall I feel myself lifted and turned upside down. Again it falls like snow, smooth and caressing. Exfoliating layers of skin, softening calluses and cleaning me. I turn. I move. I am not static. I am maturing, shedding, becoming. As the motion clears my mind I begin to run the sand through my hands. I realise that this disrupts the flow, and thus the time. I hear the words of Qohelet:
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace. (NIV)
Now I’m wondering. Qohelet writes words he has gleaned, words he has lived, words from all he has observed in the passing of his days. His words carry a sound. A sorrow. A frequency that feels jaded, dulled somehow by experiences we can only imagine. Did he lose Sister Wisdom somewhere along the way? Do his words paint for us a picture of the best we can conjure without her song, her company, her insight? Our wisdom, and we all have wisdom because we were created by wisdom, is only hevel if we aren’t breathing directly the ruach, the source.
Without relationship with Sister Wisdom, all we can do is turn to whatever the season brings. To accept death when it comes, love, war, sowing, reaping.
It is written that Sister Wisdom adds to your days. She creates time. So it seems to me that walking with her we don’t just turn towards what is coming, we create. We speak peace over the wars that threaten. We speak life over death that offers us no consolation. We meet every inclination to hate with an invitation to love that we were given first. Qohelet. He reads as one who had weathered many seasons. One who carried the weight of disappointment, loss, offense. Did those stories sing louder in his ears than the sweetness of Sister Wisdom?
So is this the key that Qohelet is holding out for me? The key to being thin enough? He has shown me what it is to grow fat with disappointment and that I must shed every story I tell myself about life and my experiences that whisper slander against the goodness of God. Every whisper that He is not enough. Then I can slip through the hourglass. Then time is not my master, it is a gift. It flows like the tides. It expands and contracts. In time I am invited to grow up. Suddenly it feels so simple: an invitation to take the authority that belongs to kings. To rule.
I realise that I’m still sitting on the sand. The silence, and these thoughts, are lingering. I know what to leave behind. What should I carry forward?
Sister Wisdom reaches out and takes hold of my right hand. She stretches out my arm and with her finger she writes two questions on my skin. I can still see them today:
Who do you say that I am?
Do you love me more than these?
I understand. These questions are the path to maturity. They keep me thin. Time is gifted for the adventure of answering. Everything else is hevel.