WISDOM

Feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron of Christian writers and journalists 

“You can catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than a barrel of vinegar,” -Francis de Sales.

Enlightenment cannot be manufactured, manipulated, or delivered on demand. It is always passed on from another. Jesus both claims to be the Light of the World and then says the same for us too! It is surprising that most do not connect these two scriptures. Wisdom is not a do-it-yourself project. It is a mystery of transmission, contagion, and the passing on of life, as Francis de Sales did so well through his many loving messages in very hostile 17th-century Geneva.

I always tell people who ask if they can quote me that if it is true wisdom then I have no copyright to it. I learned it from someone else. If it is true wisdom it is always “common domain.”

Enlightenment is not about knowing as much as it is about unknowing; it is not so much learning as unlearning. It is more about entering a vast mystery than arriving at a mental certitude. Enlightenment knows that grace is everywhere, and the only reasonable response is a grateful heart and the acknowledgment that there is more depth and meaning to everything. A too quick and easy answer is invariably a wrong one.