Today’s Scripture Reading (October
16, 2019): Proverbs 27
“Personally, I say, ‘Out of the frying pan and into the
deadly pit filled with sharks who are wielding chainsaws with killer kittens
stapled to them.’ However, that one's having a rough time catching on.” The
words belong to Brandon Sanderson in “Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones,” and there is
good reason for the phrase not to “catch on.” But the temptation underlying the
words is genuine. Life is seldom a choice between good and bad. I wish it were
a choice between good and better. But too often the is choice between bad and
worse. And that is the danger around which each one of us has to learn to
navigate.
Solomon argues that the prudent see danger and take
refuge, but that the fool or the one who is lacking in wisdom sees the same threat
and keeps going anyway, hoping against hope that there will be no penalty to be
paid. Sometimes the simple are correct, but that is a rare occasion.
But the deeper problem is that when we lack wisdom,
we are more apt to see danger and choose what is an even worse solution.
Without wisdom, we are more likely to jump “out
of the frying pan and into the deadly pit filled with sharks who are wielding
chainsaws with killer kittens stapled to them.” It takes wisdom to see hard
times, and yet stay the course, knowing that what is lurking outside of those
lines is even worse. The real problem is that wisdom sees refuge in places
where the foolish are often blind. The foolish can’t see either the reality of
the danger or the places where they might be safe.
As for Sanderson’s chainsaw-wielding
sharks with killer kittens, it sounds like a good plot for a Halloween movie.
And the good thing about a Halloween movie is that we can shut it off and turn
our attention somewhere else. But when real danger lurks around the next
corner, we need to be able to discern the right so that we can avoid the “even
worse.”
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Proverbs 28
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