In the sweet territory of silence we touch the mystery. It’s the place of reflection and contemplation, and it’s the place where we can connect with the deep knowing, to the deep wisdom way.
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Knowledge gives us information. Wisdom gives us light on the way. Knowledge is skill. Wisdom is a quality. Knowledge can be learned. Wisdom can only be distilled from those places in life where knowledge is not enough to really explain what was happening to us, or information failed to resolve what was happening to the other.
~ by Joan Chittester in the Foreword to WISDOM OF THE BENEDICTINE ELDERS
We each contain an enduring spark of that Wisdom at the heart of all creation. Isolated and unsupported, it is but a small spark. United with others, those sparks grow into a flame of illumination and strength for us all.
Wisdom is sweeter than honey, brings more joy than wine, illumines more than the sun, is more precious than jewels. She causes the ears to hear and the heart to comprehend.
O Highest Wisdom, who circles the great circle, who envisions the whole world as one living path, you have three wings. One soars above the sky, another moistens the ground with sweat, while a third flies everywhere at once. O Wisdom, we sing your praise.
Everybody has had transcendent wisdom break into the mind. When you’ve wracked your brain with a problem for a long time and then, for some reason, you’ve stopped struggling, and then all of a sudden you got an "Aha! That’s it," where does that come from? Wisdom has broken through.
Wisdom is an attribute of the soul and unfolds naturally as the soul manifests through the personality. Knowledge can be taught; wisdom is loving understanding or knowledge illumined by love.
Virtue comes through contemplation of the divine as well as through public service. The one is incomplete without the other. Power without wisdom is tyranny; wisdom without power is ineffective.
