Wisdom is a she

It's amazing how easily distracted I am. I was reading yesterday and had that moment when I knew I was done reading and it was time to start writing. I moved to my computer and I don't know if it was email, facebook, or whatever, but off to the wrong road I went. I had a vision of what I wanted to write in mind, but that train has long since left the station. It's a lesson in priorities.

One of the scriptures I underlined had a couple of things I still would like to explore. It's Mosiah 8:20. "...yea, and how blind and impenetrable are the understandings of the children of men; for they will not seek wisdom, neither do they desire that she should rule over them!"

There's a lot of deeper stuff in that half a passage for me. First, it occurs to me that the Lord isn't necessarily hiding himself from us - we're hiding ourselves from him. We choose a lifestyle that causes our own blindness to God, and we make sure that the way toward him is impenetrable. Impenetrable for God, and impenetrable (or apparently to us) to us. I looked up the reference at the bottom for impenetrable, and it referred me to Nephi's vision. Impenetrable fogs - fogs that we choose to place around us so we don't have to deal with the discomfort of living in God's light and living in his truth.

There are plenty of us - perhaps all of us if we consider that there are many shades of gray - who choose blindness to God. Perhaps we have made an order of God in the past and he didn't deliver it as consistently as the pizza man does. Perhaps we didn't do our part, perhaps it wasn't in the plan, but in any case we find ourselves angry with God, and choose blindness. He's not there - I can't see him - he didn't deliver what I requested - I guess I'll go smoke some meth again (insert your own favorite vice there if that doesn't apply).

We all do it to one extent or another. God's not watching, so I'm watching - porn. God's not watching, so I'll yell at my baby. God's not around, so I'm gonna go have some fun. And our blindness increases, and our fog gets more impenetrable. How could he watch when the fog around is that thick anyway?

I could go down the same kind of road about seeking wisdom. Who really seeks wisdom anyway? We spend a lot more time seeking entertainment than wisdom. This may include watching sports or netflix. My favorites are "Better call Saul" and "The walking dead". Twisted shows. Very. And I watch the Jazz when they're not losing. Guilty as charged. Seeking wisdom is much less entertaining, but of course much less rewarding in the long term.

The last sentence in the passage? Nor do they desire that she should rule over them? First of all, why would we want anybody to rule over us, and who is she? Aren't we supposed to be our own persons? What she is supposed to rule us?

There's gold in that phrase.

Joseph Smith in rural NY of 1830 could never have known this, but in other languages stuff has female or masculine references. In spanish, a shirt (camisa) is feminine. Your pants (pantalones) are masculine. That's the language I know only because I did a mission in Guatemala. No english speaker would refer to wisdom as having a gender, but this is what Joe's translation did. I guess in the Hebrew, wisdom is a she, and when he translated that language, he translated the genderness (a garth word, I know) as he read it. That's a gem. No way he could have come up with that himself.

And then there's this: that she should rule over them? Again, it's like I'm offended; who wants somebody to rule over them? Perhaps all of us if what's ruling over us is mother wisdom.

But again, we prefer our fog. It's our protective blanket against God and his love. We couldn't possibly want to live in and around his glorious presence, his love and his warmth. Better to live in our own complete lack of wisdom and be ruled over by the weather than by real warmth. Better to search in the fog than to be guided by the hands of angels. We can then pretend that we're ruling over ourselves, when in reality we're just choosing who or what rules us. The porn, our anger, the emptiness - at least we can claim it to be ours. It doesn't rule us, right?

That was a very deep passage for me. I'm grateful that I was able to see at least a part of what the writer(s) intended.