#112. Hope Via Understanding Gender Distinctions

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This is the 12th in the series of blog entries I began with #101-- a collection of notes and essays from my files all dealing in one way or another with the emerging new religious consciousness. They are mostly things I've written over the last decade or two to clarify my own thoughts but which I would like to make available for anyone who might be interested.

Post #112 is a few brief notes and thoughts on one of the early books dealing with psychology from an evolutionary perspective. It focuses on the origins of gender distinctions, and make especially good sense in terms of the four-fold understanding of the human psyche.

If you have questions and think I might be of help, you're welcome to send me a note: sam@macpeno.com

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EXILES FROM EDEN, Psychotherapy from an Evolutionary Perspective, by Kalman Glantz and John K. Pearce. (W W Norton & Co Inc; (June 1989) ISBN-10: 0393700739

I wrote these notes in Feb, 1995. They are from Chapter 7, the second of five chapters dealing with gender, reproductive strategies and their implications for the contemporary scene.

Sexual reproduction appeared early in the history of terrestrial life. Its purpose is genetic diversity for the sake of evolutionary adaptability to changing environments. Some individuals in a species produce many small sex cells (i.e., males), while others produce fewer but larger ones (i.e., females).

Even in an evolutionarily advanced group such as the lower vertebrates, among fish for example, females deposit eggs somewhere and leave, then males come along and deposit sperm on top of them, then they leave, too. No family life whatsoever!

As vertebrates evolve into land-dwelling mammals, the womb appears as a solution to the problems of reproducing on dry land; milk is also ‘invented’ to nurture the few precious individuals which emerge from the very small number of fertilized eggs which can be accommodated in a uterus.

With milk and wombs, motherhood is introduced to the world.

Motherhood allows for prolonged dependence of the young.

Prolonged dependence favors increased learning and thus higher intelligence.

The mammalian “family” consists of a female with her young and perhaps some female relatives. Virtually all parental investment is supplied by the female. (The human female's predisposition to nurturance and affiliation lies here.)

There is a cost to all this for females, in terms of time, energy, risks of danger, and poor health when resources are scarce.

Mammalian male investment in the family is just about zero so far. Males are peripheral; although, in a very few mammalian species, males may provide limited defense.

Because meat can be carried, with the appearance of primate hunting, male investment becomes a possibility. Male social carnivores share food with young.

As climate changes million years ago caused the widespread rain-forests of the tropics to slowly evolve into savannas, rain-forest dwelling vegetarian primates adapted to the new habitat by gradually involving into grassland-dwelling carnivorous humans. Thus hunting is, if not the very stimulus and source of humanness, at least concomitant in appearance on earth with it. Thus , too, it might be said not that human males became hunters but that male hunters became human.

Males compete with one another for females; more precisely, they compete to be chosen by females. Because far fewer males are needed for mating than the numbers available, females are unwilling to choose any but the best. “Best” is indicated by physical signs of health, strength, agility, etc. (such as horns, manes, dancing and other displays) and by “proper” behavior-- signs which indicate that individuals possessing them have the genes which promote survival and reproduction.

Females also compete with one another. When males become more valuable, females compete to be chosen to choose. The competitive traits are beauty, breasts, openness to year round sex, and orgasmic ability. Selection for both physical appearance and openness to sex without seasonal constraints is readily understandable in terms of evolution, but the evolutionary advantage of breasts and the orgasm is not yet clear.

In any case, human females are in great continuity with their earlier female counterparts: they are often pregnant, preoccupied with child-care, specialists in close-to-home food gathering, and specialists in personal politics as well. Because they are better at words-- better at talking, at relating, at feeling-- they are the heart of the family. Females dominate family politics; they even determine which male(s) will attain a dominate position (as is still true in some Native American societies today).

Thus, women and children are the true core of society, and the natural female (the natural or “wild” woman) is a Great Mother.

But (says the authors) “males have the spotlight, hunting their spectacular animals and performing their dramatic rituals.” Well might we ask which is more correct among primates: that the human male is a hunter, or that the human hunter is male, or that the male hunter is human.

In any case: males must cooperate with one another for the hunt and for the rituals surrounding it, so that, by definition, to be a male human is to be a hunter, and thus a trickster and a shaman all in one.

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There would seem to be some strong distinctions between how archaic males and females use the (Jungian) consciousness functions. With regard to the judgment functions, males clearly needed to depend more on their wits (Thinking), while females were more dependent on family-related and inter-personal judgments (Feeling). (So the age old distinction between rational males and emotional females makes some sense.)

But with the perception functions, it seems less a question of preference than of a “division of labor.” While both used the Sensation function, males used it for tracking game, for clever disguises, etc., while females used it in the details of child care.

And while both also used Intuition, women used it for tuning in to the emotional web of the family group, while men-- hunters and shamans by their very maleness-- used it for contact with the animal powers and sacred ancestors of the spirit world. It’s clear, then, how Intuition would have been lost to the male psyche once agriculture was invented.

November, 2012: Today, I'd not say "lost" so much as "gone underground." The Intuition/Imagery function remained in the genes and minds and hearts of men as well as of women. But with the invention of Neolithic agriculture, it was much less needed and valued. 

It is that 'loss' which on the cultural level eventually resulted in religious dualism, patriarchal civilization and rationalist science. And which, in our time of "immense transition," is gradually being recovered as we work toward restoring a balance after many thousands of years.

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#102. Dwight Judy's "Healing the Male Soul"

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This is the second in a new series of blog entries beginning with #101. It is a collection of notes and essays from my files all dealing in one way or another with the emerging new religious consciousness. They are mostly things I've written over the last decade or so to clarify my own thoughts but which I now want to make available for anyone who might be interested. -Sam

If you have questions and think I might help, you're welcome to send me a note: sam@macspeno.com

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Book Review, November 99

HEALING THE MALE SOUL: Christianity and the Mythic Journey

Dwight Judy (Crossroads, 1992)

I like this book a lot. Its ideas are simply expressed, there’s nothing negative or strident, it presumes an acceptance of the basics of Christianity and assumes that the reader wants to grow. It could serve as an excellent prologue to the study of the Russian sophiologists. The author is a Methodist minister who went on to study Jung and become a counselor and creative teacher at <<<<<. He holds to Jung’s view that, despite two thousand years of history, the core of the Western psyche has never really been touched by Christianity.

His views have an anthropological and evolutionary base; he begins with the transition from the Neolithic age of the Great Mother to the patriarchal period now ending. That transition (about five thousand years ago) was marked by the simultaneous emergence of a great cosmic Ego, the Father in the sky, and the ego-awareness of individual humans. He also makes clear that ego awareness identifies itself with both rationality and maleness. He sees the last several thousand years as a battle between two expressions of male energy which he calls the hero-warrior and the hero-transcendent. By hero-transcendent he means the desert ascetics and early Christian monks, which for simplicity I’ve call hero-hermit. He devotes a chapter to each of these expressions of male energy, pointing out their strengths and weaknesses, and making the point strongly that it’s now time for these opposites to be united. He does not emphasize their union in order to save the environment or for the accomplishment of some other purpose, but simply because it is now time for the male soul to be healed. He calls the unified male energies the hero-creative or the hero…?

Judy says that the energies of the hero-warrior and hero-hermit arose in response to the sexual rites and human sacrifice of the Neolithic age, prior to the emergence of human ego-awareness from nature and the Great Mother. They are in conflict: the hero-warrior seeks to dominate the world, nature and the feminine, while the hero-hermit flees from world, nature and the feminine.

He has an excellent chapter comparing the biblical and Greek images of the Fall (i.e., the emergence of consciousness) as a shift from a focus on Great Mother to that of the Sky Father. And he notes that today we have exhausted both the rational emphasis on control and dominance over nature, as well as the monastic emphasis on denial of the goodness of the earth. The call today is to see the individual as the carrier of human cultural (and thus cosmic) evolution. The new male reality is the hero-creative, or better, hero-co-creative with God.

Warriors served the City of Man, the Kingdom of Power, life as Bios, while hermits served the City of God, the Kingdom of Love, life as Zoe. The call now is neither to dominate nor to flee but to create a better world: to participate as co-creators along with God in the world’s transfiguration. Judy says that this is precisely what the Grail Legend is all about, and he offers a number of fascinating insights, based on the Grail stories, into the contemporary healing of the male soul.

Judy sees the Grail as representing the goodness and bounty of nature; it is the cornucopia, the tree of life, all good things. He says that with the Grail stories Western manhood begins to come of age. Male needs are many: equality with the feminine, a bonding of males with one another, an equality of sons with their fathers, communion with one’s ancestors. All males need courage; it is the great male virtue. Warriors also need fortitude (persistent courage), hermits need vision, and the shamanic contemplatives need the ability to serve the world lovingly. This ability to serve the world lovingly is based on a new relationship with earth and the feminine: a renewed spirit of blessing, hope, pleasure, and appreciation of life; it is based on the experience of the great marvel, the “magnificent here and now,” being part of the living incarnate cosmos, alienated from nothing either within or without, and relating especially to the inner feminine as one would to an outer person: as lover, playmate, companion, guide, taskmaster.

Warrior energies need to be directed toward use for the good of the community; i.e., Bios needs to be directed by zoe. The specific form this zoe energy takes is wonder, the starting point of the shaman and contemplative. While the Great Mother required animal and human sacrifice, the male age versions of this are war, murder, suicide, the slow suicide of the drug culture. The only sacrifice being asked for the new Third Age of the Holy Spirit is the sacrifice of the ego’s narrowness, in order that one might be in communion with all. Judy stresses that the joy and delight of this communion was real in early Christianity but that it was tamed by, especially, St. Paul and St. Augustine. He also stresses that it was precisely this collective containment that was opposed by the earliest desert monks, who put great emphasis “on the value of one soul.” The desert monks discovered that beyond the curious and rational mind there is a simple mind, one that can simply behold in awe. This perception of the limits of the rational allows direct perception and communion with the Mystery.

If we inhibit fantasy we have no creativity. If we inhibit the senses we have psychosomatic ills. So, included in the values of the healed male are the imagination and the senses. Each man is called to the adventure and exploration of building the earth, contributing via the arts and sciences, for example, to the transfigured cosmos. When the warrior energies focused on the earth are combined with the attentiveness of the desert contemplative, the result can be an individual capable of willingly placing himself in loving service to humanity for the renewal of the earth. And this, says Judy, is what Christianity is really all about: the word made flesh, zoe in the midst of bios, God dwelling with us, the force that moves the sun and stars available in the here and now of everyday life. And no more sea (chaos), no more death, no more tears, no more sorrow. To the one who drinks fully of life, all things are given, so that the man whose soul is healed becomes Christ the King, Lord of All, Pantokrator, the creative hero within who makes all things new. Judy specifically asks that, just as we have identified with the crucified Christ for a long time, can we now identify with the male energies of the Christus Pantokrator?

What a wonderful alternative image of manhood from the conventional ideal, both secular and religious! As Judy says, Bios energy gives its glory to zoe energy. “The kings of the earth come with their treasures.” “Nothing lost, nothing wasted, all for life is saved at last.”

sam@macspeno.com

#69. Sam's Tao Te, 1-27

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In Michael Dowd's extraordinarily comprehensive book on the new cosmology, Thank God for Evolution, he notes that people everywhere-- "if they are to function as individuals and cohere as a group"-- have always needed to answer "the big picture questions."

Those questions include "What is our relationship to other life forms and the powers of the Universe?" and "How are we to live in accordance with those powers?"

Although the Tao Te Ching is three thousand years old, it offers responses to those questions which fit remarkably well with the contemporary convergence of science and religion. I think of it as A Manual for the New Cosmology.

If you are new to this blog and/or to the Tao Te, you might like to see my introduction in post #68 before reading this post. What follows is a version of the first third of the ancient text.

As usual, your feedback is welcomed.

sam@macspeno.com

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Tao Te Ching, Sam's version, sections 1-27

1. Describing the Mystery out of which the universe emerges is impossible. It simply can't be described.

But we can say something about it from the way the world works. We can't understand the Mystery in itself, but to some extent we can see its power and presence operating in the world.

In itself, the Mystery is utterly unknowable. It is what makes knowing possible!

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2. When we label something beautiful, that makes other things ugly; when we label something good, that makes other things bad.

We understand things and their opposites in terms of one another: difficult in contrast to easy, long in contrast to short, high in contrast to low, what comes before in contrast to what comes after.

So persons who are attuned to the cosmic process can accomplish things without being overlyactive and can explain things without being overly verbal.

As things come and go, they let the process happen. While they may "have" things, they don't own them; and while they of course "do" things, they don't look for big results.

When their work is done, they just let it go-- which is what makes it available for everyone, everywhere.

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3. When we fawn on the rich and famous, others are reduced to insignificance; when we prize our possessions too much, others want to have them.

Balanced persons lead others not by creating things for them to be anxious about or by helping them acquire what they need, but by helping them to be less acquisitive and to be able to take care of themselves.

Balanced leaders help people let go of what they think is important and what they hanker for, and help those who think they know it all to be less arrogant.

When those in charge don't force issues, things tend to work out well.

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4. The way the universe works is like a deep well that never runs out. It is full of unlimited possibilities.

We can't see the Mystery from which the universe emerges, but its power is always present. It is the overflowing source of everything.

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5. The Way of the universe doesn't favor what's conventionally considered good over what's conventionally considered evil. Balanced persons don't play favorites either; they welcome everyone without judging who's good and who's not.

The Way of the universe is like a bellows: its very emptiness is what makes it useful. The more we use it, the more results we get; but the more we think about it, the less sense it makes.

So, we need to keep in balance.

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6. The Great Mystery is not any thing, but its inexhaustible power is always present and available to us.

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7. The source of the universe is unlimited in space and time.

It is unlimited temporally because it never started and doesn't end. It is unlimited spatially because it has no needs and so is available to everyone everywhere.

In the same way, balanced persons don't need to be first in anything, so that makes them first in everything. Their own needs aren't prominent, so they can be one with all things. They are not ego-focused, so they are what they are naturally.

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8. Goodness is like water which nourishes everything without effort. It always flows downhill and stays in low places which are disdained by most people. In that way, good is like the Mystery behind the way the universe works.

Therefore, balanced persons live close to earth, keep life simple, are fair and generous in conflicts, don't try to take over when in charge, work at what they like, and are totally involved with their families.

When we are content to live simply and not in competition with others we are respected by all.

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9. A bowl too full spills over, a knife too often sharpened dulls. If we chase after money and security, our hearts tighten up. If we care about what others think of us, we become their prisoners.

The only way to be at peace in our hearts is to do our work, then sit back and relax.

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10. Can we coax our mind from its wanderings and keep attentive to our original unity with everything? Can we let our body become supple as a newborn child's? Can we cleanse our inner vision until we see nothing but the light?

Can we love people and lead them without imposing our will on them? 
Can we deal with the most vital matters by letting events take their course? Can we step back from our own mind and thus understand everything?

Giving birth and nourishing, having without possessing, acting with no expectations, leading and not trying to control-- this is the Way we are to be!

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11. We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move. We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want. We hammer wood together to make a house, but it is the space inside the wooden frame that makes it livable.

We work with-- join, shape, hammer-- things. But it's the no-thing-- the hole, the emptiness, the space-- that we use.

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12. Bright colors can blind the eye. Loud sounds can deafen the ear. Strong flavors can numb the taste. Intense thoughts can weaken the mind. Powerful desires can wither the heart.

So while balanced persons see the world outside themselves, they also trust their inner perceptions. They are willing to let go of superficial views and focus on the deeper realities.

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13. Success is as dangerous as failure. Hope is as hollow and empty as fear.

Success can be as dangerous as failure, in the same way that our position is shaky when we are going up or down a ladder. It's when we stand with our two feet on the ground that we keep our balance.

Hope can be as hollow as fear because hope and fear both arise from thinking about the small ego-self. When we don't see the small self as The Self, what do we have to fear?

See all the things of the world as your authentic self. Trust in the Way things work. Love the world as your deepest true self. Then you can take care of things.

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14. Even if we look, we can't see it. Even if we listen, we can't hear it. When we try to reach for it, we can't grasp it.

It's not bright above or dark below. It had no parts or names and always fades back into no-thing-ness.

The shape of the no-thing contains all shapes; the image of the no-thing has no image. It's hard to understand, beyond all ideas and thoughts.

If we go towards it, we see that it has no front; if we go behind it, we see that it has no rear. It's not something we can know, but it is something we can be-- when we are comfortable with ourselves, when we realize our dynamic source. That's the essence of wisdom.

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15. In ancient times, balanced persons were deep and wise. Their wisdom was beyond understanding; it can't be characterized. All we can do today is describe how they seemed to be back then.

They were careful as a person crossing an iced-over stream. They were alert as a warrior in enemy territory. They were courteous as a guest, fluid as melting ice, shape-able as an uncarved block of wood, receptive as a valley, clear as a glass of water.

We need to wait patiently until our mind settles and becomes clear as water. We need to not do anything until the right thing to do becomes obvious.

Balanced persons don't seek to be fulfilled. They don't seek or expect anything; rather, they are present to, and welcome, whatever comes.

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16. We need to empty our minds of rambling thoughts and let our hearts be peaceful. We need to observe how things are always changing while keeping in mind the unity of everything.

All things have the one source. Being one with everything is how we become peaceful. If we're not consciously united with the All, we stumble around confused and sad.

When we realize our union with everything we are more tolerant, more objective, more patient. We are as kind as an old grandmother, as dignified as a king. In awe and wonder we can deal with whatever we have to; and when it's time to die, we are ready.

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17. Even though they are in charge, the best leaders are those who people hardly know exist. The second best leaders are those who are loved. Third best are those who are feared. Least good are leaders who are hated. When we don't trust people, we make them untrustworthy.

Balanced leaders don't do a lot of talking, they act. And when they are done, the people say, "Isn't it amazing! We did this all by ourselves!"

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18. When the Mystery behind the cosmic process is ignored, people "get religion" and start acting pious. When consciousness of the wisdom of the body is lost, people start acting informed and clever. When families become dysfunctional, "family values" appear. When a country falls into chaos, people become patriotic.

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19. When we get rid of the conventional idea that everybody should be holy and wise, people will be much happier. When we get rid of the idealistic thought that everybody should be upright and just, people will act decently. When we get rid of the ideal of working hard and making money, there will be fewer thieves.

The main idea is that we just need to stay balanced and let things flow naturally.

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20. When we stop the endless academic talk we have fewer problems. 

Whether anyone agrees with us or not makes no difference. Neither does whether we are considered a success or failure.

We don't need to have the same values as everyone else or the same likes and dislikes they do. That's just silly.

People get all excited about things the way children do at a parade, but some of us aren't into fads. Some of us are like a newborn infant who has yet to smile.

Others have much, some of us have almost nothing. Some of us drift about as if we are homeless. Some of us act like mind-less fools.

While others are bright, some of us are dark. While others are sharp, some of us are dull. While others have life-goals, some of us don't. Some of us are like a wave on the ocean, or an aimless wind.

Unlike those others, those of us who are outsiders are nourished from the breasts of the Great Mother.

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21. Balanced persons are always aware of the Mystery behind the universe and this gives them a certain aura. But the Great Mystery is unknowable, so how can they be aware of it? The answer is because they are not stuck in thoughts and concepts.

The Mystery behind the universe is also beyond light, so how can it give those always aware of it an aura? The answer is because they let it.

The Mystery of the universe is beyond space and time; it doesn't "exist" but it is. How do we know this? Because we look inside ourselves and experience it.

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22. To be whole, be partial. To be straight, be crooked. To be full, be empty. To be reborn, die. To have everything, have nothing.

Because they are one with the Great Mystery, balanced persons are an example for everyone. They don't put themselves on display, so everyone can see their light. They're not out to prove anything, so their words can be trusted. They don't try to project an image, so people can see themselves reflected in them. They have no goal, so whatever they do is successful.

When the wise ones of the past said "to have everything we have to give up all things," they weren't just spouting words. We can really be ourselves only when we live in union with the Cosmic Mystery.

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23. We need to say what we have to say and then be quiet. We need to be like the forces of nature: wind blowing, rain raining, clouds passing, sun shining.

When we open ourselves to the universe, we are one with it and we can embody it thoroughly. When we open ourselves to its power, we are one with it and we can use it completely. When we open ourselves to loss, we are one with loss and can accept it totally.

When we trust our natural responses, everything falls into place and we are embraced by all things.

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24. Those who stand on tiptoe don't stand firm. Those who rush ahead don't go far. Those who try to look brilliant dim their true light. Those who focus attention on themselves don't really know who they are. 

Those with power over others can't empower themselves. Those who cling to their work can create nothing of lasting value.

If we hope to be participants in the cosmic process, we just have to do our work, then stop.

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25. Even before the universe came to be, there was something-- without form or limit. It was peaceful, empty, alone, unchanging, infinite, present.

It is the mother of everything. Although it has no name, we can call it the Mystery behind the universe. It moves within all things, inside and out, and everything emerges from it.

There are four great realities: humanity, the Earth, the physical universe and the Mystery behind the universe. Humanity emerges from the Earth, the Earth emerges from the universe, and the physical universe comes from the Mystery behind it. The Mystery has no source other than itself.

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26. What's heavy is the foundation of all that is light, just as what doesn't move is the source of all that moves.

So, balanced persons can travel all day without leaving home, and without losing sight of their luggage.

Why should those in charge want to flit about like fools? When we let ourselves get blown around, we lose touch with our foundations. When we move around because we're restless, we lose touch with who and what we are.

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27. Good pilgrims have no fixed plans and are not intent on finishing their pilgrimage. Good artists let their intuitive insight lead them wherever it wants to. Good scientists are free from ideological dogmas and keep their minds open to the real world.

In the same way, balanced teachers make themselves available to all; they reject no one and put every kind of situation to good use. For this reason they are described as being an embodiment of light.

Just as a good person can be a bad person's teacher, so a bad person can be a good person's teacher. No matter how smart we are, we'll always be lost if we don't realize this.

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#40. Wisdom/Sophia

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This post is the third in the series introduced with #37 where I described plans for "What's Next." My probably overly-ambitious aim is to look at the Judeo-Christian tradition in the context of cosmic, biological and cultural evolution.

Post #38 (Exodus) deals with the origin of the evolutionary worldview. The main idea is that the Exodus event occasioned a breakthrough in human consciousness: a major step in humanity's movement out of the cyclic mind-set of the Neolithic period. In the agricultural age of the Great Mother, the plant cycle of life-death-life-- where nothing new ever happens-- dominated the human mind. With the Exodus, the Hebrew people realized that something new had happened. As odd as it may seem, the Great Escape from Egypt was the beginning of the evolutionary-scientific view of the world.

Post #39 (Hebrew Thought) deals with this dynamic understanding of nature which grew out of the Exodus experience and which stands in the greatest contrast to the negative and static views about the natural world then current in Mediterranean culture. The biblical mind sees the world as good rather than as something from which we need to escape; and as the French philosopher Claude Tresmontant says, it sees "being" itself, the central concept of Greek metaphysics, as dynamic rather than static. Tresmontant notes that the idea that it is the nature of whatever exists to be continually evolving is as significant as the discovery of fire.

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While the reflections of the Jewish people on the Great Escape from Egypt opened the mind of humanity to the dynamic-evolutionary view of the world, it hasn't been an easy transition. It has taken the western world more than three thousand years to catch on to the fact that "it's the nature of whatever exists to be continually evolving." As Teilhard says, "We're just coming out of the Neolithic Age."

But the central concepts in Hebrew thought-- newness and creativity-- don't sound to us like biblical ideas, even though they are expressed clearly in the Bible's wisdom literature and were continued into early Christian times by the New Testament authors and the early Fathers of the Church. Why aren't they an obvious part of the Judeo-Christian tradition?

Those evolutionary perspectives were lost after the Dark Ages and replaced by the static worldview of Greek thought promoted by Scholastic philosophy. That static view has dominated western culture since the 14th century. It wasn't until the late 19th and early 20th centuries that the evolutionary perspectives of the Judeo-Christian tradition began to be recovered once again.

As I noted in post #38, "Scholars in areas such as biblical, liturgical and patristic studies began to recover it on the religious side, while researchers in astronomy, physics, evolutionary biology and cultural anthropology-- and most recently in the area of neuroscience-- did the same on the science side."

In our day, science and religion are converging in humanity's efforts at self-understanding. That's the main idea of my blog efforts. And at the heart of that convergence is the idea of creative newness, the dynamic rather than static worldview of Hebrew thought which is enshrined in the Bible's Wisdom literature. So the Wisdom literature is the focus of this post.

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The Bible's wisdom books are much less known than the historical and the prophetic books.

The Bible's historical stories "are in our blood," as C. G. Jung says. Almost everybody in western culture knows the story of Noah and the ark, for example; Moslems even have an annual feast remembering the ark's safe landing after the flood. And most of us have at least heard of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, of Joshua and the battle of Jericho, and the story of David and Goliath.

We're less familiar with the Bible's prophetic literature. Some references in Christmas carols to the messianic prophecies-- the lineage of Jesse, the little town of Bethlehem, and the ox and ass at the crib, for example-- are familiar, and most of us know the names of the prophets "Isaiah" and "Jeremiah," but that's about it. We hardly know anything at all about the Bible's wisdom literature.

The one explicit reference to Divine Wisdom which may be familiar to many of us is found in the often sung Advent hymn, Come, O Come, Immanuel. It not only names Divine Wisdom, it also describes wisdom's cosmic function: "Come, O Come, thou Wisdom from on high, who orders all things mightily." It's saying that Wisdom's "job," if you will, is to take care of everything.

It's an unfamiliar idea, to be sure. Even the names of some of the wisdom books sound strange: Ecclesiastes, Quoleth, and Sirach, for example. Some wisdom books are not counted as authentic scripture in Protestant Bibles, and even in the churches with strong liturgical traditions (such as the Anglican, Lutheran, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox) very little of the wisdom literature is included in their liturgical readings. In the 1990s, one Methodist group even passed a law prohibiting the reading of wisdom books at their Sunday services.

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Why the hostility? How come the Bible's wisdom literature is treated so poorly?

We need to keep in mind two things. One is that while the focus of Hebrew thought is dynamic creativity-- "the universe branching out into ever newer things," as Tresmontant expresses it-- patriarchy is about just the opposite: stasis, not dynamis, control, not creativity. The other thing to keep in mind is that the wisdom literature also has a strong feminine aspect. It's easy to see why the patriarchal churches ignore it.

A major problem in western culture is that we hardly know what the word "wisdom" means. As I mentioned in post #34, we live in what has been called in Susan Jacoby's recent book, The Age of American Unreason, a "culture of distraction." The superficiality of so much in contemporary society prevents us from focusing on the deeper aspects of our lives. In our trivia-based culture we readily can name celebrities in politics and in the sports and entertainment industries, but who among us can name even one person we would want to call an "elder" or a "sage"?

"Wise people" are in short supply. Most of what might be called wisdom in American culture seems to be found on the Comedy Channel. No wonder we haven't a clue what the biblical literature is referring to!

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Wisdom is, of course, a human quality: it's something in us, neither theoretical nor legalistic but practical: a sense of how to live intelligently and decently. And of course the Bible's wisdom literature also recognizes that wisdom is a divine quality. Wisdom-- hochma in Hebrew, sophia in Greek-- is something we share with God. It's both divine and human.

In the New Testament, Divine Wisdom is usually referred to as logos, the Word of God. The gospel authors apparently shied away from using sophia because it was also being used by other religious movements such as Gnosticism current at that time and they did not want to identify with those movements. (Saint Paul, however, writing several decades earlier than those who wrote the gospels, didn't hesitate to use sophia. In 1 Corinthians 1:30, for example, he says explicitly, "Jesus has become the wisdom of God for us.")

So we may be familiar with Divine Wisdom when it's called the "Word of God," but unfortunately the word "Word" makes wisdom sound like something rational. The Greek word logos (and the Hebrew word for "word," davar or dabar) means far more, however, than "reason" or "thought" or "concept."

Probably the best way to say it is that logos means something like "the divine self-expression," which is of course why the New Testament authors wanted to identify it with Jesus.

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The Hebrew literature talks about wisdom not only as an aspect of God and also as a companion of God-- just the way John's gospel says that in the beginning "the logos was with God and was God."

The Hebrew literature also talks about Wisdom as a feminine aspect of God. It's a recovery of the best aspects of the Neolithic perspectives, but with a practical emphasis on an everyday life of creativity and newness. So Divine Sophia is also the last of the Great Mother images.

But there are many other aspects of hochma-sophia, as well. With my long-time interest in our mind's four-fold nature-- which I've described and made use of in many previous posts-- I've found that exploring Divine Wisdom from the quaternary perspective offers us a wonderfully rich and non-patriarchal understanding of that creativity which is at the heart of all things. I hope to share some of those thoughts in the near future.

The main thought I want to share in this post is the biblical literature's understanding of Wisdom's place in the evolution of the universe.

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The wisdom literature emphasizes that Sophia was with God from the start; she was there at the foundation of the world when humans first appeared. It also emphasizes that she delights in the Earth and its people which God is creating. Here's one description from the Book of Proverbs. Sophia is speaking.

When God set the heavens in place, I was present,
when God drew a ring (the horizon) on the surface of the deep,
when God fixed the clouds above,
when God fixed fast the wells of the deep,
when God assigned the sea its limits--
so the waters will not invade the land--
when God established the foundations of the earth,
I was by God's side, a master craftsperson,
Delighting God day after day,
ever at play by God's side,
at play everywhere in God's domain,
delighting to be with the humanity's children.

Notice the emphasis on creativity and delight. What a new slant on the meaning of divine logos this brief quote offers!

Notice, too, that the translation says Sophia is a "master craftsperson." I've also seen it translated as "master craftswoman." You may be unfamiliar with the Bible Gateway website; it offers about a dozen and a half different English translations of Bible. If you look up a number of the translations of this text from Proverbs you can get an even fuller sense of what Sophia's task is with regard to the world.

If you're not used to looking up Bible passages, it's easy: just open Bible Gateway and plug in "Proverbs 8: 27-31" where it says "enter passage to be looked up."

I find it especially interesting to see how the various translations express what Sophia's part is in the creation of the world. They all emphasize that she works along with God. "I was at God's side," she says. "I was a skilled worker... right there with him," the "master and director of the work." "I was the architect at his side... helping him plan and build... making sure everything fit right."

Although we can easily miss it, Sophia's "job," if you will, as it's described here is precisely what the Advent hymn refers to when it addresses the "Wisdom from on high who orders all things mightily." The original Latin words are Veni, O Sapientia, quae hic disponis omnia. "Disponis" might be translated "disposes" or "carefully arranges." Sophia "methodically orders" everything; she "puts every thing in its proper place," she "sees to it that everything is taken care of."

It's even more interesting to see how the various translations describe what it is that Sophia delights in. Some translations are obviously patriarchal: "I delighted in mankind," "I delighted in the children of man," "in the sons of men." But others are not: "I was delighting in the human race," "in the human family," "in all human beings." "How I rejoiced with the human family!" says Sophia.

Another thing that's easy to miss is that it's not only human beings that Sophia delights in, she delights in the Earth itself: "I was pleased with God's world," "I rejoiced in God's earth," "the whole world filled me with joy." "How happy I was with the world God created!" says Sophia. "I delighted in the world of things and creatures."

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Needless to say, this is not the "world of dead things" which was once thought to be the height of western culture's scientific perspective. Nor is it the "suppression of everything new for the sake of power and control" which patriarchal religions continue to perpetuate today.

As we work our way out of the Neolithic Age-- out of the oppressive values of patriarchy as well as out of the rationalism of the Enlightenment period-- we can see that the human task isn't to escape from "a world of dead things"-- as religious dualism insists-- but to delight in the world of "things and creatures."

As creative participants in Divine Wisdom's on-going creation of the Earth, it's now our job to "order all things well." At the human level of the cosmic process, it's up to us Earthlings to take care of things, to see that everything "fits right."

sam@macspeno.