O Come, thou Wisdom from on high,
who orderest all things mightily;
to us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us in her ways to go.
(from The Hymnal 1982, Hymn 56)
It turns out to be a spool of thread. Actually, it’s an empty spool and a plastic one at that, which explains the volume of my yelp as my bare foot encounters it. “This is why I ask you not to leave things on the stairs!” I fling in the general direction of my younger daughter’s room. She likes to collect such items. Of course carrying an empty spool all the way up the stairs to her bedroom is a bit much to expect.
It is so easy to create stumbling blocks for one another, I reflect. Like to one I laid before my other daughter a few days ago. She was actually cleaning the house, dusting just as I had asked. Yet when I watched her give one cluttered surface a less than thorough treatment the first words out of my mouth were, “not like that!”
I saw her trip over my tone of disapproval and land in a pool of adolescent angst. It’s not that guidance about how to do a job well was out of place. But there are many ways to speak respectfully and I had chosen to ignore them all. I know better. As a person and as a parent, I know better. I hugged my daughter and apologized, “I’m sorry I spoke harshly. I know you were doing just what I asked you to do.”
They say that wisdom comes with age. But as they say in this neck of the woods, we grow “too soon old and too late smart.” I am always wishing I knew yesterday what I leaned today. I do not always know the way, and even when I am on the right path, I seem to only stumble along.
We need Christ Sophia. We need to be shown the path, and be taught as we walk it. We need her guidance continually.
copyright © Anne E. Kitch 2012
