Who is so unwise as to talk about wisdom?  It’s a subject that defies the attempt to discuss it. After all, if you think you have it, you almost surely don’t.

Wisdom is found in stories and parables rather than in definitions. That is why I love the tales of the Hasidic rabbis of 17th century Europe, who left such a rich legacy of instructive narratives.

Similarly, I value greatly the stories of Jesus and his parables. They, too, deliver wisdom in ways deep enough to warrant pondering them throughout a lifetime.

The stories belonging to other traditions – notably the Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim – also help me appreciate what wisdom is.

Here’s what wisdom sounds like to me. “You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done, which may take some time, you are fierce with reality. When at last age has assembled you together, will it not be easy to let it all go, live, balanced, over?”

These words come from a woman with a flowery name, Florida Scott-Maxwell, who was approaching 90 when she wrote them. Her phrase “fierce with reality” suggests an appreciation of human life that inspires wonder.

A saying of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel also strikes me as wisdom-graced. “Just to be is a blessing; just to live is holy” said this deeply spiritual teacher. To sustain this approach to one’s existence might prove the key to vibrant living.

By common agreement of sages through the centuries of human history, another marker of wisdom is the facing of death. Living with the reality of inevitable dying  affords us a perspective that throws into relief the value of human life. To appreciate fully what Rabbi Heschel said─ “Just to be is a blessing; just to live is holy”─ can be best appreciated when we know that our lives will reach an earthly end.

Wisdom itself often seems too sublime for anyone to reach. Perhaps the best we can do is to desire it. That very desire could turn out to be the truest sign that a person has wisdom.

Another approach to wisdom finds expression in the following consideration: Wisdom is knowing what matters and what doesn’t; what matters a lot and what matters only a little. If you can maintain this distinction, you have perspective, an angle on the world that surely rates as an important part of wisdom.

Closely related to perspective is the Serenity Prayer. It begins: “God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.”

These charismatic words were composed by the brilliant Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr in 1943 for the church he attended in the small Berkshire town of Heath, Massachusetts. Though it may at first sound individualistic, this prayer uses the plural and calls for gifts─acceptance and courage─not easily cultivated.

How one struggles with the evil in the world counts as a test of wisdom. Complacency about how awful the world frequently is can corrupt the soul; but so can despair about ever being able to change anything, for the better.

Progress toward wisdom necessarily remains ironic. A deepening realization of how much you lack wisdom serves as a sign that you are making some headway.

So does acceptance of one’s own flawed nature and everybody else’s also. Elizabeth Lesser, author of The New American Spirituality, offers this approach:

“Don’t worry about being good. Instead, discover how good and bad live within you. Deeply accept the shadows even as you seek the light.”

Loving more deeply the true, the good, and the beautiful also leads toward wisdom. These three sublime values, if we pursue them, can lift up our lives. This path betokens an openness in us to human experience and to the deepest reality.

When you get older, learning becomes a somewhat different experience. You do not run the risk of becoming prideful because, by this time, if you have any sense at all, you have learned how much you do not know.

This acknowledgement of not knowing can be seen as one of the beauties of religion. So suggests the French writer Madeleine Delbrêl: “Faith is the knowledge of our basic ignorance.”

Wisdom remains a close relative of the two lode stars of religion: enlightenment and compassion. Both give expression to wisdom and lead to its further unfolding. Of the two, compassion remains the more precious. Virtually all the great spiritual traditions of the world agree on this point: when you come right down to it, all you need is love.

That prescription, however, has its own ironies. After all, the truly wise know how sublimely difficult it can be to love.

Richard Griffin