Text: Sirach 24:1-12
This Sunday’s text is a little unusual. It comes from the book of Sirach or Ecclesiasticus, one of the texts in the Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical writings that come from the period between the Old and New Testaments and are often left out of Protestant Bibles. (You can find the details and history here.)
What can you say about wisdom in your life? How are you wise? Not so wise? In what sense might you be a place in which Wisdom dwells? What do you know of a voice that comes from the Most High? When do you sense within you that spirit of glory? Wisdom in the text refers to herself as a feminine quality. How does that fit for you? Ponder occasions when some spirit or voice you would characterize as “feminine” spoke to you? How was that voice heard by any sense of the masculine part of yourself? As either man or woman what can you say about a conversation within yourself of a feminine and a masculine quality. Put aside your favorite psychological crutch or truth and be your own authority on your Self. Write down something of what for you is that feminine component or part? That masculine side? Note something of the dialogue between them, the dance or battle, struggle or embrace. If she is Wisdom what is he? Give them both names. Listen for both voices.
– Bill Dols
At the Workbench 