O Come - Wisdom

Yesterday I shared Maggi Dawn's introduction to the "O Antiphons" better known through the hymn "O Come, O Come Emmanuel". However, as I said yesterday, most versions of the hymn omit 2 of the original verses, and we actually begin with one of those missing verses, which Alan Luff recently translated as:

O come, thou Wisdom from on high

Before whom all our follies fly;

Give thy sweet order to all things

As through the world thy prudence wings.

Alan Luff (born 1928) translated from Veni Emmanuel © Stainer & Bell Ltd.

For Latin purists Maggi Dawn posted the original Antiphon as:

O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodiisti,
attingens a fine usque ad finem,
fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia:
veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.

In the modern world we value knowledge and information... and we have never had so much of it at our fingertips, floating around in the ether, ready to download at any time. But Glenn Campbell over at Kilroy Cafe writes:

Society is currently intoxicated with information, thinking that information will solve everything. In fact, information solves nothing! The same problems of the world persist! Certainly, good data is important input to any decision, but data doesn't make the decision; wisdom does. If balanced wisdom isn't there, then the decision will fail no matter how much data you have.

How we use that information is a matter of wisdom... and there doesn't seem quite so much of that floating around. I often wonder what T.S. Eliot would have made of the internet given his famous question...

"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"

Earlier in the year over on Newsbiscuit I came across this piece:

People with too much wisdom and experience could find themselves redundant in Digital Britain’s new knowledge economy. ‘In the Internet age, when wisdom is just a mouse click away, there’s little demand for people who had to spend their whole lives learning by experience,’ said Gino Spencer, chief evangelist of Zeitgeist Social Media.

The traditional model of obtaining wisdom was a three stage largely manual process that involved huge investment of time and energy. It involved book reading, followed by word of mouth references, recommendations from friends and counsel with a bloke in the pub who knows everything. But the really crazy bit came next, when this heresay data was cross referenced with a period of personal experience.
‘What a palava,’ says Spencer. ‘These days, you can consult your iPad and get instant wisdom.’

It is a spoof, but I think there are people who function like that, and actually in Judeo-Christian tradition however, Wisdom isn't simply a matter of "learning from experience", but rather it is seen as a gift of God. I say "it" but to be more accurate I should say, "she" as Wisdom is a person, an aspect (a FEMININE aspect) of the Divine. In the New Testament this is equated with the Holy Spirit... Suggesting -

1) Wisdom is more than simply Emmanuel "God with us" but is God in us.

2) Perhaps in the macho modern world we need to get in touch, if not with our own feminine sides, we need to get in touch with God's

3) True Wisdom is relational... not simply abstract thought... facts, figures and strategic plans

As James writes:

the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.

James 3:17 (ANIV)

I want to download wisdom like that...