Topic: Dailies

Wisdom

by

Leo Crocker Rogers

Wisdom. Some people think wisdom is being able to separate the wheat from the chaff, and this is so thought because we all have both wheat and chaff presented to us as equally good for us. And while being able to discern good from evil is a necessity to bring good to the world, that ability is not the deciding factor to ones contribution. The deciding factor, true wisdom, is knowing when to let go of a bad idea, especially those that are our own. Believe it or not. Jesus trying to hold on to his life in the garden of Gethsemane was a bad idea. He had to let go for the good idea to be realized, the resurrection.

If you want a stable aircraft, an aircraft that can take off and make immediate corrections to avoid a collision with another aircraft, or to dodge a flock of geese, or climb properly even when overburdened, you need one thing. The wheels up. In any situation, aeronautical or in life, the sooner we can get the wheels up the safer and more stable we are. It is very difficult to make a transatlantic flight with wheels down. Many things are needed to get anything started, but once on the way, we need to get streamlined. Wheels up. Keeping the wheels down – bad idea as safe as it may sound.

It was pitch black. My friends and I were night walking out of the Grand Canyon from Havasupai Falls. The trail was unclear as a torrential rain a few weeks before had washed away the normal markers. To the left could be a fall of many feet or even leaving the trail to be lost in who-knows-where-land. To the right could be the same. When we shined our flashlights ahead of us, all we saw was dirt – and if that dirt were the trail or not, we did not know. We had to give up the bad idea of using a flashlight in a normal way. The good idea was to hold a flashlight low and parallel to the ground. So doing, we could see the indentations of horse hoof prints that cast mini shadows due to the ridges that the hooves had left in the soil. The horses had likely traversed the trail in the daylight when they could see. Now those same prints were our trail in the black of night. One print at a time for 11 miles, climbing with death to the left and right, we reached the top. One enlightened step at a time.

Thinking about the future can be unsettling, but you know, we only need enough light to see the next step to walk through the longest and darkest unknown. Taking one step at a time, builds confidence and removes doubt and fear. One step at a time all our life. We can do that until we reach the top. See you there.