My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
2 Corinthians 12:9

In Second Corinthians, Paul writes about his woundedness, or his "weakness." Most of us are all too familiar with our personal weaknesses...Fear, selfishness, judgmentalism, self-righteousness, low self-esteem, and so on. We may even think that the world revolves around me. Ego is always getting in our way, and pride can turn our strengths into arrogance. This is true for us as individuals, and it is true for us as a nation.

Jesus was always hanging out with what Rome believed were expendable people--the most vulnerable of his time. He believed that his mission was to invite weak and wounded people to enter the Kingdom of God, the beloved community of love, forgiveness, justice and restored life. But his starting point was weakness. He was in the business of transforming weakness into strength. The question for each of us, and for our nation, especially during this time of transition, is whether we will become vulnerable enough to allow God to help us turn our weakness into strength.

I first met Henri Nouwen, the author of, The Wounded Healer, at Pendle Hill, the Quaker Conference Center near Philadelphia. Through the years his books have been my constant spiritual companions. One of the most important things he ever wrote is this: "Nobody escapes being wounded. We are all wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually. The main question is not, 'How can we hide our wounds?', believing that our wounds are embarrassing, but 'How can we put our woundedness in the service of others?' When our wounds cease to be a source of shame and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers."

Life is an accumulation of wounds. Healing our wounds with one another is a continuous process of growing in our ability to allow love into our injured hearts.

Have you been able to become a wounded healer?

Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered thus? I tell you, No...
-Luke 13:2-3

Many in our world think that God's job is to make sure this life is fair. God is supposed to make sure that the righteous prosper, and that the evil doers are the ones who suffer. Many believe in the straightforward equation of the book of Deuteronomy: Sin=curses and obedience=blessings. Instead, we have a God, who in this world at least, makes the sun rise on the evil and the good, who sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. We have a God, who seems willing to let the weeds and the wheat grow together, and whose extreme patience and restraint and mercy sometimes borders on the negligent. It is hard to understand a God like this. In the face of suffering, our net of meaning is way too small.

The modern world can delude us into thinking that we really do have life under control. Diseases can be cured. Sensible precautions and wise laws can safeguard against tragedy. We are intelligent people. We can handle things!

But then come these moments where we catch a glimpse that maybe our lives are far more fragile than we believed. Moments of vulnerability that overcome us after a loved one dies, or towers have fallen, or the earth is shaken, or when we get sick. Moments where we face the stark and even terrifying reality that, despite our five-year plans and our advanced technology, we are not as in control as we think. It is in these places of vulnerability that we will be moved to rethink our lives. When Jesus says, "repent" in Luke 13:3, he does not mean that you bow down in fear before an angry God. No, a better translation for the word "repent" is to "rethink" your life. In that vulnerable space we are given the opportunity to rethink about the world we fit into, about what life is all about, and about the God of Love that we worship.

Have you ever been moved to rethink your life?

Look carefully, then how you walk, not as unwise persons but as wise...
-Ephesians 5:15

There are many ways that we learn wisdom. Wisdom finds meaning and purpose in everyday routines that may seem small when compared with the major issues the world faces...Rearing children, learning how to be a good friend, conversing with your neighbor, giving your best in your chosen vocation, etc. Wisdom distinguishes the significant from the trivial. It sees the extraordinary in the ordinary. Wisdom finds the sacred in the otherwise mundane practices of life, as well as the painful places in life...those places of grief and sadness, from which it may seem that we will never recover.

My personal definition of wisdom is simple. Wisdom is knowledge, to be sure, but it is more than knowledge. Wisdom is knowledge coupled with a child-like innocence and openness.

I saw this definition modeled in the life of my mentor, Elton Trueblood. His wisdom came to him through a deliberate effort to be more loving in the world of academia. "For many years I have been conscious of a tension in my life," he writes in his diary. "On the one hand I felt the need, with strict loyalty to logical consistency, to explore erroneous and shoddy thinking, particularly among students. On the other hand I have felt the demands of compassion for these same persons. The difficulty is that loyalty to the former conception sometimes gives the impression that the latter is lacking...At this point in my life I have determined that I shall try to err, if I err, on the side of love and tenderness."

Eckhart Tolle wrote these words on wisdom, words that could have been written by a Quaker: "Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and listening, activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and your actions."

How do we cultivate wisdom in our day-to-day lives?

We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope of earth.
-Abraham Lincoln

Shortly before his 29th birthday in 1838, Abraham Lincoln produced the first expression of an idea which was to play an important part in his mature thinking. It concerned what would later be called, "The American Dream." He knew that many societies had arisen and flourished for a while, but then disappeared. Lincoln understood that even the most noble things can be lost, if the conditions of survival are not met.

Throughout this past week, Lincoln and our constitution have been weighing heavily on my mind and heart. As a result, I am more convinced than ever that the best hope for our society's continued existence resides in its spiritual resources, which includes the recovery of five important virtues, virtues which I have shared with you before, and have never been more needed than right now:

First is Courage....This means to stand for the right without being self-righteous, and to do the right thing, even if no one else knows about it.

Second is Competence...This requires the ability to think reflectively and critically on how to deal with the complexities of modern life.

Third is Civility...If our society is to be renewed we must recognize that we are a community of one another.

Fourth is Conscience...To cheat on taxes, to lie, to do sloppy work, are all a part of the loss of conscience in our society.

Fifth is Compassion...Such compassion means to suffer with and to have your own heart ache each time a cruelty is done to another.

Are there other virtues that we need to recover?