OWL Scripture Reflection Winter 2025: Where in the World is Wisdom?

Where in the World is Wisdom?
By Rev. Amy Johnson
UCC Minister for Sexuality Education & Justice
February 2025

Grow in discernment!
Grow in Wisdom!
~Proverbs 4:5, The Inclusive Bible

I was browsing to find a graphic for the scripture verse above, and I found the word search. At this moment in history, having to search for the verse amidst a bunch of other text that is almost identical seemed an apt metaphor.

Wisdom is here for us. Discernment is available to us. And the truth is that they can be awfully hard to locate in the midst of chaos and overwhelm.

In order to find those words in the word search graphic, we have to slow down. We are called to pay attention, and to be intentional about which words, which details, we pay attention to.

And so we are called in each moment right now.

Spirit is calling to us, guiding us, telling us—with exclamation marks no less– to grow in Her Wisdom and to use discernment. Even as we are pelted daily with new decisions of people in power to remove more rights, jobs, healthcare, and the very humanity from humankind, we still have agency over how we show up.

The way ahead requires slowing down. It requires us to pay attention to words, to details, to our very breath. It requires us to care for ourselves and one another in deep and meaningful ways. It requires us to build community and tend to that community intentionally.

Fear is rampant. Many of us don’t know what to do, or are afraid that what we are doing doesn’t matter anymore or isn’t making a difference.

The good news is that building small communities of people who tend to and care for one another is what our faith has always been about. It’s what Our Whole Lives is about. And those small actions are lifesaving and life changing, especially in a world that seems to be gleefully doing all it can to destroy community care.

Take heart, friends, in each other. You matter. You are beloved. You are not alone. Take a hand near you. Go forward together, growing in discernment, growing in wisdom.