Mere Cognition

Over the course of time, what I'm hoping to amass is a set of posts that address each chapter of the book of Proverbs on the day number that they share. This is somewhat of a long term project looking into applied insight and reasoning.

Proverbs of Solomon

The book of Proverbs in the bible is written by King Solomon, son of David, who ruled Israel betwen 971-931 B.C.

I don't really think I can do it any better justice than Matthew Henry, at least as the first in a long list of ponderings on Proverbs 1.

His name signifies peaceable, and the character both of his spirit and of his reign answered to it; both were peaceable. David, whose life was full of troubles, wrote a book of devotion; for is any afflicted? let him pray. Solomon, who lived quietly, wrote a book of instruction; for when the churches had rest they were edified. In times of peace we should learn ourselves, and teach others, that which in troublous times both they and we must practise.

In peaceful times indeed, should we teach what we must practice in troubled times. Sadly, the troubled times come (at least for the US), and while I had plenty of time to learn, I do realize that I squandered a lot of time not making the main thing the main thing. So now, here I am. I don't think the person who coined the idiom "better late than never" had this in mind.

    The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
        fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Fear is an operative word here. As an atheist I would say things like, "What? Your God has to use fear to keep you in line? He's got to make you afraid, son? How pathetic." What would have been more pathetic would have been the puddle of urine underneath me had God come down out of the heavens to set me straight.

It's not fear like the world thinks of fear. For the most part, the world thinks of fear as an emotion and a set of neuronal excitations and hormonal increases/decreases. The fear spoken of in Proverbs is deeper. Deeper even than emotion. Let's use a visual story.

Close your eyes. Imagine you are in a small, yet real place you have been, somewhere like your living room during the twilight before morning. Visualize your surroundings, wherever you are. Now look up, push through the ceiling and fly into the sky. Do you see the stars? The distant red tinge of the sun on the sky? The moon as it begins dipping beyond the horizon, since you're up so high? While you're up there, look out into space. Look at the planets. Unfathomable distances abound. And yet, our planet is but a speck. A pale blue dot. A grain of sand. Tiny.

Now start over again at beach, looking at a grain of sand. And continue bigger and bigger. Or smaller and smaller. Either way, every time you slice up a section of creation, there is more to delve into until we get to the end of our physical ability to delve.

You can go to the grandest of the grandest and the smallest of the smallest and you will still find the same thing. If God is capable of doing this, what else is He capable of? Therein lies the fear. If He made all of this, what am I, really? You can be told about it but it can't be explained to you, it has to be thought about to understand it.

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14:

  The end of the matter; all has been heard. 
  Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
  For God will bring every deed into judgment, 
    with every secret thing, 
    whether good or evil.

Unbelievers easily pass over these verses. If You're like me, though, you look at that and want to shrink down to an infinitesimal singularity - but for one thing: Christ.

There will come a day when all of this is over and we can dine at the feast of the King of Kings, but for the moment, we are still here. In this place. With our instructions. Therefore, hands to the plow.

Today has been a busy one, so thankfully, Proverbs 30's first four verses might be able to stand on their own.

Verses 1-4

The man declares, I am weary, O God;
  I am weary, O God, and worn out.
Surely I am too stupid to be a man.
  I have not the understanding of a man.
I have not learned wisdom,
  nor have I knowledge of the Holy One.
Who has ascended to heaven and come down?
  Who has gathered the wind in his fists?
Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment?
  Who has established all the ends of the earth?
What is his name, and what is his son's name?
  Surely you know!

Verse 1 has some translational challenges in that it could actually be addressing two people instead of weariness; with that in mind, I do empathize with weariness. It's especially moving considering that the passage ends with an allusion to Jesus. Matthew 11:28-30:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Once again, we're reminded of humility by this writer's opening stanzas. For every small nugget of truth or wisdom I hear or learn, regardless of where it comes from, it often reminds me of how little I really know or understand. To say that my brain is kind of hardwired to remind myself of my own stupidity is a bit of an understatement.

There's an odd juxtaposition in that. I was recently talking with a person who mentioned that I sounded a bit arrogant when I was relating something new that I had learned. I started to correct him and stopped. In that moment, I realized something - I think I have an issue with my verbal delivery. I changed direction and starting asking him if he could explain why, because I wanted to understand what I was doing. He couldn't really explain what he meant by it, so instead I asked him some more questions. When queried on whether it seemed more like I was excited about what I'd learned or if I was condescendingly explaining what I learned. He told me it was the latter.

We then drifted off into a conversation about tone and intonation in speech, and he affirmed that yes, I may have been excited to convey something new I'd learned, but it sounded more like someone who knew everything having to annoyingly teach an introductory course. That hit me like a giant lead brick.

One can think one way, and actualize it another. It's another form of double-mindedness. I can't see or hear myself as an outside observer, so I never really realized that I was doing it.

As an introvert, I'm very thankful that people are willing to point out these things to me. Of course, my impatience makes me wish it hadn't taken 40 years to happen, but it's all in God's time, who has the looong term in view.

It really is an interesting question wrapped within the mundane. In deeper historic times, people had one name, and were defined by their lineage, such as "Stephen, son of Hiram" or "Rebecca, daughter of Ephram". In the western world, this eventually morphed into given (first) names and family (last) names, with various amounts of extra middle names. For the most part, the majority of the world follows a similar pattern, with a family line name and a given identifier name in a certain order. Some cultures still follow the concept of heredity, other cultures use multiple middle names for various reasons. It all still effectively boils down to the concept of, "who are you, and who are you of?"

From the very beginning, man was given the power to name. In Genesis 2:19-20, it is written:

Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field.

Names are powerful things; more powerful than we realize in this day and age. They seem innocuous, but I am sure you can recall at least a couple of moments where someone lived up to the meaning of the name they were given. I have yet to research the concept of naming and its consequences, so I'll refrain from much speculation. However, Hebrews and other tribes in the ancient world would purposely name their children very specific things, and I suspect they had some wisdom in the practice that we have lost to the march of time.

The bible has many examples, though, of naming and renaming purposefully. Esau's name was derived from his red and hairy appearance, Jacob was derived from the Hebew word for "heel", as he was born holding his brother's heel. This eventually came to have more meaning as "supplanter" and "deceitful one" due to the way he acquired his birthright. In the book of Ruth, Naomi asks to be called Mara, or "bitter". Abram became Abraham. Saul became Paul. God Himself has many names. The list goes on, related to growing into one's name or adopting a new one that better fits the person.

My given name is Michael. It is an interesting name and a biblical one. I am very very bad at Hebrew, so I am likely getting the glyphs incorrect. If so, I'll gladly accept correction and provide attribution to the corrector.

מִיכָאֵל - (Mikha'el)

It comes from the Hebrew. Transliterated, it is thus:

• מִ֚י | (mî) | who
• כִּי־ | (kî) | that
• אֵ֣ל | (’êl) | God

It seems that this is best translated and considered as a figure of speech: who is like God? Put more plainly, "Who, of us, can call ourselves equal with God?" In Latin, quis ut Deus?

I chuckle at my past foolishness as I write this. When I was calling myself an atheist in my youth, I adopted the paradoxical interpretation of Michael - "one who is like God", referencing the biblical archangel. After all, at that point I didn't believe anyway, so why not propose that I am like God? I chuckle at the foolishness and the sadness in that, as I was partially right - I had made myself the god of me - or at least, so I thought. It's a slightly more complicated story whereabout I most certainly made another sinfully lost girl my idol. God ultimately used connections through that same family to bring me to Him.

And now, after years of struggling with understanding, my eyes are beginning to see the reason I was named Michael.

Every day. Every minute. It is a reminder. "Who is like God?". The ultimate answer: no one. Not me.

God permitted me to be named Michael because He knew I needed that constant reminder. He knew I needed that reminder in my impatience. He knew I needed that reminder in my pride. He knew I needed that reminder in both my worst moments and my best. He knew I needed that reminder, period.

So, we should all have the strength enough to simply ask,

Who is like God?

And have the humility to answer,

Not me.