listening – The Noontimes

Proverbs 1-9: Wisdom

Wednesday, September, 17, 2025

Written on July 26, 2008 and posted as a Favorite today . . .

The-Cherubim-Putti-Angels-of-The-Sistine-Madonna-c1514[1] — *Raphael: The Cherubim Putti Angels of the Madonna*

Wisdom is patience, and the honing of the interior ear, the ear that listens to the Voice of God. There is nothing more, really. In these first nine chapters of Proverbs, we find a beautiful yet practical guide of where Wisdom is to be found, how we are to remain open to Wisdom, and how important it is to pass Wisdom along to others. We cannot pass on this Wisdom per se – for she chooses where she harbors – but rather, we pass on the knowledge of where she is found, how she may be wooed, and how she loves those who love her. These are simple ideas that unlock the mysteries of a complex world.

Wisdom saves us from fear. She brings us to understanding. She soothes, she scolds, she hugs, she warms, she enfolds us in her protecting wings.

Recently, we remembered the description of the winged Cherubim that arch over the Ark in the Holy of Holies (1 Kings), that guard the eastern gate of Eden (Genesis), and watch over the desert Ark of the Covenant. (Exodus and Numbers). The Cherubim remain with the Ark and the desert people through David’s time (1 Samuel) until a permanent kingdom is established when we see them in Solomon’s temple. In Psalms and prayers, the Lord is often seen as seated among or between Cherubim; and in the New Testament the writer of the letter to the Hebrews (9) recalls this image to his audience. The Cherubim guard the wisdom God wants to extend to us.

Wisdom also goes out along the byways, looking for those who seek her, calling into her house those who want to be close to God. She sets up tables, lays out banquets, sends her maidens to accompany us to her place of Understanding. Wisdom seeks to bring us Completion and Fullness, not perfection, for she knows that it is impossible for us to be perfect. Wisdom resides in God’s glory, and it is this she wishes to teach us. Wisdom takes in and returns God’s love, and it is this she wishes to open to us. Wisdom wishes us to be fully alive – just as Jesus is fully alive. It is this opening, this blessing, this gift she offers us on open hands. This gift from God. This gift of God.

If you can find time in this busy, busy life, spend it with Wisdom today.

Adapted from a August 24, 2011 post.

Image from: https://aleteia.org/2021/07/20/who-are-the-cherubim-in-the-bible/

September 17, 2025

Cherubim, completion and fullness and not perfection, listening, patience, wisdom

Job 29-31: Making Our Defense

Job 29-31: Making Our Defense

Thursday, August 14, 2025

Too often when truth speaks to us, we begin to defend our position without listening. Our natural human reflex, when we hear words we do not want to hear, is to survive as we are. Comfort lies in predictability; control of others and our environment brings stability; our actions may not speak clearly enough, we say to ourselves. We believe we must make our own defense because others do not see us as well as we do.

Those who listen actively, or deeply, experts tell us, have arrived at a level of maturity we all might wish to find. In the story of Job, an innocent man suffers. His family and friends hound him to confess to his wrongdoings that have brought about his pain. Job refuses because he has no information to share with them. As we have observed, he is innocent.

Too often when we attempt to speak truth to a power that has no interest in hearing, we are ignored, diminished, or – at worst – vilified and silenced without cause. Our reaction to this mistreatment can be varied. We may restate our case, we may withdraw in fear or anger, we may enlist the help of others, or we may retire for a time to take God’s counsel. There are times when only the wisdom and patience of God’s plan can address the obstacles that limit our relationships.

Whether we are those who do not listen, or those who hope to be heard, we always have the example of Jesus to explore. The Gospels are full of encounters between the Messiah and those who refuse to hear, and when we study them we know that the best way to move forward as we make our defense is to listen, and to rely on the Creator. As we consider Job’s defense of his circumstances, we might want to look at our own actions to consider how well we listen . . . and how we make our own defense.

Image from: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/power-active-listening-stephane-bernard

For more information on mindful listening, visit: https://psychcentral.com/lib/mindful-listening-exercise

To learn about active listening, go to: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-active-listening-3024343

For more on the gift of deep listening, visit: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-heart-and-science-of-attachment/202101/the-gift-of-deep-listening

August 14, 2025

listening, patience

Job 40:1-5: Arguing with the Almighty – Part II

Job 40:1-5: Arguing with the Almighty – Part II

Friday, January 31, 2025

When God seems distant to us we might pick up Job’s story, with its human drama of innocent suffering, to see how and where we fit into the tale. Are we the wife who urges her husband to curse God and die (2:9)? Are we the friends Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar who insist that Job repent for some nameless sin even as Job proclaims his innocence, saying that he knows not what he did to incur God’s wrath? Do we act as the Satan does in the opening chapters, do we roam the earth looking for mischief to create? How do we see God? As a sarcastic tyrant or as a faithful creator who only has our good in mind? How do we react when we feel estranged from God? With petulance, or like Job who admits at last that God is great and that God is good? Do we, like Job, finally put our worries aside knowing that God will handle them? Do we intercede when asked, as Job does, for the very friends who tried to lead us astray? Do we rely on God or on ourselves? Do we spend sleepless nights worrying about our own guilt and innocence, or do we move on to pick up the threads of a broken life as best we can? What do we do? How do we pray? Where do we turn for help?

In today’s reading Job agrees to put his hand over his mouth so that he might finally listen to Yahweh, and he does this after having made a full and cogent argument to his maker. If we follow Job’s example, we understand that we are meant to wrestle with God. We are created to think, reflect and re-think. We are created to know God and to serve God; and to do this well we must ask questions. These questions are followed by enigmatic answers from God that we struggle to understand and, at first glance, we see as unsatisfactory. Later, when we practice persistence and fidelity, we begin to understand God’s message. Therefore, as we put our questions to God, we must also remain patient and authentic. For it is with waiting and honesty that we acquire wisdom, a full and nourishing wisdom that comes through lengthy days of listening, reflecting and praying.

Tomorrow, God abides.

Image from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Job_and_his_friends.jpg

January 31, 2025

Bildad and Zophar, Eliphaz, fidelity, Job’s wife, listening, patience, praying, reflecting, Satan

1 & 2 Chronicles: Our Sacred History – Part III

1 & 2 Chronicles: Our Sacred History – Part III

Monday, May 29, 2023

Division

When we achieve success we must recognize that complacency and comfort bring more sorrow than joy. True, meaningful and lasting happiness are born of sorrow more often than laughter.

What do we do when the world begins to splinter around us as a prelude to falling apart? How do we gather ourselves when our interior self begins to fracture and break? How do we handle our own deep grief or intense sorrow of loved ones? Why is listening – fully listening – to our individual and shared stories so important to the human experience? Today we invite the Spirit into our lives and we open our hearts to an honest examination of our attempts to follow in Christ’s Way. We see the beauty of God’s great love that bridges all chasms, masters all obstacles, and heals all wounds. And we discover the gift of listening . . . God’s patient listening to us, our earnest listening to God, and the shared listening of family, friends and colleagues.

When division separates us from God or others, we must follow in The Way and learn to listen with the heart, the mind and the soul. And so it is that we discover the importance of the human and divine voice in ourselves and others, and how these shared voices bring to fullness the beauty of God’s merciful, healing kingdom.

The two books of Chronicles have four major portions: a genealogy of our leaders beginning with Abraham (1 Chronicles 1-9), a description of the monarchy under David and Solomon (1 Chronicles 9 – 2 Chronicles 9), the divided kingdom (2 Chronicles 10-18), and the period from Hezekiah to the Babylonian exile (2 Chronicles 19-36). This story of divine promise interwoven with human commitment and infidelity tell a story that we might see reflected in our own personal sacred history. This story is worthy of our time.

Listen to David Isay’s interview with Krista Tippett, Listening as an Act of Love, at: https://onbeing.org/programs/david-isay-listening-as-an-act-of-love/

Watch David Isay’s Ted Talk on Everyone Around you has a story the world needs to hear, and consider the importance of our individual and collected sacred history. Isay is the creator and President of StoryCorps, an ongoing oral history project.

To learn more about StoryCorps, click on the image above or visit: https://storycorps.org/

Images from: https://www.janethurnellread.com/the-importance-of-curiosity/ and https://storycorps.org/

May 29, 2023

David Isay, Jesus, Krista Tippett, listening, stories, StoryCorps, the voice, The Way

Proverbs 2: The Blessings of Wisdom

Friday, September 4, 2020

Proverbs 2

The Blessings of Wisdom

For the last two weeks we have spent time with the opening chapters of Proverbs reflecting on the nature and blessings of Wisdom. What does she look like? Where do we find her? How do we discern true Wisdom from false? What can be gained by sitting at Wisdom’s knee? Te answers to these questions are outlined in Chapter 2. And they are well worth sorting out and sharing.

One of the qualities of Wisdom is that she is both seen and felt. We turn our ear, incline our heart. We must listen and empathize. We must put aside old parameters and open ourselves to the suffering of others. We put away pat answers and old prejudices. We unbend our stiff necks. We thaw our hardened hearts.

Another of the qualities of Wisdom is that she is a treasure more valuable than any imaginable and yet she is under our noses at all times. She is elusive and yet as tactile as silver. She is mysterious and yet as clear as daylight. She brings the security of knowledge, understanding, counsel, rectitude, justice, honesty and discretion. She saves us from darkness, perversity, crooked paths and those who commit evil.

The meaning of these verses is clear. Those who succumb to the adulteress are lured away by smooth words. Those who look for easy relationships with no thought of commitment and no promise of constancy sink down to death. Closed self-importance and disdain for the pain of others. Self-reliance and a willful disregard for the vulnerable. These are the tendrils of unwise thinking that draw us into the crooked paths of the wicked.

Listening and opening ourselves to the suffering of others. Reliance on God and a willingness to change direction when called by God. By these paths will we find Wisdom. We may come upon her abruptly, or we may see her first from afar and struggle to reach her; but no matter the way our path will be made straight. hose who seek Wisdom are protected by God and by Wisdom herself. Of this we are assured.

The choice laid before us could not be more stark or more important: we may be cut off from the land and rooted out . . . or we may dwell in the land and remain in it. These are the blessings of Wisdom.T hey are many, transforming and vital. Let us turn the ear, let us incline the heart, and let us call out to Wisdom and seek her like silver. This is all the security we will ever need.

A re-post from September 7, 2013.

Image from: http://www.weidknecht.com/2013/02/proverbs-220.html

September 4, 2020

choice, listening, paths, security, smooth words, stiff necks and hard hearts, treasure

2 Chronicles 10: Ignoring Advice

2 Chronicles 10: Ignoring Advice

Friday, October 11, 2019

Sometimes the advice we receive from others is worthless; sometimes it is pure gold. The difficulty in life is to discern when to heed which words. This can be resolved when we decide to draw on God’s wisdom as our primary source of advice, and then allow the words of our family and friends to fill in the gaps of what we believe to be God’s message.

We may have difficulty hearing the Word within; if so, we may want to practice the art of listening a bit more until we have formed well-trodden spiritual pathways to God and back.

We may have difficulty feeling the Word of God resonate within; if so, we may want to practice feeling empathy for those unlike us a bit more until we have taught our hearts more of God’s language.

We may have difficulty expressing the Word of God to others; if so, we may want to find a trusted friend who will serve as a sounding board for our thoughts.

We may have difficulty witnessing to the Word of God in a public way; if so, we may want to spend time with Scripture to see how others have done so through the ages.

Communication in any form does not come easily. It takes practice. Finding trustworthy sources of wisdom of any kind is a challenge. It takes persistence. Acting in a manner that matches our beliefs for any reason is difficult at best. It takes authenticity. Speaking in a way that calls others to Christ in any way is complicated. It takes fidelity. Listening in a way that leads us to good, solid decision-making is taxing. It takes endurance.

All of this patience and compassion is too much for us humans, we say, and yet . . . we know what happens when we take the advice that suits us at the moment but does not challenge us. We know what happens when we ignore God’s call and go our own way. We know what happens when we are silent or when we do not act when and as we ought.

The choice before these young men in today’s Noontime is clear. We see their example. Do we follow it? Or do we follow Christ?

Written on September 15, 2010 and posted today as a Favorite.

To find a Daily Bible Reading Plan, visit: https://www.biblegateway.com/reading-plans/?version=NIV

Or create a plan of your own by beginning with Acts . . . but read each day . . . and listen . . .

Image from: http://niagaranissan.com/

October 11, 2019

acting, advice, authenticity, endurance, fidelity, God’s language, Jeroboam and Rehoboam, listening, patience, persistence, wisdom, witnessing as God asks

Tag: listening

Proverbs 1-9: Wisdom

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Job 29-31: Making Our Defense

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Job 40:1-5: Arguing with the Almighty – Part II

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1 & 2 Chronicles: Our Sacred History – Part III

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Proverbs 2: The Blessings of Wisdom

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2 Chronicles 10: Ignoring Advice

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