Perspective is a curious thing. We all have one and, although generally speaking many of us share some perspectives, we all have different perspectives.  Curiously, we take offense many times to other perspectives.  If something that someone thinks, says, or does flies in the face of our own way of looking at things, we become irritated, adamant, and many times violent.  We are offended! 

Cultural perspectives can be very tricky. We tend to measure one culture’s value system based upon our own culture.  This is inevitable.  However, I am not sure that a small amount of simple awareness of this reality could not open up a possibility for another response.  In other words, if we can catch ourselves when we fly to judgments about ‘others,’ by acknowledging that our own cultural blinders may prevent us from appreciating the differences in other cultures, we could so to speak open a space for some type of interaction that goes at least a little ways beneath the surface. 

Instead of reacting from a hardline posture, we could yield to at least the possibility that the ‘other,’ despite apparent differences, possibly has something to be considered and heard. This doesn’t mean that we necessarily lose the integrity of our own perspective.  It does mean that we step back from an immediate reaction of defense and even attack.  This ‘step back’ in the awareness of reactivity can be the starting point perhaps for real engagement that could lead to of all things – transformation.

This seems to be a difficult task in our present climate, where media magnifies conflicting voices of perspectives and sometimes even contributes to the conflict by how it presents these voices. It is hard not to be affected deeply by all that is going around us in the world.  When we find resonance with a certain voice or set of voices, we tend to align ourselves with the perspective of those voices.  Many times we do this unquestioningly.  The uncertainty and insecurity of our world as it confronts us drives us into ‘solutions’ that do nothing to address the root issues, but rather tend to focus on special interests aligned with our own personal concerns, interests and well-being.  We all do it!

In the book of Sirach (1 Sir 4:11-19), we are provided with a beautiful but challenging image of Wisdom:

Wisdom breathes life into her children
and admonishes those who seek her

He who loves her loves life;
those who seek her will be embraced by the Lord …

We are told here that Wisdom breathes life into her children. This seems to mean that Wisdom is the sustaining life force for all of us and to the extent that we seek/love Wisdom is the extent that we will live a life surrounded by God “embraced by the Lord.”  From this flowery description, later we hear the challenge of Wisdom…

She walks with him as a stranger
and …tries him with her discipline…

 What is the perspective of wisdom? Inasmuch as it is life-sustaining, it is also ‘other.’  Wisdom comes to us as a stranger and teaches us or rather invites us into another perspective.  In a way, then, Divine Wisdom is not so much about a particular content, but maybe more about an approach of openness – openness to something that appears ‘other’ or strange and different than that with which we are comfortable.  This confronting nature of Wisdom is something that we wouldn’t normally recognize as life sustaining.  In fact, we are tempted to see strangeness and otherness as something that will deprive us of life.  Yet, we are asked to Love this Wisdom as Life itself.

If Wisdom is so closely tied to Life, then life itself becomes the conduit through which Wisdom flows. And not just Life in general, but my life, your life, our everyday lives.   Do we look for Divine Wisdom in too specific of a category?  Can it only arrive through the certain “voices?”  Can we only trust those voices which confirm our own perspective?  Is Wisdom relegated to simply confirming a mindset or perspective that goes along with our ‘platform’ of life?  Can Wisdom only arrive in a way that ‘fits in’ to MY or OUR perspective? Can we see or recognize Wisdom by any other ‘name?”

These are universal questions that have profound ramifications on global, national, religious, social, political, and personal levels.

Does Jesus in Mark’s Gospel (Mk 9:38-40) provide us with some insight into these questions?

“Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name,
and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.”
Jesus replied, “Do not prevent him.
There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name
who can at the same time speak ill of me.
For whoever is not against us is for us.”

 How big of a stretch or indeed risk would it be to consider the possibility that something different or ‘other’ or ‘called by another’ name actually is something that is ‘not against us’ but ‘for us’ – something that builds us up, moves us forward, contributes to a bigger picture that opens up life more and more for everyone. What name would we give to this openness to MORE?  Could it be Wisdom? 

This is not a free-for-all notion of carte blanche acceptance of anything different and other, but an invitation to ask deeper questions than those surface ones that we prefer to ask, like ‘how does this help me and mine?” It is the invitation to engage in the possibility for transformation.

If Wisdom has the capacity to broaden perspectives through inclusion at deeper levels that embrace differences by recognizing them as integral to the fullness of life for everyone, how wide could Life be?  This wide-ness requires confronting demons.  Are not the demons of fear and ignorance that ‘possess’ us in our everyday lives precisely the ones that need driving out?  Could we ‘follow’ a Christ, who walks as the Wisdom Stranger driving out ‘demons’ wherever they lurk?  

St. John of the Cross in The Ascent of Mount Carmel (III.7.2) tells us that “all possession is contrary to hope.[i]” If this is true, then true Hope is dependent upon this Wisdom of Christ that comes to us not in the familiar, but in the strange and different. Dare we hope for the Christ Perspective that engages all perspectives to drive out the ‘demons’ that prevent us from dialoguing deeply?  Can we risk the possibility of being transformed by the Wisdom Stranger?

[i] See https://www.catholicspiritualdirection.org/ascentcarmel.pdf