"My Cry is to All that Live!"

For Sunday, May 30th, 2010


(Mosaic titled “Creation – Day 2” as recalled in Proverbs 8, from the Palatine Chapel in Palermo, Italy. Circa mid 12th century, used under Creative Commons license.)

Lectionary Scripture - Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 (NRSV)

Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice? On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries out: "To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live. The LORD created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth -- when he had not yet made earth and fields, or the world's first bits of soil. When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.”

“My Cry is to All that Live”

I love Wisdom! I love her calming effect. I love how she centers me and provides perspective. I love how ancient she is -- for as Proverbs states above, God created and brought her forth from the very beginning. Lastly, I love how Wisdom rejoices over you and me and our inhabited world and how she delights in the human race as a whole. Her presence in our lives opens our hearts open widely and we loosen our grasp on the things we cling to -- whether those are material and temporal or parts of our psyche that hold spirit and soul hostage. Sometimes it’s both!

Take for instance the Arts and Entertainment (A&E) Channel reality show “Hoarders.” It’s rather popular but can be depressing. When it first started, it showcased the hoarder and their lifestyle and how that lifestyle had isolated the individual and threatened their health and well-being. Early on, the show made painfully feeble attempts to help such persons. It brought in professional organizers, junk haulers, and mental health workers - some of whom had absolutely no business trying to help such individuals. Frankly, the early shows were tortuous and demonstrated little more than some A&E producer’s recklessness for doing what TV does best, i.e. make money off someone else’s misery. Lately however, it seems that Wisdom found her way into how the show does its thing.

So what’s different? Well first off, I think A&E producers finally discovered that people in these situations can be helped through Wisdom’s more respectful and compassionate approach than simply embarrassing and confronting and later abandoning these individuals. Wisdom, from wherever it came, helped producers gain a more complete understanding of hoarding as a debilitating mental health disorder. Wisdom then enlarged A&E’s generosity through which they sought and secured more experienced mental health professionals. More resources were then devoted to helping the persons they showcased through aftercare services for the individuals and their loved ones, families and friends. Aftercare now entails counseling to help persons move through grief and loss that are often a part of such situations. Aftercare also provides for continuing opportunity to meet with a professional organizer trained to help and support persons struggling with this particular illness. Lastly, the program now takes time to carefully respect the hoarder’s decisions of what goes and what stays. The realization that’s been made is that failing to honor and provide for such decision-making may force a person into crisis and even suicidal feelings. Lastly, A&E has learned another important aspect of Wisdom and generosity in its dealings with persons in such situations. What is it? Well, A&E now realizes that they must showcase the possibility for recovery, restoration, hope and resilience.

For me, I witnessed these things while watching an episode of the show this past week which gave significant time to videoing the transformations that had been accomplished -- transformations that were nothing less than amazing. One transformation involved a parents’ situation that in the end allowed for their children to return home from court-ordered foster placements. Another transformation allowed for a mother grieving the loss of her husband to restore the family home to its former elegance. The restoration thereby allowed surviving family members to visit the home again and begin a new life of creating new memories for the future that’s now lies ahead. Another transformation allowed for a hoarding boyfriend to keep his relationship with a long time girlfriend whom he was about to lose.

Yes, for all these hoarders some ancient residual of Wisdom within them called out and said, “My cry is to all that live!” Wisdom in others then responded bringing healing and hope through human beings who care and wanted to help and were capable of doing so in ways Wisdom that requires. A restored sense of calm entered these people’s lives. New perspectives found a foothold and gracious generosities -- in so many different ways and forms -- made a new life possible. As one hoarder stated about his self-discovery through the show’s process, “I realize now that for me this problem is like being an alcoholic. To stay on top of it I have to take things one day at a time and do what’s necessary each day so this doesn’t happen again.”

I don’t know at what exact moment in the show that Wisdom came upon me, but I went and grabbed one of my six personal junk drawers. I doubt that I had seriously looked at anything in the drawer for years. But with the show’s suggested guideline of not keeping anything I haven’t used in the past year and am unlikely to use in the next six months, I spent the next two hours cleaning out the drawer. After being carefully monitored by my dear wife so I didn’t toss any family heirlooms or anything recyclable, the drawer had only a few things left in it. Those things were a small piece of pottery from my oldest daughter when she was in sixth grade in which I stored lapel pins that say “support peace”, a ring with my church’s “peace” seal on it, and a couple of $2 dollar U.S. currency bills. The remaining items went into a small tin were I stored a small collection of foreign coins from our international travels as well as a set of hat feathers purchased in Austria for my Loden hat.

Looking at what I chose to keep and that much of it reflected our international vacations, my wife, never certain that I like travel as much as she does, then took the opportunity to say, “So when we downsize to our next house does this mean we can do more travel abroad?” In my mind, Wisdom is smiling at me sharing her delight over our world of which there is so much more to discover. Therefore I reply to Wisdom and say, “I guess so Sweetie.”