Without overview, we may lose track of where we are heading. It is like travelling in a bullet train staring out the window at the passing countryside but not recognising the landscape which whizzes by. Actually, one will soon develop a headache if one merely concentrates on the foreground. Only when one looks into the distance that one recovers a sense of perspective—that one might be moving, yes but not without a direction. This stability is important especially in a fast-changing world.
Solomon in the first reading, prayed for this wisdom of foresight. Amidst all the wonders that the world can afford, he asked for wisdom. Right after God granted his request, we hear Solomon exercising that wisdom in adjudicating between two woman who each claim that a baby is hers. From this episode, we can say wisdom is firstly teleological. It aims to for is right and good. Secondly, it is inherently tied to making choices in that direction. The image of wisdom as in a sage sitting down on top of a mountain doing nothing is a caricature because wisdom has a desire or a goal, that is teleological, as expressed by St Augustine: “O Lord, my heart is restless until it rests in You”. To be wise is to recognise that we have been made for God and that we ought to move in that direction, that is, to make the correct and proper choices in order to attain that goal.
But it is not easy.
It is extremely difficult considering that we are faced with countless choices. In this muddling myriad of available options, we mistakenly conflate freedom with choosing. For many of us, the notion of freedom means to be able to choose as I want, when I want, how I want. It may be true that freedom has a whimsical hint or notion to it. A good illustration is the family dynamic choosing a place and what to eat for a Sunday lunch. “Where do you want to eat? Anywhere. What would you like to eat? Anything”. Even though the choosing may be fickle or chancy, still, it highlights that by nature, to choose is to delimit. The minute we exercise the faculty to choose, the number of choices available would decrease. Marry this person, the others are no longer options. Live here, elsewhere does not come into play.
The difficulty of choosing is compounded because we are constantly led to believe that the freedom to choose is absolute with no other reference except to the person who makes the choice. You may have heard this chant: “My body my choice”. The irony of this absolute freedom is that a woman can choose to abort her baby in the womb but the baby is not afforded the same freedom to choose. Unqualified choice may sound like the ultimate expression of freedom but note that the treasure we desire is not always the treasure we get.
The suggestion that one simply selects does not highlight the sacrifice that is involved when one decides.
We have been rated as having the highest cases of obesity amongst adults in South East Asia. Let me stop here. I am not interested in fat-shaming. Our expanding waistlines are possibly a result of forgetting that there is constraint in choosing. I like ice-cream. I like chocolates. I like our fattening hawker food. I like to eat. I cannot possibly diet whilst at the same time eat as much as I like without bearing any consequences. Choosing one necessarily implies letting go of others. When you marry, you sacrifice all the other girls or guys with the desirable qualities you do not see in your present spouse. Accepting this limitation can be excruciating. This is just one example of the painful paradox of choices. Stay in an expensive hotel with 250 channels of movies or stay in a cheap hotel with 1 channel of movies to watch. The posh hotel is definitely more stressful because of the fear that you may not have chosen the best movie or as in the previous case, the best spouse.
Choosing the “best” movie itself is indicative of that the human heart instinctively acknowledges that it is infinitely restless because it is not made for the finite. Putting aside the natural contempt or distaste for someone labelled as rapacious or avaricious, like Rosmah or her Bossku, we can discern that greed is truly a function of this, albeit, misdirected longing for the eternal. Apple or Samsung and every consumer-oriented manufacturer have monetised or commercialised our desire by substituting it with the latest model which we buy and in a few months’ time would have left us dissatisfied and yearning for a “newer and better” model. The human heart yearns for so much of what the world cannot give, because what it aches for, only God can satisfy.
The Saints provide the best examples of this hunger for the infinite. St Ignatius of Loyola was described as man whose heart was made to contain the universe. His motto of “Ad maiorem, Dei gloriam”, that is, for the greater glory of God approximates this sempiternity. He was a man fired by a vision of God’s greater glory, not content with settling for the mediocre. His treasure was always to seek that which gives God greater glory.
God greater glory is described in the 2nd Reading as a kind of “conformation”—a process whereby we are conformed into the image of the Risen Christ. That is our goal and hence we should beg for the wisdom to know how we can move in that direction. Many of us are like cars with engines not fully optimised. The Sacrament of Confession is akin to sending our car (soul) for servicing because to be Christ-like requires the grace for us to choose wisely. Our sins symbolise being lost in choosing wrongly. In the many choices available we must not forget that everything created for us should serve one purpose and one purpose only. At all times, everything on earth is to help us to return to God and if anything does not, we have to let it go. This involves grace and entails sacrifice. Only God can give us that grace and only we can make the renunciation.
