The cool of the evening drew me outside the orphanage that had drawn my family to Juarez, Mexico. We’d spent the day painting rooms. Another team in our group had poured a cement foundation for an addition to the orphanage. The summer heat had baked out our energy by the end of the day.
After the evening meal, I grabbed my guitar and slipped outside the concrete walls to practice. I inhaled air laced with cool relief, dust and baked tortillas.
Our group had planned a concert for later in the week and I needed time to polish the music. My teenage daughter joined me with her flute in hand.
We worked our way through a song and then looked up to see a handful of children gathered on the street in front of us. We smiled at them and they smiled back. I moved on to the next song on my list, singing the words as my daughter played the flute. More children gathered.
I smiled at them and they smiled back.
With each song came more children and we were surrounded by bright eyes and wide smiles.
“What do we do?” my daughter whispered.
“We need to practice. They don’t speak English so they’ll probably get bored soon,” I said. We kept playing. The children kept gathering. We all kept smiling.
They didn’t seem to mind our mistakes or when we stopped and started over again. If we laughed at missed notes, they joined the laughter.
The crowd filled the street and stretched as far to either side as I could see. Not that I looked up much because I was concentrating on chords and words.
But then we began one of the last songs on our list. We sang the words, “Jesus loves me, this I know…” and I heard a chorus of voices echoing us in Spanish. At first, only a few figured out the song  but their singing crescendoed as others joined in.
We sang in English, they sang in Spanish, and, together, our music filled the street with one of the sweetest sounds I’ll hear this side of heaven.
Information today is so easy to grab. “Google it” has now a verb and if Google fails, well, there’s Siri. Sometimes.
So if I want to study wisdom, where would I go except Google? I do have other ideas in mind but I gave Google a run.
Bible Study 2 (Photo credit: DrGBB)
What did I learn? I know wisdom is valuable. And that many don’t have much.
Wisdom might be the ability to judge correctly, followed up by appropriate actions. You might long for the super-size fast food but wisdom says that’s an indulgence better done in small doses.
So, how do we get wisdom?
My Google search revealed that some scientists think wisdom is wired, that it’s some sort of neurological function that just, well, happens. Others describe it as compassion, self understanding, morality, emotional stability.
Some are exploring the connection between intelligence, wisdom and spirituality.
I think wisdom comes primarily from experience. Make a mistake, learn from it, and grow in wisdom.
But who wants to make every mistake, fall into every black hole, experience every addiction?
So we also learn from others’ wisdom. Their advice can save us from pain. Wise advice from those who know more than we do, who have seen more than we’ve seen, who have connected action and consequence is invaluable.
Wise people and wise books dot the path of wisdom.
The Barna Group did a survey on how Americans view the Bible. They were surprised by how Millennials (the generation Barna defines as being born from 1983-2002) are intrigued by the Bible’s wisdom. These young people are curious about ancient truths.
Maybe they don’t want to experience every mistake. You can save a lot of time and lot of bruises if you can piggy-back on someone else’s wisdom.
Here’s my bottom line on wisdom, and one I want to explore in coming Fridays: Google can help pose the question but wisdom that transcends the ages and goes deep into the human condition is found in the Bible.
Next Friday we’ll explore. The Bible is meant to be read, studied, and pondered. Questions are OK.  Simplistic cliches, no so much. I will be posting some of my observations on Fridays. I’m interested in God’s wisdom and how he communicates that to the readers of the Bible.
First, we’ll take a look at the Bible as literature and how the mastery of words creates depth of meaning.
If you’d like to read Barna’s survey, here’s the link: What Do Americans Think of the Bible.
Google really does have something over my hometown newspaper. Although both love their April Fool’s jokes, Google has outlasted the local newspaper.
My hometown daily shut down the pranks after the outrage of an April 1 story that featured the suicide of what everyone assumed was an fictitious columnist. This columnist had a weekly running commentary on events in the community and the extensive story of his suicide was more than people could bear. End of the pranks.
The best one I remember, though, was the discovery of a match farm outside of town. Readers were given close-ups of bushes bearing matches and a lengthy interview with the match farmer. I don’t know how long it took the reporter to tie the matches onto those bushes.
Google, on the other hand, keeps chucking out the jokes.
Here are a few from their archives:
Google Australia announced the development of the “g-ball,” a soccer-type ball with GPS technology.  The ball could measure the location, force, and torque of a kick, and “vibrate if player agents or talent scouts want to speak to you.” Google claimed that the ball will cost $10 with a cost-per-kick set of payments in addition to the basic fee.
Users were told that Google Docs could upload anything, including things easily lost such as your car keys and remote controls. Using control-F would allow you to search the world and download your item for a small fee.
Google proposed a keyboard with a single key for each Japanese character.
Scratch and Sniff books were added to Google Book Search. Users were instructed to please place their noses near the monitor and press “Go” which would then load odors.
Google Mobile offered Brain Indexing. Users could put phone to their forehead for brain indexing and then simply think their search query.
Google became Topeka for a day. Apparently town fathers in Topeka, Kansas had changed the name of their town to “Google” for a day in hopes of capturing a spot on a broadband/fiber optics project. Google returned the honor, replacing their logo with “Topeka” for the day.
Google users were offered an option to print life-size cardboard cutouts of all their photos.
But this year may top them all. Google and YouTube have joined together to announce that YouTube has really been a contest and it will disappear for the next decade while judges sort through all the entries. Check out the video:
Because I am currently in first place in my group’s March Madness bracketing, I’ll reveal my system. It seems to be working as well as my granddaughter who, last year, got a long way in her brackets by picking the winners based on their mascots. Cutest won, I think.
I wish my system was as sweet.
March Madness Experience logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Mine is simple and fast: pick the games based on ranking and, when rankings get close toward the center of the bracket, go with defense. We’ll see how that works out in the final rounds.
But my favorite March Madness story goes back many years, when I was a cub reporter on a tiny newspaper that didn’t even have typesetting capability. This was waaaay before the Internet.
So I traveled to another site a hour away once a week to get our newspaper typeset, arranged, and sent off to the print shop.
One of the employees at our sister site was big into office pools and he insisted that I put in my dollar for the March Madness brackets. Each round required a new dollar but I wouldn’t see him for a week. A dollar seemed a polite and easy way out of plunking down a dollar a day.
When I got back a week later, I discovered that I had won the first day’s pool. Â And Kent reinvested my winnings because he knew I’d want to do that. Uh-huh.
Well, I won a second time during that week. And Kent knew I’d want in every day.
By the time I got back to manage my winnings, there were none.
So that year I won twice in March Madness, had nothing to show for it, and it only cost me a dollar.
I didn’t think we were going to Cuba until two days before we boarded an airplane at Cancun and headed east. “Americans can’t go to Cuba,” I told our missionary host.
Fortunately, he ignored me and we went. Four days were spent in Havana before we drove across the island to the mountains at the east end.
English: (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
On our first night in Havana, we went to a fancy restaurant where waitresses wore black dresses, white aprons and white caps. Like old-fashioned maids. Glittering crystal adorned each table with heavy silverware resting on starched napkins at each place setting.
And a pianist filled the air with sweet music.
When he saw us, he recognized us as Americans. Americans are rich in Cuba. No matter what money we had.
So he immediately began playing tunes by Frank Sinatra. Cuba seems lodged in the 1950’s and the musician must have assumed that Sinatra melodies would net him a nice tip from the Americans.
Emboldened by his strong Sinatra performance, the pianist then approached our table. “I know many other American songs,” he said. “What would you like to hear?”
My husband leaned toward him. “Could you play Amazing Grace?”
The man frowned slightly as he searched his memory banks. He finally shook his head. “I do not know that one.”
We smiled at each other and then my husband surrendered. “How about some Sinatra?”
“Oh, yes, sir!” The pianist scurried back to the piano and played instead I Did It My Way.
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