The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men / Gang aft agley, /An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain / For promis’d joy! (Robert Burns)
I could look it up but I think this is one of those rare Sundays when the Church confronts us with the Book of Proverbs, drawn from that part of the Old Testament called the Wisdom books. And proverbs it is, full of brief maxims used since the days of Solomon to teach adolescents how to play it safe and be successful in life. They are sayings to be memorized and so they are catchily recorded in brief axioms like: the simpleton believes everything but the shrewd man measures his steps – or – a joyful heart is the health of the body, but a depressed spirit dries up the bones.
And so they go: better a little with fear of the Lord than a great fortune with anxiety – or – pride goes before disaster, and a haughty spirit before a fall – or – the start of strife is like the opening of a dam; check a quarrel before it bursts forth – or – even a fool, if he keeps silent, is considered wise; if he closes his lips, intelligent.
Many make some startling comparisons such as: like a festered and infected tooth . . . is dependence on a faithless man in time of trouble – or – like a glazed finish on earthenware are smooth lips with a wicked heart – or – like a man who seizes a dog by the ears is he who meddles in another’s quarrel. They are usually simple comparisons in which the one kind of behavior is offset by another or consequences are drawn from correct or foolish behavior as in: in seedtime sluggards do not plow; when they look for a harvest, it’s not there – or – like a crazed archer scattering firebrands and deadly arrows, such are those who deceive their neighbor and then say, “I was only joking.”
Proverbs are an effective way of teaching because they focus on the objects and behaviors of everyday experience. They are not abstract. They make a youth think and remember by way of images. Proverbs basically advocate prudent, careful, modest behavior as the most secure way of making it through private and public life. Behave yourself and you will do well.
It’s interesting that the Bible’s other Wisdom books (Ecclesiastes and Job) seem to contradict that promise. It’s as if, once a youth advances past his Proverbs teacher he finds himself in the hands of skeptical graduate professors who question the even-handedness of existence, who don’t trust goodness to be rewarded nor evil to be punished in this world – as in: I saw all the oppressions that take place under the sun: the tears of the victims with none to comfort them . . . and those now dead I declared more fortunate in death than are the living . . . then I saw that all toil and skillful work is the rivalry of one person with another. This also is vanity and a chase after the wind.
It just goes to show that biblical Wisdom, far from “informing” us, challenges us to think as does the Christian philosopher Erasmus in his famous saying: in the valley of the blind the one-eyed man is king. Your tendency with this kind of proverb is to conclude that the one-eyed man has an advantage over the blind. But no! If you push the proverb further it says: all kings, all authority is half-blind, incapable of ever seeing the whole picture – so question authority? Think of all those “know-it-all” leaders down through history that have run the world and given us civil war, world war, the extinction of so much of this globe’s life. One might conclude that “half-blind” is more dangerous than “blind”.