A mine of information

Job 28:1-4, 12-15 (NRSV)

Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place for gold to be refined. Iron is taken out of the earth, and copper is smelted from ore. Miners put an end to darkness, and search out to the farthest bound the ore in gloom and deep darkness. They open shafts in a valley away from human habitation; they are forgotten by travellers, they sway suspended, remote from people... But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? Mortals do not know the way to it, and it is not found in the land of the living. The deep says, 'It is not in me', and the sea says, 'It is not with me.' It cannot be bought for gold, and silver cannot be weighed out as its price.

Before university, my husband spent a year working for the then Coal Board down a Welsh mine. Even with modern technology, mining is a dark, dirty, dangerous job and he didn't go back to work for them after his degree!

In Old Testament times, mining must have been a living hell. Yet, for the sake of gold, iron or precious stones, men took the risk (or perhaps got slaves to take it for them). Wisdom, however, Job asserts, is buried deeper even than the rare substances found underground. Picks and shovels can't dig it out and it isn't sold at the market. Job and his friends have sat for long hours, searching in the darkness of their minds for wisdom to address his terrible situation, and still the answers don't bring satisfaction.

What is wisdom, anyway? Later, my husband became a computer consultant. With the rise of 'information technology', if wisdom were built up from information, he and all of us would be very wise (he is, of course, but not from computers)-but wisdom isn't the same as information.

Last night I watched the documentary film Spellbound, about the US national spelling bee. Twelve-year-old children managed to spell out the most obscure words-but wisdom isn't learned by rote. Tomorrow we will find out what the writer of Job defines as wisdom.

Prayer
'Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you' (Psalm 139:12).

Veronica Zundel



[from New Daylight September - December 2007]