This weekend I finished a book my Mom recommended.  Thank you Mom!   (Dad, after you read this, take the laptop over to Mom so she can read this… thanks :-)) The book is “The Nightingale” by Kristin Hannah.  I really enjoyed the book and found it striking because it presented WWII in France from two women’s perspective.  So much of history is shaped and written about and by the exploits of men that we fail to sometimes fully recognize the role of women in inspiring history, and more importantly leaving a legacy of courage, fortitude, and love for us to aspire to.  For the last year or more I’ve been writing some material that addresses our responsibility to our future generations, and what it means to leave a legacy, then at the end of this book, I found a two word sentence that spoke so loudly to me, it was “Love lasts.”   I had tears in my eyes when I read this not for what these women persevered through, and how they suffered, but how in the end they left a legacy of love, and in two words this message was succinctly delivered as an absolute truth.

In the Book of Wisdom, wisdom is represented as female to the reader, and I ran across that in church at liturgy one day quite awhile ago, and I came to appreciate over some contemplation how wise the author was to remind us that wisdom is precious and always comes first from our mothers in some ways, and very small ways at first.  From this start if we keep our hearts open and we listen, maybe we can hear the whisper of wisdom all through our lives.   Seeking and developing wisdom allows us to learn and enjoy then the legacy of love that those before us bring to us… and then we can be the bearers of that wisdom and loving benefit to future generations.

A poem I wrote awhile back I like very much as it presents the simple challenge to me to seek out and then listen carefully to her when she speaks, in this case maybe it was through the simple sentence written by Kristin Hannah… “Love lasts”

Wisdom

Wisdom whispers to us

Why it so hard to hear her?

My world is so noisy

Yet I know she is there

She is breathtaking panoramic, and

I’m looking at the smallest details

She is intricate in her fine work

I can’t see the message in the picture

 

She speaks through the meek

I listen to the proud

The wise add ideas, but

Are drowned by the chant of many

 

She stands at my bed in the mid of the night

I’m too tired to capture the thoughts

Please speak to me through my day

I promise I’ll listen in my own way