The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel:  for attaining wisdom and discipline; for understanding words of insight; for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life, doing what is right and just and fair; for giving prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the young -- let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance -- for understanding proverbs and parables, the sayings and riddles of the wise.  The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. (Proverbs 1:1-7)

No one wants to be foolish, unruly, clueless, insensitive, overbearing, uninformed, and/or rude.  These qualities don’t make you many friends.  They don’t give you many dates.  They don’t help you land a job or a promotion.  And they don’t really allow you to feel good about yourself either!  We try as hard as we can to avoid these problems; still we inevitably find ourselves in situations where we’re the idiot, the jerk, the "bad guy," and we yearn for a way out.

For me personally, one of the periods in life in which I was the most clueless, insensitive, and out-of-control was the first year that I lived in Amsterdam, after 25 years of mono-cultural existence in Midwestern America.  During that time, I was constantly making mistakes:  inadvertently offending hosts or guests at social functions by not understanding the protocol for shaking hands or sharing refreshments, unconsciously making myself stick out like a white daisy in a field of red tulips with my American baseball caps and water bottles, becoming the butt of jokes with my mispronunciations and incorrect word choices... It was a very awkward and uncomfortable period in my life.  I still get a queasy feeling in my stomach and a flush in my cheeks to remember what my social life was like back then.  The Dutch people around me in those days seemed to make less of an issue out my cultural shortcomings than the other Americans who had moved over to Amsterdam around that time.  Sheesh, we were such jerks to each other back then!  Competitive, critical, driven by our insecurities and whatever foolish sense of "experience" we felt we had gained in leverage against our "greener" teammates... Looking back, you can see how we were all really foolish, unruly, insensitive, overbearing, uninformed, and rude.  The blind leading the blind.  I have no desire to go back to those days of cluelessness.  Not in a trans-cultural sense.  Not in any sense.

But how can we avoid these times of idiocy?  How do we sidestep the cluelessness?  The School of Hard Knocks certainly helps to train us out of many of our most undesirable behaviors, over time.  But couldn’t we figure out some way to anticipate the difficulties and take preventative action?!?

This is precisely why I’m so reassured by the idea of ancient biblical wisdom that can be ingested and absorbed -- providing wisdom, discipline, understanding, prudence, justice, knowledge, and discretion by repeated reading, meditation, memorization, and all other means of internalization.  This is why I love the Proverbs -- and the first chapter of Proverbs in particular!  They introduce themselves with absolute clarity of purpose.  Specifically, they provide wisdom, discipline, understanding, prudence, justice, knowledge, and discretion.  And these are certainly desirable things.  Even those who might feel uneasy with the paternalistic tone of the Proverbs have to admit that less idiocy in this world would be a good thing.

That first year in Amsterdam was a bumbling blur for the most part.  But one thing I clearly remember from that year was a conversation with an older, wiser mentor suggesting to me that I make a point of reading the Proverbs regularly.  He said that it advertised itself pretty accurately as something of an antidote to idiocy.  So I took that advice... and I’m still taking it, many years later.  I've learned a lot through the years -- both through experience and through the Proverbs -- and all I can say is that I heartily recommend the same course of treatment for anyone trying to get a handle on wisdom, discipline, understanding, prudence, justice, knowledge, and discretion.