Webster defines Folly as: 1) The lack of good sense or judgment, 2) A foolish act or idea, and 3) Foolish behavior. Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote, “Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. Truths stay with a person for the rest of his or her life, coloring all subsequent thoughts and actions. Wisdom requires no law or threat of punishment to ensure compliance. The practitioner typically feels a strong compulsion to obey his or her own beliefs. The wise can still fall prey to indiscretions and questionable moral behavior—being flesh and blood like us all—however, if one tracks such statistics, the odds of such failings are likely to be very small compared to the general populace.

This leads me to ponder the idea that today’s culture is almost completely “godless”, devoid of the Gospel. Whether intentional, or not, humans are taught how to interact in a world where God is absent. When God is mentioned it is normally with distain or irony, a simpleton’s view or in coarse profanity. We are bombarded constantly, overloaded with multi sensory stimuli, at all times of the day. I was thinking of this about my own day. I wake up in the morning and reach for my phone to check on my fantasy football team or to see the updates on Facebook. I get out of bed and turn the Bluetooth speaker on to play music, this music almost always affecting my mood and setting the tone for my day. As I bike to work, again the ear buds go in, with music or an audio book. Once at work on goes the computer and up pops the Internet. I check my email and surf the Internet, viewing ads, and hearing commercials on Pandora. At lunch I am listening o music, watching a YouTube video that I am thinking of showing my students, all wile grading papers and entering grades. This continues when I get home with my children and they are watching Netflix. Weather it be my boys watching Chuggington or the girls scouring Good Luck Charlie for an episode they have not seen, we are inundated with information, lacking in wisdom.

Wilson and Koko are training to be productive members of their community, but always end up in some version of distress. They followed the easy road to folly. They are not intentionally looking to be mischievous, but are unconsciously lead astray by not being aware of their surroundings. Action Chugger comes and saves the day, rescuing them. The young chuggers are being conditioned, and my children are being conditioned, but the voices that culture is presenting, void of the one true God, by their inattention to detail.

My day may close with me watching an episode, or three, of Gilmore Girls. Rory and Lorelai go about their lives and I watch them make poor decision after poor decision. The rabbi and the clergyman are seen as no more than partners hurrying through their messages so the other can use the church space. I am inundated with cultural references, which I do not question or even think twice about. I feel like I need Red Vines, marshmallows, and Pop-Tarts. Sure enough I look now and have all of these in my house! I go to bed thinking about Rory and Logan, and how their relationship progresses, rather than what is good and pure and holy. And of course, before falling asleep, the radio is turned back on so I do not have to sleep in silence!

I find that so often I do not MEAN to act foolish. I do not INTEND to do what I do. I simply do. I wander off the path of righteousness, not as a choice, but by unconscious straying. What would happen if I were to shut off the voices of culture? Maybe not completely, as we are called to live in the world, but enough so that I can truly live in, but not of the world. What would my day look like? When I get home, would my kids be so crazy if I was not glued to my phone? Would they be acting out if I were proactive and not reactive because I was unaware of what was going on in their lives? What would happen if I were teaching them by example? Yet, I react to them wanting to be like me, continuously asking if they can have the iPad.

I wanted to try something new…I wanted to BE INTENTIONAL about acting on wisdom, rather than drifting through folly’s house. I rode home today with the radio off, and nothing but the sounds of the car traveling, and I was relaxed. I was able to work through the day and the stresses of my classes. I arrived home after ten minutes or so, with a desire to be with my children. I looked forward to seeing my husband. And most importantly I had the conscious thought of wonder. Wonder! What in my day-to-day life is directing me to wisdom? To God? I came to a disheartening realization…nothing.

Albert Einstein once said, “Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.” Where has the church’s lifelong attempt gone? When did Sunday morning and Wednesday evening become a chore, rather than a learning experience, an opportunity to be awakened to the trap set forth for us by folly, and make a choice to seek wisdom? To seek God? In James 1:5 we are told that God gives wisdom to us IF WE ASK, but our culture has stopped asking.