I am in our nation\u2019s capital today, for reasons I will explain tomorrow. \u00a0This morning I walked in front of the White House and soon found myself praying for the people inside. \u00a0I do not do that often enough. \u00a0Not only is the prayer needed, but, as always, it helps frame matters for us. \u00a0We are all in this together, and I would rather see Obama change his policies and be fantastically successful in restoring a flourishing nation than continue on his current course and suffer the inevitable electoral comeuppance. \u00a0So I prayed that God would grant wisdom to those who inhabit and work within that building.<\/p>\n
I was reminded of a comment from my father shortly before I embarked for my freshman year at Stanford: \u201cThere will be many intelligent people there,\u201d he said, \u201cbut intelligence and wisdom are not the same thing. \u00a0Seek out people of wisdom.\u201d<\/p>\n
I witnessed the truth of this observation on a daily basis at Stanford \u2014 and later at other universities. \u00a0Some of the most intelligent people I came to know in those places did the most foolish things, and even believed the most foolish things on the basis of their ignorance or prejudice or naivete. \u00a0Intelligence refers to a set of neutral tools and capacities \u2014 wisdom to a set of valuable lessons and truths and character qualities. \u00a0Intelligence is an ability to learn from experience; wisdom has actually learned the right lesson from experience (experience does not make one wise, but experience rightly interpreted). \u00a0Intelligence is entirely compatible with arrogance and stubbornness, enmity and jealously; intelligence by itself \u201cpuffs up.\u201d \u00a0The world is full of intelligent fools, and history is replete with the destruction intelligent men have wrought. \u00a0Wisdom brings humility, a sober appreciation of limitations, and thus a willingness to learn and listen to new perspectives.<\/p>\n
The near-destruction of the American housing market, and along with it the derivatives and default swaps markets, was brought to us courtesy of a thousand MBA\u2019s from Stanford and Wharton. \u00a0The impoverishment of American confidence in its government is brought to us courtesy of a thousand JD\u2019s from Harvard and Yale. \u00a0Intelligence is cheap. \u00a0Intelligent people are a dime a dozen. \u00a0And intelligent people, made proud and brash in their intelligence, are all too often destructive, intellectual bulls in China shops, unconscious of all the personal flaws and prejudices and false presuppositions that lead them to use their intelligence to the wrong ends. \u00a0Intelligence in the service of the Good is a blessing; intelligence in the service of Evil, or in the service of hubris or selfishness or a false ideology, can be absolutely devastating. \u00a0If only Hitler had been an idiot.<\/p>\n
Wisdom is a rarer and more precious commodity. \u00a0And observing the Obama administration, no one observation has struck with greater consistency and force than that there is a poverty of wisdom in the White House today. \u00a0And not only the White House \u2014 but the Congress as well. \u00a0Obviously Obama is not Hitler. \u00a0Neither is David Axelrod, in spite of the mustache. \u00a0But this White House has been characterized by a commitment to ideology that overrides a sober assessment of reality, a company of soaring egos and preening narcissism over humility and practicality, a determination to caricature and attack its critics rather than find with them a common cause, and underneath it all a constant string of foolish decisions.<\/p>\n
Yet the Obama administration is passing through a turning point. \u00a0Many of the folks whom I consider more intelligent than wise \u2014 chief among them Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod \u2014 are lurching for the door as quickly as possible. \u00a0I am encouraged that one of the men who truly does seem wise, Robert Gates, has apparently become a trusted counselor for the President. \u00a0We need more of his ilk.<\/p>\n
Will the new leadership in the administration be wise? \u00a0Or merely intelligent?<\/p>\n
Let us pray.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am in our nation\u2019s capital today, for reasons I will explain tomorrow. \u00a0This morning I walked in front of the White House and soon found myself praying for the people inside. \u00a0I do not do that often enough. \u00a0Not only is the prayer needed, but, as always, it helps frame matters for us. \u00a0We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n