The Few, the Humble

It’s rare for me to encounter someone whom I deem wise; I could have two fingers bit off by a cantankerous Iguana and still count the number of wise people I know on one hand. Don’t get me wrong, I know a whole mess of smart people. I know a bunch of intelligent people. I am even fortunate to know a fair group of individuals whose insight far surpasses what one might call ‘normal’ (these are not the people to invite to poker night). There is a quality about a select few, however, which can’t be quantified and which I label ‘wise.’ It has something to do with living, something to do with loving and something to do with lamenting but I’m not quite sure on the recipe yet. I saw wisdom in my great grandmother. My great grandmother Della was somehow always much more substantial than her wizened frame would suggest, I imagine because the voyage from Colorado Springs to Houghson, California in a covered wagon imbued her with a grit which only showed through more clearly as the years inexorably striped away the insubstantial. By the time I remember knowing her she was always sitting, always covered by one of her homemade quilts, and always watching the comings and goings around her. I heard wisdom when she would crunch her kind face into a smile and say to me at 104 years of age, “Micah, don’t ever live to be this old. It’s isn’t any fun.”

This Thursday, I met another woman who seemed wise to me. Margaret Hudson is a sculptor, painter and passionate pursuer of life as well as a fixture of the Fresno community. The daughter of missionaries, at 84 Margaret is still annually hosting every second-grader in the Fresno Unified School District at her home in West Fresno with the hope of instilling in them an appreciation of their intrinsic worth as well as an appreciation for all things art. She is a survivor of breast cancer, and has chosen to continue her battle with this pernicious disease through natural methods. She in a farmer, a carpenter, and a poet. Peering at our class through large glasses which magnified her eyes right up to the point of comedy, Ms. Hudson welcomed my classmates and me to the grounds of her home on a Thursday afternoon.

In her back yard, an overgrown collection of bamboo thickets, cottonwood stands and crawling ivy with an organic garden at its centre, I stood and listened to Margaret share her soul with our class. With one hand gripping a smooth, hard bamboo shoot I stood listening to Margaret speak and was struck by the dichotomy: the aged bamboo became larger, harder and smoother as it watched the years pass by. Those same years seemed to have effected the opposite for Margaret. That is, until she confided in us about her nearly impossible pursuit of God through the nightmare of loosing her son to suicide. In those interminable few seconds she was larger, smoother, firmer and more perfect than any Platonic bamboo as she nearly shouted with passion, “And all I came to discover was that I really don’t know much. But what I do know . . . I know that God is and that God is real and that God is real to me.” Her hands lifted to the sky in supplication and surrender and defiance and acceptance, she slowly lowered them and turned her magnified eyes back towards our rapt attention. We were 20-some-odd souls staring at another we suddenly realized was naked and unashamed.

I very much hope to one day be considered wise by others, but for now I content myself with being a witness to other’s wisdom.