Waxy Wisdom

Eat honey, my son, for it is good;

honey from the comb is sweet to your taste.

Know also that wisdom is like honey for you;

If you find it, there is a future hope for you,

and your hope will not be cut off.

Proverbs 24:13-14

There's a reason my blog is called "Bread and Honey", but I'll get to that in a minute.

It's the afternoon of a Saturday at Hot Springs when we don't really have anywhere to go.  I'm loving the 'just being at home' vibe of this day, hanging out in the shade of the dining shelter.  The kids are engaged in various kinds of creations with paper, markers and glue, all for me to take back to the Sponsors.  Or some are playing chess.  Or some are chopping up vegetables in preparation for the evening meal.  

From this lovely space I look up to see Suradet and one of the older boys heading up the steep hill in the back, carrying a large white pail and a large curved knife, like a machete.  I'm curious, but am soon pulled back into what's happening at the table by someone asking me how to spell their Sponsor's name.  

They're gone for a while.  Probably more than an hour.  So I've forgotten about them until they're coming back down the hill, smiling with victory, and carrying the pail between them and bringing it to the table.

"Chorp nam-peung, mai?"  Do you like water of the bee?, I am asked.

Inside the pail is a large honeycomb, still attached to a branch, and still occupied by a now misplaced bee or two, as well as some larvae.  Dripping in sweetness, this mess is.  And I watch as the comb is tipped up and gently scraped so the honey drips into a bowl.  Wild, unpasteurized, totally non-processed.  Off the side of a hill in a foresty-jungle in northern Thailand.  This is hands down the most exotic honey I have ever been offered.

Someone runs for the loaf of white bread purchased peculiarly for my consumption during my stay.  I am invited to dip the bread in the honey and eat.

At the end of the Bible in the book of Revelation Jesus instructs the Apostle John to describe the way things will be once God ushers in that magnificent promise of history called the 'eschaton', when everything will be restored to a better-than-perfect state of being.  Part of that description includes a picture of a wedding banquet.  A feast.  I am not sure what that kind of food might taste like, but I'm pretty sure, as I dip my bread into this honey, and welcome it into my mouth, I'm actually tasting Glory.

Warm, pure.  Sweet as if  I've never tasted sweet before.  Smooth like slow jazz.  In my mouth there is joy and wonderment.   This is just before supper, but -- I don't care.  A thought crosses my mind about eating something that slid off something that still has bugs in it but -- I don't care.  Wild mountain honey.  Does it get any better than this?

I will email my husband later.  "Today I ate wild mountain honey!"  To which he will respond, "I'm glad you loved it, but I'm just waiting for my wild mountain Honey to come home."  (Major husband points there.)

Back to the Bread and Honey thing. 

Originally I chose the name for this blog because of my love of fresh (usually whole grain) bread smeared with a scandalous amount of honey AND because both bread and honey are images used frequently in the Bible to illustrate soul-hunger, and soul-satisfaction.

In the Proverb quoted above, the sweetness of honey is compared to how the Teacher wants his son (student) to feel about wisdom.  Pursue it, as if it was up on the hill, and you had to go out and find it, and could bring it home to feast on.   And when you did find some, and when you get to eat some of it, it will bide well for you.  And he talks about a future.  And he talks about hope.

Wisdom.  

Don't we all want that?  Don't we all feel like we're needing so much of that in these days of uncertainty?  So many decisions to make right now, pushing us into a future that we're not all that sure about.  

And here's an irony.  It's times like this that synergize the very kind of wisdom we need and long for.  A very wise man once pointed out to me that so often we all want the wisdom, but we're not so keen on the challenging life situations that actually bring it to us.  Not sure he was thinking of a global pandemic, but it fits.

Some days I'm doing this better than others.  

Some days I'm all over learning from the experience and letting it grow me.

Some days, not so much, truth be told.

Some days, I'm all about resisting the restrictions and feeling the weight of this long duress.

Remembering the honey helps.

In these days when we need hope for better days -- and they will come, don't doubt it for a minute -- how amazing that we get to be part of something this big and this wild, with all this potential to make us wiser for the living out of the rest of our lives.

Hungry now.