It is refreshing to read a book on life without the author prescribing ‘dos’ and ‘donts’ about how to live. Instead the book is all about describing the phenomenon of life and living as it unfolds naturally to any one of us. There are foundations and values which have put humanity on this voyage of living. It is good to be reminded of what undergirds life itself amidst all the challenges which threaten the meaning to life.
The author picks up themes from the book of Proverbs of the Old Testament of the Bible and embarks on a journey of exploring the ‘ancient wisdom’ for contemporary living. The author explores twelve themes in his meditative and inspiring writing.
The first theme is all about pursuing wisdom, making it distinct from knowledge, cleverness, sound understanding. He suggests that, ‘wisdom is what is true and right combined with good judgement’. He uses words such as discerning, judicious, prudent and sensible to make it real. This is both acquired and given. We acquire it by conscience education by everything what is right, pure, righteous and just. We also receive wisdom according to the writer of proverbs directly form God, ‘I will guide you in the way of wisdom’(Pro.4.1-11). He suggests that we enrol in the school of wisdom, for us to live a life of wisdom.
Another theme is on managing anger. He makes some foundational propositions on this theme: understanding the emotion of anger, the cause of anger, our usual way of expressing anger and our usual ways of resolving anger. He categorises all of us into two groups: Bottlers and Spewers. 'The bottled up anger always leaks and when it does, it poisons our bodies, minds and relationships’. The spewers act like a 'burst dam’ while expressing anger by losing self control. The alternative to this is learn to communicate our anger without much emotional overtone to it- without raising our voice, shouting or screaming or showing intimidatory behaviour which unsettle others. I know how a professor behaved to me, when he was upset with my act of commission. He would turn to me and say, ‘I am angry’ and remain silent for a while after which he would explain to me about my act of commission.
This book is published by the Inter-varsity press and worth reading.
M.C. Mathew(text and photo)
The author picks up themes from the book of Proverbs of the Old Testament of the Bible and embarks on a journey of exploring the ‘ancient wisdom’ for contemporary living. The author explores twelve themes in his meditative and inspiring writing.
The first theme is all about pursuing wisdom, making it distinct from knowledge, cleverness, sound understanding. He suggests that, ‘wisdom is what is true and right combined with good judgement’. He uses words such as discerning, judicious, prudent and sensible to make it real. This is both acquired and given. We acquire it by conscience education by everything what is right, pure, righteous and just. We also receive wisdom according to the writer of proverbs directly form God, ‘I will guide you in the way of wisdom’(Pro.4.1-11). He suggests that we enrol in the school of wisdom, for us to live a life of wisdom.
Another theme is on managing anger. He makes some foundational propositions on this theme: understanding the emotion of anger, the cause of anger, our usual way of expressing anger and our usual ways of resolving anger. He categorises all of us into two groups: Bottlers and Spewers. 'The bottled up anger always leaks and when it does, it poisons our bodies, minds and relationships’. The spewers act like a 'burst dam’ while expressing anger by losing self control. The alternative to this is learn to communicate our anger without much emotional overtone to it- without raising our voice, shouting or screaming or showing intimidatory behaviour which unsettle others. I know how a professor behaved to me, when he was upset with my act of commission. He would turn to me and say, ‘I am angry’ and remain silent for a while after which he would explain to me about my act of commission.
This book is published by the Inter-varsity press and worth reading.
M.C. Mathew(text and photo)
No comments:
Post a Comment