I want to squash a vicious rumor that has slowly circulating around. As with any rumor, it is hard to locate the source. Rumors and gossip have a tendency to be bigger and better than reality. Rumor has it that I am very intelligent or as some say, smart. Well, It ain’t so.
Truth is you do not know what I do not know. In the words of the great communicator and
master of wit, Will Rogers, “It isn't
what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so.”
My late father-in-law
once asked me why I was going to school, referring to seminary, for so
long. I responded by saying that when I
was a young man I thought I was pretty smart.
That was until I started classes at the
I know that I
cannot spell. I rely heavily on the
dictionary, the thesaurus, and the spell check.
That reminds me of my late friend Lamar from the
The thing is I
appear to be more intelligent than I am. I enjoy being with intellectual thinkers,
theologians, and people of wisdom. I
listen more than I speak and act as if I know what they are discussing. If I listen long enough, a familiar topic
will pop up and I will chime into the conversation. I remember one time in church they were
talking about Communion. I sat among
these church folks and I was clueless. I
had visions of something from a hippie commune or something. I kept my mouth shut long enough to realize
they were talking about the Lord’s Supper.
I like what Christian
motivational speaker Zig Ziglar says, It's not what you've got, it's what you
use that makes a difference. He also
says, “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.” Confucius says, “Real knowledge is to know
the extent of one's ignorance.”
In Seminary, my
friends would ask, “How in the world are you an English minor and cannot
spell?” I replied, “Very limited vocabulary.” During lectures, I was continually asking my
friends how to spell theological words and terms. I remember the professor talking about
“exegesis.” I was clueless to what
exegesis was and spelled it Xahjesus.
Hermeneutics was another one. I
spelled it hermahnudecks and was clueless to what it was. Regardless of what Lamar says, I am glad I
had a dictionary at home to look up these words.
I had a pastor
friend call and ask me what I knew about “such and such ism” that was the new
hot topic in scholarly thought. Having
no clue, I said, “I don’t know, what do you think?” After a while, I figured out what he was
referring and I told him my take on the subject. Jewish scholar Mivchar Peninim says, “A wise
man’s question is half the answer.”
It is always
good to ask someone how to act and what to wear when attending special events. Admitting that you do not know something is a
very important step in the road to knowing something. To know that you do not know is true
knowledge. Knowing when to say I don’t
know is very librating. I like Yogi
Berra philosophy that says, “If you ask me anything I don’t know, I’m not going
to answer.”
It reminds me of
a statement from a preacher friend’s sermon on Esther. It is important knowing what you do not know. Esther was not afraid to ask for help when
meeting the king.
When
the turn came for Esther (the girl Mordecai had adopted, the daughter of his
uncle Abihail) to go to the king, she asked for nothing other than what Hegai,
the king's eunuch who was in charge of the harem, suggested. And Esther won the
favor of everyone who saw her
(Esther
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