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There's a phrase which has become commonplace at the conclusion of a debate or report on a significant disaster – whether that be a rail accident or a financial collapse. And this phrase has echoed continuously since the publication of the Chilcot Report. It consists of the words:
Lessons will be learned.
I sometimes wonder why, given the number of times that phrase has been repeated, we are not a more perfect people. Maybe it's because the phrase has an inherent weakness.
It suggests that there is always a correct procedure which, if followed, will yield positive results; but if abandoned will lead to mistakes. That holds for some things but not for all.
Many children go to piano lessons. But even if they get their fingering right and can play scales perfectly, that doesn't lead to either guaranteed success on the concert platform or even the aspiring pianists developing a love for music. Many people who in their younger life spent years trying to learn Beethoven's Fur Elise will agree. You cannot acquire musicality simply by going to piano lessons.
Some people have expressed disappointment that the Chilcot report does not have many lessons regarding the future. Maybe that's because things like statesmanship, political integrity, appropriate military engagement cannot be acquired simply by following rules.
Such things are the fruits of wisdom.
And wisdom is not the product of a course of instruction leading to a doctorate in philosophy. It is the mature reflection on perception, intuition and experience. And it tends not to speak in platitudes but to encapsulate a profundity in words all can ponder.
Jesus, whose Hebrew tradition espoused wisdom as one of the most precious gifts of God, was one of its greatest and most succinct expositors. Two of his observations, which I slightly paraphrase seem to me to be particularly pertinent as we consider the findings of the Chilcot Enquiry.
The first is this:
When a malign presence vacates a place, it may come back, and finding
it clean go and find seven others to make the place even worse than before.
That bleak observation is as pertinent to regime change in a village hall as much as in a nation.
The second concerns any endeavour, political or personal, which has ramifications affecting others.
No one builds a tower
without first counting the cost.
Here, as elsewhere, Jesus does not make intellectual conjectures, but offers deep perceptions on lived life. This is wisdom - neither a critique nor a solution, but a gift which comes from both heaven and earth. It is called in scripture nothing less than 'the darling and delight of God,' something to be sought as if it were buried treasure.
