While cleaning out my desk drawer…I came across the slide ruler which I had used in college. It had actually belonged to my father. As I gently fondled it remembering a by-gone era, my wife asked me, “How does that thing work”? Impressed that her liberal arts mind would even care about such technical stuff…I launched into an explanation of how the divisions on the two sliding scales were an expression of the numbers logarithm. To obtain the product of any two numbers, you simply add the two numbers logarithm by positioning the slides so that the combined distance of the first and second number could be read under the second number. This gave you the product of the two numbers. As I took a breath before continuing with my dissertation…I was attacked as if by a swarm of angry hornets. “I didn’t want to know all that stuff. I just wanted to know how it worked.” She says.
By that time it was too late…the bell had been rung and there was no un-ringing it.
I need to stick to the smoke and mirrors explanation in the future. And perhaps not use that condescending voice that seems to creep in when my ego gets in the driver’s seat.
Dear Lord, forgive me for my arrogance.
Help me remember to choose wisdom over intelligence.
Please give me the wisdom to know what to say and how to say it.
Amen
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