Wisdom: I Do Not Assume the Role by Phillip Hoyle

Wearing my mother’s housecoat and slippers, Lady Wisdom spoke to me. She sat there at the breakfast table listening to my complaint about Andy, a new student at college, a boy from a small eastern Colorado town, who seemed to assume he knew more than anyone else, who in the mid-sixties to me epitomized that worst 1950s trait of being stuck on himself, who demonstrated no humility. I really didn’t like him. Lady Wisdom listened as I described this young man, a whole year younger than I. Finally, from somewhere deep in her experience, she proffered these words: “Maybe he’s having a hard time dealing with all the new things he’s encountering living away from home, in a dorm, in another state, surrounded by other people who don’t always sing his praises. Maybe he’s just scared and so presents a confidence he doesn’t really experience.” I was amazed by her words. I had thought I was speaking with my mother, but the wisdom of centuries made their way through her mouth. Mom, as the slogan of the Kansas Association for Youth advised, took the long look and urged me to do the same. Her concern was to bring peace to her family, to her larger community, and to teach her children to do the same.

Wisdom is the theme of the cartoon of a person climbing a tall mountain to seek the insight of some hermetic guru. It is the watchword of international negotiations along with the secondary value of tact. It is a meditation that examines not only the content of knowledge but also its application in daily life, not just to know but also to know how to do. Usually personified in ancient times as a woman, Wisdom appeals to the more feminine side of human need, a need for tolerance, contemplation, and ultimately service to the common cause.

I suppose I should know something about wisdom, but it seems to assume too much, by which I mean it wants me to be responsible. I recall the week two highly contrasting massage clients responded to a jazz lyric playing in the background, “That’s exactly what I need, someone to watch over me.” Yikes I said silently to myself. Don’t expect that from me. I just rub away aches. I cannot run your life. I cannot live with you. I cannot be your husband. You see, by becoming a massage therapist rather than a minister I was trying to simplify my life. I didn’t want to advise or to live with exaggerated expectations for miracles and other such responsibilities. I wisely, though, kept my mouth closed and kept rubbing.

Today I want to say something important about what we are doing in our Sage of the Rockies storytelling. Wisdom is usually linked with age, the Sage or wise one with experience. For years I read gay studies and gay stories. I was trying to find out from others what my gay life could be. That related to my personal needs. Now as a GLBT I am telling stories to serve a community need. While we have seen huge changes, seen the gathering of identities and power among GLBTs, we still need to keep alive past experience—even the perspectives of hiding and fighting, hurting and coping. Changing laws and increasing acceptance of us and our ways in the general society do not erase memory. We have to tell the stories for not to do so in some new way dis-empowers the unsuspecting and sometimes ignorant GLBT populations of the future. We need more words of wisdom from our experienced gays. We need more stories of true life from our lesbians. We need more clarity from our bisexuals. We need more advice from our Transgender brothers and sisters who are still experiencing the terrifying isolation and focus of hatred—more than Gays, Lesbians, and Bi-sexuals. We need all these stories to remind us of our own.

We need to proffer wise council—not in order to be right but rather to keep alive perspectives and memories that could easily get lost in a media-crazed and Madison Avenue world—especially when huge money manipulates huge portions of the population and an informal popular base seems lacking in public democratic life. So, let us tell the stories, our stories, in all their beauties and pains. May we be clear, candid, and clever in our accounts for we tell the story of a life and of a community.

Oh, about Mom’s wise words concerning Andy: for me they were very helpful and still are to this day since Andy married one of my sisters.

Denver 2014

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.” 

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot