The attraction that we experience in the Eastern spiritual traditions today is the magnetism of wisdom: a knowing which is life, inner experience and union. This wisdom was the 'golden string' which drew Bede Griffiths to India, and it is what Bede has communicated to us in his talks and writings...
The beginning of Christian wisdom is wonder. This is everywhere in the gospel, where the newness appears: where Jesus is present and speaking or acting, where someone encounters him for the first time, or for the first time the light breaks forth from within him. An example is in Luke's story of Jesus bringing about the great catch of fish. (Lk 5:1-11) I feel a stirring of wonder in Luke's words, when he tells us how Jesus got into Simon's boat and asked him to 'put out a little from the land.' At this point, with this merest suggestion of a movement into some kind of depth, the imagination quickens; the scene begins to form, strangely engaging us...
Wisdom in Christianity as in every tradition, can mean more than one thing. There is the biblical wisdom that consists in nothing other than a 'listening heart', and there is that irreproachable wisdom which is the integrity of a life of faith. These wisdoms have no shadow. When we speak of a wisdom theology, or way of wisdom, however, the infinitesimal beginning of a swerve toward elitism and an exclusive territory can be detected. It will not be long, of we are not careful, before we are building at a comfortable distance from the gospel...
Christian wisdom theology is based upon the principle that the fullness of Divinity - and of human realization in God - become present in Jesus Christ. The writings which we know as the New Testament contain within themselves the revelation of this fullness. These texts, therefore, remain always the foundation and criterion of Christian wisdom...
Our first gospel narrative, that of Mark, begins in the wilderness of Judea where John is baptizing. The first word of Mark's gospel, 'arche' (Greek for 'beginning'; see also Jn 1:1 and 1 Jn 1:1) recalls the beginning that was the creation, in the first chapter of Genesis.
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