Song of the Know-It-Alls

This is admittedly an odd poem to write on Christmas morning. Let me justify it. Here are some of God’s gifts that affect me deeply:

  • family and friends who recognize, but are unsatisfied with their limits
  • family and friends who accept me as I am, but encourage me to be more
  • eternity

Commentary

In case you are wondering…. I DO believe there is such a thing as truth. But we currently possess very little of it. I’m thankful that there is all eternity to explore and learn.

Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.

from Browning’s “Rabbi Ben Ezra”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43775/rabbi-ben-ezra

The tone is sarcastic. In my favorite part, the last two stanzas, the “Know-It-Alls” are speaking to those who think there is a world yet to explore. They refer to them as fools, whose ignorance is vast. What satisfying irony that the very thing they criticize is the seed of a superior inheritance.