We should keep our wits about us, always in mind

By John Pearring

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091920.cfm
1 Corinthians 15:35-37, 42-49
Luke 8:4-15

A book study group I belong to read “Everyman” this month, a morality play written in the late 15th Century. Lots of good stuff there, but one reference to the “five wits” captured our attention toward the end of our discussion. Early in the 1400’s a dual understanding of human characteristics had developed into the five senses and the five wits.

The eyes, ears, nose, hands and tongue still stands today as the five senses that keep us in touch with our earthly world. The five wits, however, have faded in the common language. They are, to quote Everyman, “common sense, imagination, fantasy, estimation, and memory.” In this Saturday’s two readings the juxtaposition of wits and senses helps us to better understand St. Paul’s reference to the earthly and the spiritual characteristics of creation in 1 Corinthians 15:35-49. 

Just as we have borne the image of the earthly one,
we shall also bear the image of the heavenly one.

It’s a stretch, and maybe even odd, to make this comparison, because current scholars couch the five wits as rather unimportant. I think, however, the comparison of the five senses and five wits help us to understand better the idea of earthly and heavenly markers. As earthen creatures we operate constantly within the realm of the five senses. We see, hear, taste, etc. as living beings. I think we should consider the five wits as symbiotic to the practical senses. The wits are our transformative characteristics - common sense, imagination, fantasy, estimation, and memory. 

Common Sense refers in large part to the formation of our conscience. Our grasp of right and wrong come directly from the Holy Spirit’s influence upon our thinking and our emotions. Our conscience is more than just a vessel of rights and wrongs, or our manual. It’s our continually formed scruples — an inner voice. Our conscience undergoes constant correction and clarification. We are raised by parents purposely inputting morals and ethics. Sometimes it’s based in truth. Sometimes from some other influence. We fine tune and hone our conscience as truth is revealed to us. Our conscience connects us to the authority of God in hundreds of ways — almost always in relationships.

The presentation of the five wits has as much importance as the five senses. The sense are formed first. The wits are formed for the rest of our lives.

Imagination ties our desires to our operating behaviors. We either concentrate on the sinful desires, or the holy ones. Sometimes we get mixed up about that, but our imagination both invents and drives our thoughts. We can see the things we desire by the conjuring how things work. The more we hone our imagination, the closer we get to the particulars of holiness. With a focus upon holiness we also move away from the temptations of sin.

The imagination leads immediately to our play-acting, acting out our desires in fantasy. This can also happen the other way around. We fantasize something and it then gets a hold on our imagining processes. Playing out our fantasies enriches our imagination even further. Eventually, our dreams present the fantasy world our imagination has created. Dreams are a jumbled set of seemingly disconnected stuff most of the time. But dreams become more like visions when we practice, or play out, what happens when we lead a life of holiness. 

Like the sense of smell and taste, imagination and fantasy are also tightly joined. Our imagination and the fantasies we envision even help to adjust our conscience. I am not referring to just the childish worlds we play in, but the adult and mature visions we develop from our keen desires. Children easily revel in fantasy and imagination. They are forming right and wrong, fruitful desires, and even projecting their future selves. We should never quit doing that.

While the five senses are much easier to explain and deal with the five wits take much more explaining. I can see why they have fallen away as an important handful of human characteristics. 

Estimation is our capacity and practice of judging the world and everything in it. Our relationship to God provokes judgment almost automatically. The more we develop our relationship to God, the more our judgment lines up with God’s will. When we identify good and evil, negative and positive, and decide one way or the other, we do so according to our conception and practice of divine revelation. 

If we believe no revelation exists, that God doesn’t speak to us in any way, then we operate from an amoral baseline. The judging part of our nature as designed by God doesn’t go away because we don’t believe in God. This is how we’re made. In fact, I believe God delights in our natural ability to copy him — to mimic him even. 

If we do not purposely mimic God, we’ll design our own version of authority and judgment. This fourth "wit," called estimation, is how so many of us live a soured existence of unashamed actions that primarily benefit only ourselves. We refuse to recognize that inner voice, our common sense conscience, the first "wit," which is our prompting from God. And then, we fail to be live in his image.

And finally, our five wits includes the human characteristic of memory. Every living thing has an imprint of memory at some level. Don’t go into dark caves. Stay off the path used by bears. Hide in trees and bushes from those who would prey upon us. These are the most basic of memories.

We humans, however, have much further development in the area of memory. We have whole sections of our brain for various kinds of memories — everything from traumas to lovely encounters. We remember not only the faces of people, but their character in reference to our own. We record our memories. We witness our memories to each other. We go to great lengths to embellish and capture the essence of memorable things, places, and events.

The complexity of human memory doesn’t just separate us from other animals, it positions us in the very universe all of creation lives as both stewards and officials. We are responsible for the caretaking of the earth, and soon the heavens. Our memory captures both scientific and ethical manners of operating. Everything in creation falls under our oversight. Without memory and knowledge of the universe’s history we have no authority to be the earth’s marshals, custodians, and caretakers. 

This highly debated part of our human characteristic, memory, ties all of our “wits” into what makes humans so important to God. God went so far as to become one of us. Not just as a holiday visit, but as a living creature himself, firmly integrated due to being incarnated as one of us. It’s the most bizarre connection one could have to his or her creator. God not only made us into his image, but he had himself incorporated as one of us. 

The first man, Adam, became a living being,
the last Adam (Jesus) a life-giving spirit.
But the spiritual was not first;
rather the natural and then the spiritual.
The first man was from the earth, earthly;
the second man, from heaven. 

The five wits help, I believe, for us to see the construct of our heavenly associated selves. The characteristics of God that have been given to us. We have common sense, imagination, fantasy, estimation, and memory as our spiritual characteristics, our divine connection to God. Without these, the universe is only a visiting place, a creator’s experiment. By handing off these characteristics in full to us, and in bits and pieces to every other species, God built for himself a place for eternity that shares the grandeur of heaven with mere creatures. 

As was the earthly one, so also are the earthly,
and as is the heavenly one, so also are the heavenly.