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olomon is reported to have composed 3,000 of them (1 Kings 4:32). Daily we see them on Insta- gram posts, coff ee cups, bumper stickers, tweets


and T-shirts. Ninety years ago one of the fi rst national advertising campaigns capitalized on their humorous appeal while promoting a shaving product: “Hardly a driver / Is now alive / Who passed / On


hills / At 75 / Burma-Shave” (1939). What exactly has captured our attention for all these


years? T e answer is proverbs, adages or maxims. It seems one of the main reasons we are attracted to


these sayings is they usually convey an element of truth. For example, most of us have heard or said, “Confes- sion is good for the soul.” In just six words there is the encouragement to unload one’s burdens related to acts of omission or commission. T is saying probably has its roots in James 5:16:


“T erefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. T e prayer of the righteous is powerful and eff ective.” A proverb has an economy or effi ciency of words to it. Adages also help us simplify the complexity of life.


As we struggle to comprehend things that don’t always make sense, we are looking for shortcuts to assist our thinking and speaking. Harold B. Lee, a former presi- dent of T e Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wrote: “Life is fragile, handle with prayer.” Once again just six words draw a picture for us in terms of dealing with the chances of life. Or another way to say it would be to quote Forrest Gump: “My momma always said life was like a box of chocolates.” Many proverbs bring a smile to our


face or lighten our mood in some way. Proverbs passed down from genera- tion to generation develop an aura of authority to them, such as “the pen is mightier than the sword.” While there aren’t too many pen users anymore, they prob- ably still outnumber bearers of swords. But the point of this say- ing is that there is a power of the word or persuasion that is greater than brute force.


16 www.thelutheran.org


As we struggle to comprehend things that don’t always make sense, we are looking for shortcuts to assist our thinking and speaking.


Some adages need


to be understood like the proverbial glass of water—are they half empty or half full? In other words, there is an element of truth, but in the end the point


or conclusion that the saying makes is short on truth. Adages in this category usually have something to do with God’s providence and grace. Perhaps they should come with a label reading: “Warning—Half Empty.” Some adages are scientifi cally incorrect and yet speak


a deeper truth, for example “a watched pot never boils.” One can’t actually stop a pot from boiling by obsessively watching it, but nevertheless this saying does tell a truth that if one is waiting for something to take place it oſt en seems not to happen in the allotted time frame. So if you fi nd


yourself surrounded by people who are fond of using adages, my advice is: “When in Rome do as the Romans.”


Author bio: Ronald T. Glusenkamp is an ELCA pastor and director of Always Being Made New: The Campaign for the ELCA.


Confession is good for the soul


T is proverb found in a 1721 James Kelly publication, A Complete Collection of Scottish Proverbs, started out as “Open confes- sion is good for the soul.” Somewhere along the way we abandoned the “open” part. Who made that


decision? Maybe it was discovered that closed con- fession was just as


Adages


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