These few days, the first scripture reading is from the biblical Book of Proverbs, a collection of sayings, advice and folk-wisdom about wise living. The Book is a kind of summary of the national wisdom of the people of Israel, sayings that Jesus would have learnt and known. A lot of them are very common-sense remarks, similar to the kind of proverbial sayings that every language and people seems to have. They are mostly separate lines or couplets, and should really be considered one by one rather than read together in "blocks". Let's just take part of verse 8. "Give me neither poverty nor riches". Most people probably desire riches and fear poverty, and those holy people (of any religion) who fear riches and desire poverty are usually considered quite crazy, even though it's obvious what damage greed does not only to individuals but to whole societies: it certainly doesn't bring happiness, justice or peace. But the Proverbs writer understood even more: both riches and poverty have their dangers and disadvantages, inducing self-importance and forgetfulness of god, or the temptation of despair and abandonment of God. Do you desire a short life or a long life, health or illness? One may seem obviously "better", but "better" in what sense? What is it that God wishes me to have? and can I be free enough to choose what He wants rather than what I or others think is "better"?