Wisdom: A Knowing in Darkness
Twilight Radiance/Big Sur, CA
This post is a part of the Maps, Lenses, and Mirrors Series, a collage of conversations, music, voice memos, visual art, and words exploring how to know. Here’s Part One: Visible Contradictions + Knowing How To Know. And Part Two: What Strength It Takes to Bear A Slow Unfolding
A Voice Memo Read-Aloud
Today, we will continue exploring how to know with an audio read‑aloud.
In practice yesterday, I was drawn to a small section on wisdom and mystery from the work of Dr. Chris Morris and Bruno Barnhart, so I hit record on the voice memo app.
Morris writes:
For Barnhart, wisdom is first and foremost a knowing in ‘faith,’ “a knowing in darkness, an affirmative cognition of mystery…and the knowing is consequently obscure as it is certain.
Listen from the inside, noticing what is stirred in sensation, feeling, and/or cognition.
Sources:
Doctoral thesis—the source of the audio excerpt: Chris Morris, The Cross Now Rooted Breaks In Bloom: A study of Bruno Barnhart’s “Wisdom Knowing” and Wholeness in Christian Life.
Blog post—a lovely (and brief) entry point: “A revolution in wisdom vital for our time” (Living Water; first published 2021, reposted as a tribute after Morris died unexpectedly in 2024)
Podcast episode—to listen to Chris in his own voice: “Christ in the Torn Places.”
