"What one fool can do, another can." Ancient Simian Proverb
I was driving. I saw a rabbit sitting by a conex box. It’s body was grey and it’s tail white. It was snuggled against the container as I slowly drove by in my white truck.
“What animates that white beast?” the rabbit must have thought. It did see me or at least the truck. Whether or not it differentiated me from the truck, I don’t know. It doesn’t know where Detroit is, that I am sure. It doesn’t know mathematics, that I am sure. I do. 2 + 2 = 4. See, smarter than a rabbit.
I rolled down the window and said “Hello little…” as he abruptly and rudely ran away before I could finish my hello “…rabbit.” I could not see him any longer. I really thought we were going to have a connection. But he was too scared of the white metal beast and he fled out of self preservation. He really missed an opportunity to make a friend. Oh well, his loss.
I was reading this book, Calculus Made Easy, by Silvanus Thompson, and he has in his opening quote for the book “What one fool can do, another can” and he says it’s an ancient simian proverb, meaning it came to us from the beginning, the ape. I don’t know much about calculus but I can understand the very basic concepts of it even though I am not much higher than the ape and I’m definitely a fool. Who knows, maybe I could learn “caluclus,” wait is that how it’s spelled?. Calculus teaches, according to Silvanus, that one thing can be a fraction of another thing and two things can be examined to find the differential equation between the two, I think. The letter d can be known as the part of the quantity x or expressed as “dx.” Dx could be said that d is a little bit of x. And one could then say we could take a little bit of dx as well which would be to take that number to the second degree. The example he gives is that if one were to take a bit of an hour say 1/60th he would have a minute (my noot) part of that hour or a little bit of an hour. And if one were to take that to the second degree of minuteness he would have what we now call a “second”. A minute (or minute (my noot)) part of an hour is 1/60th and 1/60th of that or a second degree is a second. That is how we got seconds and minutes. Hmmmm, feeling smarter.
I remember trying to learn math as a kid. I had to struggle with It. It was like this: don’t have it, don’t have it, break pencils, don’t have it, don’t have… got it! It took to twelve hours to understand something very simple but once I understood it I forgot it twenty years later. But there are others who can understand math in a minute. Or a second. So, my intellect is a little bit of theirs. I am fascinated that other people are so much smarter than other people. How is that possible? Shouldn’t we all be sort of the same smart? Apparently not. And people who lived a long time ago like Pythagoras were very smart. It sort of makes me mad and throw up my hands at the same time and mutter “I don’t understand.”
Can you understand this? I can’t.
I was reading a great article by Sean M. Wright about Catherine of Siena called “The Mystery of the Missing Host.” Catherine was an uneducated person who we think was pretty smart, so much so, we call her Doctor of the Church. We Catholics have a doctor of the church who couldn’t read, how smart are we? Catherine of Siena was a mystic and she couldn’t read. By mystic, it means someone who spent a large part of her day in prayer and for her she became all consumed after receiving the Eucharist. She would go into what we wold call a trance and would be one with Jesus. And after, she would dictate to others who could write what she experienced. So, there is hope for us dummies, (if you are a fellow dummy, but you’re probably smart, but there’s hope for smart people too, but not short people. They got no reason to live) and that is: we don’t have to be smart. We can be dumb but also one with our Lord. Or we can be degrees less smart than a smart person and still have hope. For Catherine of Siena it was the Eucharist which joined her to Jesus. If smartness is knowing the truth then Catherine of Siena was smart even if not well educated or even intelligent. She saw a vision of Jesus in heaven and that is the truth. The truth was revealed to her and set her free.
I was reading John this morning and it says “Jesus then said to those who believed in Him, ‘If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free’” John 8:31-32. Is one smarter if they know math or if they know Jesus exists because they have experience Him and seen Him in Heaven? Have you ever wondered how someone can understand complex mathematics? It just comes to them. They are smart. Seeing Jesus in Heaven will also just come to us, it will be revealed. Can you imagine knowing that truth?
I am like the rabbit who sees a white truck and doesn’t know what to think of it. I haven’t experienced Heaven or seen Jesus in Heaven but Catherine of Siena did. That along with many other miracles and works she performed to include transcribe what she saw, made her a saint, a stigmatic, and a doctor of the church.
There are people who are a bit smarter than me or in other words I am a little less smart than they. My intellect is a little bit of their intellect. My d to their x. A rabbit is not as smart as me. It is a degree less intelligent. No matter how much we want to be smarter, we cannot be smarter. A rabbit will never know what a truck is, no matter how hard it tries. We can learn things but be cannot increase our brain power to the point of knowing the things of angels. We can expand what we have already but we cannot become more than we are. An ape cannot become a man and a man cannot become an angel. There is a degree of intellect in the ape compared to man and a little bit of intellect in the man compared to the angel but they will not be the same. But things can be revealed to us and this can set us free because we will know the truth. This revelation is not from our intellect but it is something we receive. And as Catherine’s example teaches us that even we can experience heavenly things here on earth through the gift of the sacraments, especially the Eucharist.
But someday when we see Jesus as King, enthroned, we will be smart, smart enough to know the truth, and we will be set free.
Catherine of Siena’s feast day is April 29th, my son’s birthday. I didn’t know that until today or never paid attention but now I know. I am a little more smart today than I was yesterday. Yesterday, I was very, very, dumb. We too can receive the Eucharist. My experience with the Eucharist is a little bit of what she experienced. At times, I am ecstatic, but it is 1/1000th (or some other fraction) of what she experienced. Just a smaller or more minute amount of ecstasy. I am sure that we all can experience a little bit of the same experience as she experienced and by doing this we go from ape to man to sons and daughters of God. In some way we unite our self to God through this mystery of the Eucharist.
How do you like them apples? Remember Matt Damon when he was a really smart math janitor? He said “How do you like them apples?”
Why is an apple a representation of evil? The fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden is depicted as an apple. By seeking intellect do we seek evil? It was said to be evil to know right from wrong, the knowledge of good and evil. How is that evil? To know? That’s free will. Free will is evil? If I know what is right and do it then that’s not evil. Is it? Does intellect come from God or perhaps at times the devil? It is said the devil tricked Eve into eating this apple. Did you ever notice the company Apple is an apple with a bite taken out of it? I wonder if the devil is behind that? Always thought Steve Jobs may have sold his soul. Did you see the movie “BlackBerry”? How did Apple become so far advanced of BlackBerry when BlackBerry was the biggest phone company at one time? They got a lot of knowledge very quickly or did they? Where did it come from? They seemed very much ahead of their time. What about the Beatles? They had Apple Records. Remember the green apple on their vinyl? I do. Speaking of time, how long does it take to eat an apple? A minute? Perhaps less, seconds? That’s a lifetime. I might go and eat an apple. I don’t like green apples. Too tart. I like regular red apples. That’s how I like ‘em.