38 Everyone can share in knowledge and understanding
One of the distinctive things about Heraclitus was that he believed that understanding, self-knowledge and wisdom were equally accessible to everyone. That’s a radical thought, and not one commonly shared even in our present democratic era. But I think it’s a really important truth. It’s not a claim that all people are equally intelligent, in all the different ways intelligence manifests itself: that’s clearly not true. Abandoning intellectual or spiritual elitism is not about trying to make everyone the same: it’s about celebrating the diversity of each person’s gifts, and looking for the specific talent or skill that someone has.
The churches have, slowly in the case of mine, woken up to the fact that everyone is gifted, though we’re still not good at living out that belief. Too much tradition has built up around believing that certain groups of people were the only ones to listen to (bishops, sometimes). But that is not the root of the Christian tradition. It is fundamental to my faith that all people are equally loved by God, and that all those who are disciples of Christ are equally his brothers and sisters.
When I was a parish priest, I learned not to set boundaries on who I might learn from. I remember particularly one parishioner who usually just repeated the same sort of thing, whatever the conversation was supposed to be about. But every now and again, very simply they said something which was a pearl of wisdom. Whatever you may think of yourself, or of others, there is no-one so wise that they are always right, or so foolish that they can’t hit the nail on the head. If we’re going to work out what the signs of the time mean, we need each other.