Bella Sophia (Lady Wisdom Sets Her Table)

"Bella Sophia"

 by Virginia Knowles

Lady Wisdom diligently prepares her feast

She fixes her savory meats and mixes her sweet wines

Then arranges her lovely banquet table:

Linens, bouquets, crystal, china, silver, candles

With exquisite hospitality and grace

She welcomes her guests:

"Come in, sit down, and dine!"

This feast is for our souls

Lady Wisdom nourishes our minds with solid truth

And delights our spirits with goblets of merry mirth

She pleases our inner eyes and ears with a deep harmony

A heart mark of the Creator.

Dear Lady Wisdom,

Teach me to teach as you do

To season my words with the spices of love and prayer

To think before I speak so I will know

What each hungry heart needs to hear

Show me how to captivate hearts and minds

With insight and satisfy their souls with delight

To feed them the honeycomb of pleasant words

Sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.

Bella Sophia

Beautiful Lady Wisdom

Help me to spread a banquet in my home 

With the Meat of the Word

The Bread of Life and Living Water

The Fruit of the Spirit

Then come alongside 

And call out with me through open doors,

"Welcome, sit down, and dine!"

Wisdom has built her house;
she has set up its seven pillars.
² She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine;
she has also set her table.
³ She has sent out her servants, and she calls
from the highest point of the city,
⁴ “Let all who are simple come to my house!”
To those who have no sense she says,
⁵ “Come, eat my food
and drink the wine I have mixed.
⁶ Leave your simple ways and you will live;
walk in the way of insight.”
Proverbs 9:1-6

I read these words from Proverbs Saturday morning and started thinking about how I communicate with others.  It still wasn't a good day for that -- so many cross conversations! As a mother, I do need ​bella ​sophia, beautiful wisdom, in ​the atmosphere of​  my home. ​  How am I nurturing my own children?  I've got so much to learn and do.  As a writer, I try to set the table on my blogs with a variety of articles, some serious, some practical, some aesthetic, some light-hearted.  As an English teacher, too, I see the need to reach the hearts and minds of each of my students.  Lesson planning takes effort, but it's worth it.  Yes, I teach grammar and spelling, but most of all, through the literature, writing, music and art appreciation that I plan each week, I try to impart wisdom for life.  After reading in Proverbs 9, I'll now try to think of it as preparing the feast and setting the table -- with enough substance to sustain them and enough delight to capture their hearts for the truth.  What do you think about this?

Virginia Knowles
www.ComeWearyMoms.blogspot.com

P.S. I borrowed the table photo from my post Weekend Gratitude: Welcoming Touches.  (Many thanks to my friend Judy, who hosted our Dinner with Friends feast two weeks ago!) 

This post will be shared at the following blog parties:

• Raising Homemakers
• Wise Woman
• Whole-Hearted Home
• Walking Redeemed
• Still Saturday
• The Sunday Community
• Domestically Divine
• Ann Kroeker's Food on Fridays