Browsing through book titles on my Scribd app, (Scribd is a pretty decent e-book and audiobook subscription service) this cover caught my eye. It was like the food pyramid, but according to the title a “wisdom pyramid”. The concept taken from the food pyramid we grew up learning about -grains on the bottom, sugary snacks at the top. (These days, I’m not so sure that the food pyramid is actually the best way to eat, but I’ll save that discussion for another time!)
The book focuses on how we fill up our time, what we are consuming in our day to day lives. We all know that our lives are greatly impacted by technology, especially our phones. It’s no secret that most of us have some level of addiction to our phone. We carry it everywhere and feel lost without it. We use it for so much more than making calls. In fact, for some of us we rarely ever answer phone calls. We rely on our phones for GPS, Google, restaurant reviews, and of course social media.
The author suggests that if we’re honest, the way we invest our time and fill our minds is backwards. If we want to be wise, our phones aren’t the best source-specifically the Internet and Social Media. They should be consumed sparingly-like sugary snacks.
The author comes at the topic from a Christian perspective and puts the Bible as the base of the triangle-the foundation. The Bible, God’s Word, is fundamental to the life of a Christ follower. God has given us this rich book as our greatest source of wisdom. It is our daily bread. From there, the next step on the pyramid is church community, then nature, beauty, and lastly the Internet and Social Media.
I appreciate the authors assessment and agree with what he says about the harms of “feasting” on social media. I know that I can get caught up in the hot takes of each breaking news story and reacting to the comments section. There is rarely wisdom found there. I admit that I also frequently find myself, in the author’s words “…on islands of algorithm-fueled fantasy and confirmation bias.” The internet is a place where “Everyone has a megaphone, but no one has a filter.”
McCracken has a chapter about each section of the pyramid. As believers we find community in the church, with people who may have different views on some things but find common unity in the hope of the gospel. McCracken says, “One of the beautiful things about being part of a church, and one of it's greatest gifts to our generation, is that it grounds us in a bigger story—one that precedes us and will outlive us, where the past and the future matter as much (or more) than the present.”
Nature, books and beauty (music, art, ect) are also wonderful ways to grow in wisdom. We can learn so much by taking the time to slow down, breathe deeply, and appreciate the beauty all around us instead of having our eyes glued to a screen.
For me, this book was a wonderful reminder of what matters most and a call to reorient my daily focus. I’m sure I won’t do it perfectly, but I do feel compelled to change my daily diet of information to reflect this wisdom pyramid.
One last point made in the book which I find important is that McCracken doesn’t take the Internet and Social Media completely off the pyramid. He says “There are diamonds in the digital rough.” It’s not all bad out there on the World Wide Web. I personally have found community I otherwise wouldn’t have found. There is value in being informed about what is going on in the world. And most importantly, in my opinion, the Internet is a place where God’s love and truth are desperately needed. Jesus commissioned us to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel. The digital world is a massive space where people are hungry and searching for wisdom. When my sources of wisdom are rightly ordered, maybe I can be a light, pointing people toward the One from whom all wisdom flows.
Excerpts from: "The Wisdom Pyramid: Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World" by Brett McCracken. Scribd. This material may be protected by copyright. Read this book on Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/book/488665157
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