In my youth, I sought only knowledge.  I was, as young men are apt to be, arrogant enough to believe I could become a modern Rennaisance Man.

Later, I sought only pleasure and spent many years in the vinyards of drunkenness.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve sought wisdom.

Seeking wisdom, I’ve wisely looked to those who came before me.

Here’s a selection from Proverbs, Chapter 22, verse 14, that seems to apply to my relationship dilemma:

“The mouth of a loose (“strange” is an alternate translation) woman is a deep pit; he with whom the Lord is angry falls into it.”

OK, that’s just a joke and a misogynist one at that.

Here’s the Proverb verse that really caught my eye and it seems political in these days of the Bush Administration’s connections to the religious right and tax cuts for the wealthy:

Proverbs 22:16

“Oppressing the poor in order to enrich oneself, and giving to the rich, will lead only to loss.”

NOTE: Despite the misogyny of the prior verse, Proverbs depicts Wisdom as a woman crying out in the streets to her children.  Interesting, eh?  She is often offset with the “strange” woman or a prostitute and is sometimes identified as Dame Folly.  Proverbs is kind of a home school textbook and was taught to young men on their way to rabbinical schuls because its rhyme scheme was easy to remember.

Post Script:  Here’s a note for only the truely and sincerely whack jobs like me.  Proverbs is often attributed to Soloman, but it’s very unlikely he actually wrote much of it and he’s only used as a symbol of wise Jewish leaders.  There were clearly several authors and it was collected and edited after the Babylonian exile.  The part that really fascinates me (and the redoubtable Skip Largent, no doubt) is how much this book of the Old Testament owes to the Egyptian sage Amen-em-ope and it seems clear that a lot of Proverbs is cribbed directly from his observations.  So much for inerrancy and divine inspiration, what?