AARGH! I have just wasted hours trying to find an important document on my computer, only to get the dreaded message: "File not found".

But, with over 9,000 files sitting on my hard disk it's hardly surprising that some get lost.

I can't remember where half of these computer files came from nor what they are about.

I daren't delete them - after all, they might be valuable. Information is important isn't it? Or is it?

In our new information age, we are overrun with data. But we often confuse data with information - and information with knowledge - and knowledge with wisdom.

I can have the biggest hard disk money can buy, crammed with facts and figures, but that doesn't mean I understand. And, even if I did, that wouldn't make me wise.

As T.S.Eliot wrote in Choruses from 'The Rock': "Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"

I have been thinking a lot about the Feast of the Epiphany - when we celebrate the coming of the Wise Men to Jesus.

What made the Wise Men wise?

It can't just have been about knowing stuff. They didn't have access to all the information at our disposal. So, what was special about them?

I think it had something to do with their openness to see the star; to follow it; to find the baby Jesus; and to recognise God in him.

Their openness was an openness to God. A recognition that wisdom, like life, is not created but is a gift from God.

This Epipharytice, may we all grow in wisdom as we open ourselves to God anew. -- The Rev Keith Straughan, curate, parish of Abbots Langley and Bedmond.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.