Solomon wanted to do better. For his father's sake, for God's sake, Solomon wanted to do better. There had to be a way to do it better. And that is where Solomon's wisdom began. Wisdom begins with listening.
Wisdom begins with listening to our own lives.
We find wisdom through listening to our own lives, our own stories. The stories which stretch back into the lives of our fathers and mothers. Stories of victories and defeats, stories of virtues and sins, stories of joys and sorrows, both in our lives and the lives of those whose blood makes us who we are. Because blood does tell, and if we would be wise, we must listen to the stories and the legacies we have inherited. Solomon looked into his own story of lies and deceit, of war and revolution, a story which included the power of repentance.