13th
The Chattering Messes:
Ever talking never …
What is the contrast to incessant talking?
Occasional thinking? It seems more like they are partners.
Shutting up? Someone said it is better to be quiet and thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt. But quiet fools are still just that.
Have you ever met a person who seemed to be a deep well of substance but once you peered in, there was no water? And then you thought of times you were like that?
Forgive me, but it seems those whom we say have “special needs” are more thoughtful and intentional than the rest of us. Maybe we need to hang around them more!
Solomon, of the Hebrew Bible, had wisdom but couldn’t control his tongue, saying “I do” several hundred times, to a myriad of women and “I want” to the rest of them.
Someone said, “I have a Sienfeldian pastor.” Lots of interesting chatter but largely about nothing.
A word fittingly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver. Does it not seem that what is served in our conversation is more like applesauce in those little plastic cups?
Healthy and properly presented food has been replaced by fast food in a gaudy happy box. Quality words, thoughtful words, substantive words have been too easily replaced by trendy words, thoughtless words, and lightweight chatter.
Confess it.
Does the daily volume of our conversation and its content reveal anything about being increasingly transformed into the image of Christ?
He who can bridle the tongue, to control it, to train it to pay attention, is an unusual person.
If you followed me around for a few days (and I didn’t know it) listening to my words, and you had to describe me in terms of a magazine, what would it be?
People - its about me and my activity and my friends - see, see, see.
Reader’s Digest - lots of short stories but no spirituality
Rolling Stone - trendy, hip, avant garde gone dull in the head
Christianity Today - keeping up with the spiritual movers and shakers (Joneses)
Sports Illustrated - UT, UK, the Big Orange, the Burnt Orange, the Big Ten, Next Season
This Old House - Makeovers with no Make-up
Some good, some bad. Either way, a distraction more than a substance.
Some of us want “farm liv’n” and country talk, and others a “penthouse view” with talk of the town. Both the same, yet seemingly different, even disdained by the other - but the desire of both is the “good life.” What chatter accompanies the life of such!
So what?
It is not the topic alone that is the problem - it is its purpose, its influence, its direction, its transforming perspective, its living to the glory of God as an intention and not an incidental. Substantive, robust, adventuresome mission with purpose, and its expression in my words, that is where I want to be!
Keep the thinned down applesauce and don’t give me the plastic cups either.
I want my words to be like the apples of gold in settings of silver, the picture of my conversation, seasoned with a little salt. Crunchy Sweetness Defined!
