Chapter 7: The value of humility (paragraph 16)
The ninth step of humility leads us to refrain from unnecessary speech and to guard our silence by not speaking until we are addressed. (From para. 16 of Ch. 7 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)
Into this teaching I read wisdom about the speed of speech -- or the quality of speech in time. For example, do I pause so that I may respond rather than react, or even restrain my response altogether so that I may continue to listen to another more deeply? Speaking with a measured but unaffected slowness can have a spiritual quality, allowing my words to come from my heart, and not from an obsession with expressing my ego. In this culture, I think that speaking from a contemplative sense of time is rare and radical, and might frustrate others, but can also, with God's grace, inspire them.
Wise words, may God bless you.
ReplyDeleteJosé from Brazil.
To be the last one into a conversation, instead of the first, is an unheard of assault on our ego." (Joan Chittister).
ReplyDeleteAh, my small self again, my ego, my "Edging God Out": smash it, Abba, so I can the better open myself to you, listen for you, hear your gentle voice in my fellows.