Remember- there is a difference between talking and speaking your experience, strength and hope.
Of course, we (Christians) are familiar with Jesus’s warnings about the use of our tongues and our idle words (words that are spoken to guilt, shame, humilate, boast, brag, incite fear or violence, encourage gluttony, pride and mindless consuming, nourish nonsense, offer unsolicited opinions and commentary, post political and consumer diatribes, give advice outside of loving relationships where both parties are known and/or use any word as a means to our ends-idols/sin).
(Still Speaking to Christians)
Though we are called to remain silent and turn our cheeks in most situations, we are also called time and time again to speak love, to encourage others with the encouragement we have been encouraged by and to give what Kierkegaard calls our subjective truth (truth you know because you have experienced it- like your story-it is pure gold). I believe this is the most valuable gift, other than yourself, that you can give away. This is why our last exercise in Bible Academy is “Move to give your time, talents and truths to love and encourage yourself and others.”
Distinctions matter- The Bible is full of distinctions. We must rebuild our language and make the distinctions or we are the people who Jesus is speaking to in the gospel of Matthew when he says “seeing they do not see, and hearing they neither hear nor understand.”
In the 19th century Kierkegaard said “The age of making distinctions is past. It has been vanquished by the system. In our day, whoever loves to make distinctions is regarded as an eccentric whose soul clings to something that has long since vanished. Be that as it may, yet Socrates still is what he was, the simple wise man, because of the peculiar distinction that he expressed both in words and in life, something that the eccentric Hamann first reiterated with great admiration two thousand years later: “For Socrates was great in ‘that he distinguished between what he understood and what he did not understand.’”
It is absolutely true that no one really understands the systems, politics and structures that rule and control our world. Heck, the mass majority of us do not know how to care, nourish and protect our own bodies. So, why do we talk about the stuff that we clearly DO NOT UNDERSTAND but we refuse to share our stories, our experience, strength and hope and our subjective truths in our personal relationships and in our communities where they are desperately needed by us all to put the pitchforks, hubris, arrogance and diatribes down and live really good lives as really good human beings.
Seriously, no one should listen to what any of us are saying about politics, religion, weight loss, the global, national or local economy- if we are unwilling to speak Love and tell the truth about our own lives and let our truth be known by our neighbors and our lives be known by our LOVE- Love of God, love of self, love of neighbor (creation and creatures)
DeeAnn Dean 