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Mar 25th, 2025
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Joined: Jan 2003
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Talkativeness is the throne of vainglory, on which it loves to show itself and make a display.
Talkativeness is a sign of ignorance, a door to slander, an inducement to jesting, a servant to
falsehood, the ruin of compunction, a creator and summoner of despondency, a precursor of
sleep, the dissipation of recollection, the abolition of watchfulness, the cooling of ardor, the
darkening of prayer.
Saint John of Sinai, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 11, # 2, p. 92.
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Joined: May 2009
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when I graduated from high school, one of my great-aunts gave me a hand-embroidered sampler with the words: "Never miss a chance to shut up".
At the time I was a bit miffed and perplexed but now I get it.
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Joined: Jan 2003
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when I graduated from high school, one of my great-aunts gave me a hand-embroidered sampler with the words: "Never miss a chance to shut up". ...I *LOVE* it!!!
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Joined: Apr 2009
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It is for those reasons that the Church has seen fit to pray Psalm 141(0) every day in her liturgy of evening prayer:
"Set a watch before my mouth, O Lord, and guard the door of my lips."
Those verses are a fixed piece in Lutheran Vespers, all days of the year except Triduum.
In this digital age, we would do well to pray that a watch be set before our fingers hit the "send" or "submit" or "post" buttons!
Last edited by Thomas the Seeker; 03/12/10 06:12 PM.
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Joined: Oct 2000
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Amazing! I am especially intrigued by talkativeness being the "Summoner of despondency"--something I have never thought of. Thank you so much for posting this!
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My mother used to say: "Silence is golden." I am past her age (when she died) now and the older I get the more I see wisdom in that saying.
I also appreciate: "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: ...a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;..." (Ecclesiastes 3: 1, 7b, RSV)
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