18 August
One Reason We Don't Desire Chastity
Our warped natures, the devils who tempt us, and all the contemporary propaganda for lust, combine to make us feel that the desires we are resisting are so 'natural', so 'healthy', and so reasonable, that it is almost perverse and abnormal to resist them. Poster after poster, film after film, novel after novel, associate the idea of sexual indulgence with the idea of health, normality, youth, frankness, and good humour. Now this association is a lie. Like all powerful lies, it is based on a truth—the truth, acknowledged above, that sex in itself (apart from the excesses and obsessions that have grown round it) is 'normal' and 'healthy', and all the rest of it. The lie consists in the suggestion that any sexual act to which you are tempted at the moment is also healthy and normal. Now this, on any conceivable view, and quite apart from Christianity, must be nonsense. Surrender to all our desires obviously leads to impotence, disease, jealousies, lies, concealment, and everything that is the reverse of health, good humour, and frankness.
—from Mere Christianity
| August 18
Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shuteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding (17:28).
It took every ounce of courage he had to say anything. He had always been shy, and he was terribly afraid of being made fun of. He knew that if he ever opened his mouth, he would say the wrong thing and be ridiculed. He had been that way all his life. People probably thought he didn't know anything, and that wasn't far from the truth. He wasn't overly bright, and that just added to his fear. It came as quite a shock to him, then, when one of the girls in his class came to him for help with her assignments. She told him that she had always thought that he was smart because he wasn't always talking and trying to impress everyone. What he feared most was that his silence would be taken as ignorance, while instead it was being perceived as maturity and intelligence.
We don't have to be brilliant, but it is important that we learn to keep our mouths shut when the situation warrants it. No one likes a know-it-all, and it is much better to say too little, than to always say too much. The wise person doesn't always have to be talking. They find comfort in silence rather than awkwardness. A fool speaks to cover silence, and ends up saying silly and senseless things. The saying goes, "Silence is golden," and in many cases a truer word was never spoken.
prayer: I think that I have so much that is worth saying. Help me to remember that I learn more when I listen than when I speak. Help me to hold my peace, and to give others time to share their thoughts and feelings. Amen.
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