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 rhythm 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.
“A man full of tongue is not established in the earth”, quotes Benedict. What a graphic metaphor, Abba! Establish me, ground me. Sweetly yoke me to You, with my feet firmly planted on the present moment and me not lost in my airy head.
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