Mastering the Tongue

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you realize that we will be judged more strictly, for we all fall short in many respects. If anyone does not fall short in speech, he is a perfect man, able to bridle his whole body also. If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we also guide their whole bodies. It is the same with ships: even though they are so large and driven by fierce winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot’s inclination wishes. In the same way the tongue is a small member and yet has great pretensions. Consider how small a fire can set a huge forest ablaze. The tongue is also a fire. It exists among our members as a world of malice, defiling the whole body and setting the entire course of our lives on fire, itself set on fire by Gehenna. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. This need not be so, my brothers. Does a spring gush forth from the same opening both pure and brackish water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, produce olives, or a grapevine figs? Neither can salt water yield fresh. Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show his works by a good life in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. Wisdom of this kind does not come down from above but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every foul practice. But the wisdom from above is first of all pure, then peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without inconstancy or insincerity. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for those who cultivate peace.– Epistle of James, chapter 3.

One of my former co-workers had a reputation as being a very reasonable man. Whenever he would discuss politics, he was always calm and polite. He rarely if ever engaged in ad hominem attacks, or distorted another person’s argument, and was always willing to try and see things from the other person’s perspective. Yet this same man, when he posted comments on blogs, had a tendency to be curt and dismissive, sometimes even to the point of nastiness. So much so that it was often jarring to read what he wrote on the net as compared to how he acted in real life.

St. James was writing long before the creation of the Internet, so one can hardly blame humanity’s tendency towards verbal viciousness on any particular technology. Still, I think the Internet does create new temptations involving the tongue, just as the ready availability of pornography that the Internet provides creates new temptations to lust. Even where people comment under their own name, the fact that we do not see or hear the people with whom we speak (along with the unlikelihood that we will ever meet them in person) allows us to say things about others that we would never dream of saying to their faces.  

We need to be on guard against this temptation in ourselves, and aware of its effect on others. For myself, I find it helpful to make sure that people who know me personally read this blog as a check on some of my less temperate impulses. Even the act of simply rereading a comment after typing it but before clicking post (perhaps with an eye to how it might look to others) can have a very sobering effect. And of course there is a lot of wisdom to be gained from the Scriptures in these matters, especially from the book of Proverbs, which has advice on how to deal with obnoxious, angry, or irrational people (and how to avoid becoming such a person) that seems tailor made for the Internet age.

I don’t say all this to single anyone out, still less to act as if I am somehow perfect in this regard. The Lord knows that I am not. But there does seem to have been a uptick in the amount of nastiness on the blog of late, and given that Holy Week is coming up, it might be a good time for each of us to take a hard look at ourselves and ask how we can do a better job of cultivating peace by mastering the tongue.