It seems like we have a bit of a problem.
St. James warned his friends that their words were like sparks that had the power to burn down a forest.
The Jewish poets noted that while our mouths contain the power to bless and bring life, they also have the ability to destroy and harm.
And the noted Persian mystic Rumi instructed his readers to shut up like an oyster shell because, well, their mouths were the enemies of their souls, he thought.
Which just means that long before the internet gave us a place to record and play back EVERY SINGLE word, long before social media gave us the platform to spew anonymous hatred, and long before we coined terms like “over- sharing” to describe our inability to keep quiet, we’ve had issues with our mouths.
So let’s open the text, and listen for a moment.