The wise in heart accept commands, but a chattering fool comes to ruin.
Whoever winks maliciously causes grief, and a chattering fool comes to ruin. (Proverbs 10:8 & 10)
As I looked at Proverbs 10 this morning, I noticed that on either side of verse 9, there is a proverb about a chattering fool. Being myself, I’ll deal with 8 and 10 together and get back to 9 tomorrow. Again, if a wise person is someone who understands and deals with reality, then a fool must be someone who does not understand reality or does not deal with it well. In other words, a fool is someone who believes he can dictate what is or isn’t reality.
Now, what of the “chattering” part. According to the dictionary, chattering means “talking rapidly or incessantly about trivial matters.” I grant you that trivial is in the eye of the beholder. I am a trivial person. I know a little bit about a whole bunch of stuff, most of which probably doesn’t matter. There are some people who would probably say that the things that I think are important are basically trivial matters.
But let me share some ideas of what I think constitutes chattering foolishness. First, let’s start with the idea that we can decide what reality is. When I was a child, I wanted to be a dog, until I found out what being a dog was like (dog biscuits – bluck.) For most of my life, I’ve wished I could be something more interesting than my very boring human self. There are people – supposed adults – who declare that they are something other than what we see when we look at them, stuck in the body that we see. Some have surgery to artificially become more like what they claim they are. Some are willing to put chemicals that are not part of their body’s make up into their bodies for years to maintain the illusion of being something they aren’t. Whether their claim is that they are a man in a woman’s body, a woman in a man’s body, a cat, lizard, or alien in a human body, the claims are all foolish chatter.
Gossip is another form of chattering foolishness. It doesn’t matter whether the subject is your neighbor, your sibling, your spouse, your neighbor, or some celebrity. If we are assuming a relationship that does not exist, whether judge or number one fan, we are not dealing with reality. If we will tolerate nothing bad be said about them, or nothing good, we have drifted into the state of foolishness.
And for the person who chatters foolishness, there is ruin. I’m not suggesting that they will go bankrupt, or go insane, or anything as dramatic as that, but the less you are connected with reality, the less you are able to connect with reality, and that loss is ruinous. So, yes, from a writer of fantasy fiction comes this advice: stay connected to reality.
Now, what of the “chattering” part. According to the dictionary, chattering means “talking rapidly or incessantly about trivial matters.” I grant you that trivial is in the eye of the beholder. I am a trivial person. I know a little bit about a whole bunch of stuff, most of which probably doesn’t matter. There are some people who would probably say that the things that I think are important are basically trivial matters.
But let me share some ideas of what I think constitutes chattering foolishness. First, let’s start with the idea that we can decide what reality is. When I was a child, I wanted to be a dog, until I found out what being a dog was like (dog biscuits – bluck.) For most of my life, I’ve wished I could be something more interesting than my very boring human self. There are people – supposed adults – who declare that they are something other than what we see when we look at them, stuck in the body that we see. Some have surgery to artificially become more like what they claim they are. Some are willing to put chemicals that are not part of their body’s make up into their bodies for years to maintain the illusion of being something they aren’t. Whether their claim is that they are a man in a woman’s body, a woman in a man’s body, a cat, lizard, or alien in a human body, the claims are all foolish chatter.
Gossip is another form of chattering foolishness. It doesn’t matter whether the subject is your neighbor, your sibling, your spouse, your neighbor, or some celebrity. If we are assuming a relationship that does not exist, whether judge or number one fan, we are not dealing with reality. If we will tolerate nothing bad be said about them, or nothing good, we have drifted into the state of foolishness.
And for the person who chatters foolishness, there is ruin. I’m not suggesting that they will go bankrupt, or go insane, or anything as dramatic as that, but the less you are connected with reality, the less you are able to connect with reality, and that loss is ruinous. So, yes, from a writer of fantasy fiction comes this advice: stay connected to reality.
Comments
Post a Comment