“The thought that is contained within your mind is under your control. If you spread it, it becomes under people’s control; it has gone out of your domain to a wider domain in which it and you will be judged”
Category: SILENCE
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Avoid not only impure deeds, but even words, so that you may be a pure and undefiled man not only in your deeds, but also in your words.
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Among the items that waste time are friendships and spending too much time in speaking about what is beneficial and non-beneficial (more so in what is non-beneficial). It is rare for two people to sit together and build each other speak of what is mutually beneficial.
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Monastic Treasures for All of Us -
For myself, I am working to make voluntary what will eventually happen anyway. Learning to bear my own company and seeking to bear the company of God are proper to this time. I am noticing some changes. For example, I can barely stand to have the radio or music playing in the car when I’m driving – they’re distractions. I’d rather pray. Nevertheless, the noise of my ADD-addled brain provides ample distraction by itself most of the time. What to do with that noise is a matter of constant learning.
Slowing Down for the Necessary Thing
ARCHPRIEST STEPHEN FREEMAN -
I decided to fast from music on those four car rides, expecting that the silence would remind me to pray. So on that pleasant sunny day, I set out on my first expedition with the car windows open. I noticed something surprising right away: my muffler was beginning to go out! I hadn’t noticed it earlier because of the music I always play. I wondered what else I might be missing in my life because I do so many things the same way, day after day.
Fasting: Spiritual Freedom Beyond Our Appetites
Lynne M. Baab -
Too Much Explaining
If a matter requires a lot of explanation, it is likely to be
abstruse or unconvincing, for if it were clear and persuasive, it would not need such explanation…A lengthy explanation might also point to a lack
of confidence in your listener’s intelligence or
quickness in comprehension, or may reveal your lack of
confidence in what you are saying!The thing which convinces is not a great amount of explanation, but the power of the idea.
Too much explanation may induce boredom, especially if your listener has already understood your meaning. Too much explanation wastes his time and puts pressure on his nerves…
Therefore it is best that your words be brief and persuasive
and clearly expressed in balanced phrases; nothing more
and nothing less.—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Experiences in Life
SO GOOD QUOTES 