Faith Venture

It is hard to keep water in without a dike. But it is harder still to hold in one’s tongue.

Interesting that as John Climacus takes us further along the Ladder of Divine Ascent, the more he probes deeper into our hearts, our vices, our inner drives.

Sometimes I scan Facebook and Twitter. These are places where we feel free to be talkative without inhibition. I see the most revealing things about the state of many people’s hearts. That state is not always good.

John says talkativeness is the throne of vainglory “on which it loves to preen itself.”

We have all said things that we wished immediately after that we had not said. But many people seem clueless about how the things they say reveal the hardness of their hearts.

On the other hand, John says “intelligent silence is the mother of prayer, freedom from bondage.”

For the man who recognizes his sins has taken control over his tongue, while the chatterer has yet to discover himself as he should.

“Better to fall from a height to the ground than to slip with the tongue.” That also applies to what you say on social media–perhaps more so since you reach so many more people.

…and the unholy vices are like the chains that fell off the chief apostle Peter. The virtues lead from one to another and carry heavenward the man who chooses them. Vices on the other hand beget and stifle one another.

So writes John Climacus (St. John of the Ladder).

In this middle section of his work, John discusses anger and how from anger comes malice, or the remembrance of things wrong. Malice, in turn, begets slander.

“Whom does this describe? There are girls who flaunt their shamelessness, but there are others who are much worse, for they put on the appearance of great modesty while secretly engaging abominable behavior.”

I have also heard what John heard 1,600 years ago–“These evildoers claimed to be acting out of love and concern for the victim of their slander.”

An entire book could be written from this admonition from the tenth step, “To pass judgement on another is to usurp shamelessly a prerogative of God, and to condemn is to ruin one’s soul.”

And, “A charitable and sensible mind takes careful note of the virtues it observes in another, while the fool goes looking for faults and defects.”

He who has practiced this tenth step has practiced love.