“Watch your tongue and keep your mouth shut, and you will stay out of trouble.” Proverbs 21:23 NLT
This one’s for me in the most unusual way. I am an over-sharer. I talk to much on a principle of connection and understanding those around me. Somewhere in there, I am trying to get and keep people connected. And, more than that, get people to know the real person underneath the shallow conversations we so often have. Sounds noble right? That’s the upside! The downside is I share the good and the shady. It’s the shady that drifts into gossip. I love input and interaction. I love a good dialog about deep things, hard questions and unsolvable mysteries. I promise it wears thin on my wife and adult children. I’m concerned that I’m developing the ruts so common in folks brains as they… (cough, cough) get older.
A rut is a well worn track that runs in the brain, an automatic neural response with words and ideas easily triggered by something we see or hear. I hear a friend talk about EV’s (electric vehicles) vs Oil/gas and my brain just starts lightning up, firing the well worn neutral path that looks like a bright-lit runway on a dark, moonless night. These ruts have deep memories and feel like a instant-ready playlist that auto starts and won’t stop until the last song is played. Plus, the conversational rut is happy to be running on auto, because our brains are the laziest organ in the human body.
As we age our brains are more than happy to set aside a few nodes and electrical bandwidth to keep us busy so it doesn’t overextend energy to learn NEW things. What does this have to do with this verse?
There is something incredibly addictive to enjoy connecting our rut-thoughts to our mouth! It’s like a powerful feedback loop. Our thoughts drift into these ruts, our mouth gladly picks up the ball and starts running a familiar script and we hear ourselves reinforcing those looped thoughts. Why do you think we tend to tell the same jokes as we age? Why do we “always” follow up with the same predictable responses? Ruts, Ruts, Ruts, that’s why.
Gossip and our wagging tongues are the worse use and example of these looped neural paths! I end up training my brain to hear juicy morsels of information about someone else and I store it in that precious “short-term” memory slot for quick access. Then, when I’m around friends, instead of listening to learn from or to encourage one another, my brain is listening for trigger words to allow me to jump to the remarkable recall of my playlist and start the track.
The wisdom of this proverb tells us to shut our mouths, effectively to stop the cycle and disrupt the process of starting the playlist. Having no verbal loop to make my rutted brain happy, it will finally release that rut, deleting the playlist. No, it’s not easy and no it does not happen quickly. But it does work. It is humorous that Proverbs says, “watch your tongue,” which is impossible while in a conversation, but we can bridle it – stopping it from prattling on and on.
Prayer
Dad,
Our mouths in direct connection to our thoughts is a wild combination! I know Proverbs says elsewhere that life and death is in the power of the tongue. And James describes it as the rudder of our life. It is so very powerful to build up but also tear down. Help me to keep my mouth healthy or help me keep my mouth shut.