There’s a lot of talking going on out there.
Depending on who’s counting, there appear to be at least 3.1 million active podcasts, and 165 million episodes floating in the cloud. There has never been a moment in history when so many words are so easily accessible to so many listeners.
One of the downsides is that there’s also a great deal of anger out there.
Social media has provided a launching pad by means of which angry, cynical, and skeptical people, often hiding behind anonymity, feel free to hurl verbal bombs. “Mockers stir up a city,” says Proverbs 29:8. The underlying Hebrew literally says, “set a city on fire.” Pastor Timothy Keller observes, “Social media has given mockers a platform to burn down civilization.”
That’s why we need, as never before, these words of wisdom from the apostle James: “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires” (James 1:19-20).
That’s one quick and two slows. Be quick to listen. Slow to speak. And slow to become angry.
The talk, talk, talk of our culture – much of it spewed out in a rush of urgent indignation – leads us to think we need to respond immediately. But we seldom know the full facts of a particular situation. Keller notes that careful listening, fact-checking, and grace-giving are put at a serious disadvantage when insinuations fly at us at the speed of a single click of someone else’s mouse.
We can’t afford to let society’s mockers distort our sense of what’s really happening in the world – a world where God is in fact still very much in charge.
Author Dan Lyons suggests that “overtalking” is one of the habits that almost always gets us into trouble. He should know. Lyons is a self-confessed “talkaholic,” someone who continues to talk even when he knows what he is about to communicate is probably going to create havoc.
“Men are the worst,” he believes. We mansplain, manterrupt, and deliver manalogues when it would be so much wiser just to be quiet. “When possible,” he writes, “say nothing.”
We can master the power of the pause – waiting for someone else to speak. We can listen carefully, paying fierce attention to others instead of thinking ahead to our next amazing comment.
And we can take the most radical step of all: We can quit social media, or at least go on an extended fast. We really don’t need to be continually connected to what everyone else is saying to have a life, and there is overwhelming evidence that our own inner worlds will be richer and happier if we pull the plug.
Lyons has attached seven words to a piece of paper above his computer: “QUIET! LISTEN! SHORT ANSWERS! WRAP IT UP!”
As he puts it, “The less I talk, the less I talk.” It’s a positive feedback loop that would surely have been endorsed by the apostle James.
What about the ease with which we surrender to anger?
Returning to Proverbs, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Proverbs 15:1).
As long as people have been compelled to share highways, family rooms, bedrooms, and boardrooms, the possibility of anger is always looming. But the wisdom of the ancient Hebrews is being confirmed by extensive research.
It matters, for instance, what happens in the opening minutes of a confrontation.
John Gottman and his associates at the Marriage Lab in Seattle have confirmed that difficult encounters usually begin and end at the same emotional temperature. If things start hot, they usually end up hot (if not incandescent). If things begin cool – what we might call a “soft start,” or a gentle answer – they usually finish that way, too. It matters what we say and what we don’t say when it’s time to enter a crucial conversation.
One of the anger-management fads at the end of the 20th century was called “ventilationism.” Anger was pictured as magma trapped inside a human volcano. Therapists advised people to release their raging emotions by screaming, cursing, or “venting” at the objects of their displeasure. You might recall images of conflicted couples on marriage retreats whacking each other with foam bats.
The reasoning was that people would ultimately dispel all their built-up anger, which would prevent a Mt. Vesuvius eruption.
That theory, it turns out, was seriously flawed. Dozens of follow-up studies have confirmed that ventilationism doesn’t reduce anger. It multiples it. As you might guess, the spouse or co-worker or neighbor who gets “vented upon” doesn’t particularly enjoy the experience, and often finds herself thinking, “Just wait until it’s my turn.”
This was something the author of Proverbs foresaw a long time ago: “Fools give vent to their rage, but the wise bring calm in the end” (29:11).
In a world where there is too much talk and way too much anger, we can choose to go a different way.
Stop and think. Listen carefully. Say less or say nothing at all. Don’t let anger – yours or someone else’s – win the day.
The Bible’s arithmetic – one quick and two slows – adds up to a genuinely happier life.
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