A not-so-sacred vow of concision

 A not-so-sacred vow of concision 

I was thinking this morning: There’s that passage from the book of James: “Not many of you should become teachers, for you know that those that teach will be judged with greater strictness. And we all stumble, in many ways.” Which I guess I ignored when I agreed to teach Sunday School. That is, the few times I did — and only as a substitute. Reluctantly. Maybe I had it, the passage from James, in the back of my mind; it was why I was reluctant, I just didn’t know that.
     That was in the Presbyterian Church. I go to the Episcopal Church now, with Uncle Albert, when we go. And my best friend is a Lutheran pastor, when we see each other. I’m trying to think now what that means, all of it.

John Calvin, reading what he wrote.

I was thinking yesterday morning while I was dusting that I dust mostly because I need to feel I am putting something in order. I was thinking that it was a matter of conscience, broadly defined. My conscience, I decided, if tentatively, gets its instructions from the Calvin of The Institutes, not in anything he says — because what do I know about what he says? — not in what he says but in what he does, reducing “the Christian Religion” to a series of propositions. 
     Or maybe he expands it to a series of propositions. He did have a lot to say, it occurs to me.  Not only did he write The Institutes but a whole shelf-full of biblical commentaries, among other things — quite a number of other things, I’m sure. All the great theologians write quite a number of things: Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Schleiermacher, Barth; they write shelves and shelves of things.

Besides about teachers, James writes about the tongue, which is a small thing but can brag of great things. It’s a small fire that can start a great fire; it can set the entire course of life, the whole wheel of fortune, ablaze.
     And what is the pen but an extension of the tongue? I don’t know where that leads me, or leaves me. Maybe I just acknowledge that few of us, particularly few of those in religious institutions, can take a vow of silence — and even a vow of silence didn’t stop Merton from writing his shelf-full. But since we can’t say nothing, the less said, the better?
     Or is that easy enough for me to say, only because I have so little to say?

                                                                           09.07.23