lunes, 1 de abril de 2013

A TIME TO BE SILENT AND A TIME TO SPEAK

A mantra is a chant repeated (whispered, if the circumstances do not allow words to be spoken aloud) to relax and let go of stress.
To get a hold of impatience, my besetting sin, I use a verse from the Bible's Old Testament as a mantra.
The verse I chant is Ecclesiastes 3:7:
"(There is) A time to keep silence, and a time to speak".
I usually chant it in Swedish or German, though (It works best with Luther's translation: "Schweigen hat seine Zeit, und reden hat seine Zeit").
The author of the Ecclesiastes, identified by most scholars with Solomon, was right. Though most people, including the writer of this blog, are not so fond of the time to keep silence when it comes to waiting.
Waiting in silence and without any distractions on one's own is something that the reader is very likely to dislike as much as I do.
Another "time to keep silence" is when a totalitarian government bans self-expression, freethought, and/or freedom of speech. Think Ferdinand II, Oliver Cromwell, Benito Mussolini and other Fascist dictators, Josif Stalin and other Communist dictators. After years of violent repression, all of them finally failed.
It comes as no surprise that great international shifts into self-expression values and deviance tolerance (Hellenism, Enlightenment, Sexual Revolution) always succeed the defeat of the crises caused by such totalitarianisms, that appear in the pages of history of ideas as Losers with capital letters.
Several Bible critics have also given their thoughts on this verse:
Clarke:
"Wisdom restrains
The tongue, when words are vain: but now,
'Tis time to speak, and silence would be criminal."
Sometimes, "words are vain", No more details.
Gill:
 "A time to keep silence, and a time to speak ; when it is an evil time, a time of calamity in a nation, it is not a time to be loquacious and talkative, especially in a vain and ludicrous way, ; or when a particular friend or relation is in distress, as in the case of Job and his friends,  or when in the presence of wicked men, who make a jest of everything serious and religious, ; and so when under afflictive dispensations of Providence, it is a time to be still and mute, and not open the mouth in a murmuring and complaining way, . And, on the other hand, there is a time to speak, either publicly; or privately [···].
That's right. Persecution. The blues (either when oneself or an acquaintance has the blues). Those are convenient scenarios to be silent.
Keil and Delitsch:
"To keep silence has its time, and to speak has its time." Severe strokes of adversity turn the mind in quietness back upon itself; and the demeanour most befitting such adversity is silent resignation.
The blues, again. When you feel like that, nothing appears pleasant.



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