Is it better to remain silent?

Is it better to remain silent?

My 8th grade English teacher posted famous quotes on the walls in her classroom.  I remember this one especially:

                            "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak                                 and remove all doubt."

 

Strange how some things stay with us while others are long forgotten.  My English teacher posted dozens of quotes.  This one stayed with me.  It became a sort of mantra for me. A justification.  A defense.  I will remain silent.  When I am silent, I can appear neutral.  When I am silent, I don't have to make a compelling argument.  When I am silent, I can appear to be smarter than I actually am.  When I am silent, I don't have to open myself up to criticism or ridicule or rejection. When I am silent, I can disappear -- almost.

Better to remain silent.

"There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens...

A time to tear, and a time to mend,

A time to be silent, and a time to speak. 

(Ecclesiastes 3:1 & 7)

 I don't know if the writer of Ecclesiastes intended for those last two lines to work together -- in other words, that WORDS are a part of the tearing and mending process and thus there are times to be silent and times to speak because words, or the lack of them, are part of the healing process.

And anyway, there are plenty of people who are more than willing to speak.  They speak often.  On every topic.  They speak with authority.  They speak on behalf of God.  They speak on behalf of the Bible.  They speak on behalf of lots of things -- issues and people and policies and religion.

But who will speak on behalf of me?  Who will speak these things that God is teaching me?  Who will share the insights and lessons that I'm discovering and learning?  Who will share the words that rise up within me desperate to come out?

I think I have been sitting here, hoping, praying that someone would speak on behalf of me.  I've been silent when told to be silent.  I've been a pretty good listener.  And I've walked away when told to walk away.  But why?

So, Ecclesiastes says there's "a time to be silent," but it also says there's "a time to speak."  I'm at a point in my life where I think it's time that I spoke.  Maybe this blog will be my microphone.  And maybe some people will actually want to hear what I have to say.  Maybe...