I tend to read the Proverb chapter for each day of the month.  It works out well as there are 31.  In any case, Proverbs 17 ends with two of my favorite lines in the whole corpus:

He who restrains his words has knowledge, And he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding. Even a fool, when he keeps silent, is considered wise; When he closes his lips, he is considered prudent. Proverbs 17:27-28

I guess I love this proverb so much because it is so true for me.  Sometimes I find myself speaking out of my unedited inner stream of consciousness.  Sometimes this works out okay, but sometimes there is little in there worth saying really.  Lately I can ramble on and on about my anxiety about the impending job hunt as my PhD dissertation is finished up this Spring.Where will we live next year?  Can we afford to live there? Do you need a PhD to be a barista at Starbucks? 

In the end, I've done everything I possibly can to prepare myself for an academic teaching career and in many ways this website is part of expressing what I'm about.  But, and here is where this Proverb's wisdom comes to the fore, talking about it all the time does little if any good.  In fact, the best thing I can be doing right now, as I've found time and time again, is to pray the Lord's Prayer.  That is why I've been reflecting on it these days.  I often get stuck on the "Your kingdom come and will be done" bit or the "Give us this day our daily bread."  I find that this helps bring out a cooler spirit as this proverb exonerates. 

Of course, total silence is not really what I think this Proverb is about.  Rather, it seems to me that it's about restraint and editing.  Graceful speech is the virtue.  Being careful with our language is the key. Although this blog falls well short at times, I think that is, more than anything, why I continue to do it.  It forces me to edit my speech and decide more carefully what to communicate and how.  My goal is that this practice will spill out into the rest of my speech and communication. Maybe someday I'll cultivate that cool spirit this proverb talks about.