“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)
I see a stark and painful contrast lately between the kingdom of God (‘quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger’) and the kingdoms of this world (‘slow to listen, quick to speak, quick to anger’). There are sane and sensible voices out there who fact-check and speak with reason and logic but often the damage has already been done. “The Analects of Confucius made the claim…that even a four-horse chariot could not catch a word once uttered, that the spoken word was irrevocable.”(Kuang, Rebecca F. 2022 Babel p.336 published by Harper/Voyager) Deliberate and pervasive misinformation and disinformation have been weaponised into tools of chaos and violence. So, parents and a community bereaved by the incomprehensible actions of a single young man cannot even grieve in peace and dignity because other voices have used their tragedy to spew twisted words of hatred that have spiralled into riots.
O Lord, may everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.