Doing Tongues - November 2007

Children love to see whether they can touch their noses with their tongues. They also like sticking them out in spite. What can you do with yours?

Be careful! James writes that the tongue is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. He claims that no-one can tame the tongue. (james 3)

Doubtless tongues do great damage. This is how Eric learns his lesson.

Eric (no relation to any known churchwarden!)  repeated a bit of gossip about a neighbour. Within a few days the whole community knew the story. The person it concerned was deeply hurt and offended. Later, the Eric learned that it was completely untrue.  He was very sorry and went to a wise old sage to find out what he could do to repair the damage.

"Go to the marketplace," he said, "and purchase a chicken, and have it killed.  Then on your way home, pluck its feathers and drop them one by one along the road."  Although surprised by this advice, Eric did what he was told.

The next day the wise man said, "Now, go and collect all those feathers you dropped yesterday and bring them back to me." Eric followed the same road, but to his dismay the wind had blown all the feathers away.  After searching for hours, he returned with only three feathers in his hand.

"You see," said the old sage, "It's easy to drop them, but it is impossible to get them back. So it is with gossip. It doesn't take much to spread a rumour, but once you do you can never completely undo the wrong."