We are guaranteed freedom of speech and expression in one of the rights endowed by our Creator to us and our posterity, enshrined in the Constitution of the United States of America.  It is a lie that "silence is violence," a rhetorical sledgehammer of an idea swinging directly for the heart of the First Amendment and thus the Bill of Rights.

Appreciate silence more today.  Yes, speak accurately, meaningfully, and strongly when you do speak, but also hear transcendent truth in the still of the heart, in your day's precious moments of silence.  Extend those.

As a side benefit, our chosen times of silence say something.  Silence says we are not pressured.  It says we are not compelled, nor intimidated, nor bullied by hellish (they would bring hell if actually believed) slogans.  Don't let the redefinition of violence or silence occur. 

Speak usefully when you have things to say.  Or keep thinking.  Solve, dream, pray; these can be done either vociferously or silently.  Make, plant, and build with your hands.  Love a significant other beyond words, sometimes. 

When you speak, choose only to engage in speech those whose responses you can count on being respectful. 

Freedom of expression, and freedom of non-expression, are meant for this.

Without silence there would be none of these:

- Contemplative faith practice

- Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness

- Tao

- Buddha

- Rejuvenation

- Retreats

- Sleep

- And oh...listening

Without silence, there would have been no students to sit and hear Socrates or Confucius, no receptive ears to hear the soliloquies of Shakespeare, no inventions that came only after careful, laborious study and consideration, no St. Patrick, no Notre Dame, no Mount Athos, no Lavras in classical Russia.  No Monticello, no Thoreau at Walden Pond, no Emerson or Whitman, and no reason for a park or a green area to get away into.

They would have all been condemned and mobbed.

Any day now, they'll be calling it "violence" not to turn in your maskless neighbor who still has the blood composition he's had his entire adult life (no clot shot).

Silence is violence, all right, to some particular things: to commotion, to hysteria, to chaos, to violence... well-timed silence can take these down, takes 'em right down a notch.

You want lawlessness?  Invert silence into "violence," and make disturbance and riotousness into the virtue.

Yes, the good book of Scripture speaks of sharing boldly — ring the bells and shout from the rooftops! — for the glory of God, for His sovereignty over us, and the reign of His kingdom.  It does not condemn the silent man or woman in their season.  Nor is the glory of the Lord even remotely what the preachers of "silence is violence" would cajole us not to be silent about. 

The deranged movement making its best effort to usurp society is full-on redefining all the important words that it possibly can: "truth," "lie," "sex," "gender," "country," "American," "nation," "citizen," "voter," "freedom," etc.  If and when they get "violence" and "silence," the scorched-earth dismantling of our nation will be done.  When they reach their ultimate goal of making silence into violence, the rights of Americans and all people of the world will be vanquished. 

The strong and the smart — smart enough to sometimes shut the mouth and open the ears to hear — must not let them.

Image: Pezibear via Pixabay, Pixabay License.

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