Monday, February 14, 2011

Let Your Yes Mean Yes and Your No Mean No

Originally posted to Chez VH, February 14, 2011 -

Don't you love this bit from yesterday's Gospel?
Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,' and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one.
Can you imagine how much heartache, misunderstanding and general contentiousness could be avoided if people actually followed that?

I think it's an antidote to a substantial piece of what ails our materially prosperous modern culture. It's a pet theory of mine that when people lack genuine hardships in their lives, many of them have a tendency to fabricate their own hardships through complex interpretations and second guessing of what other people say and think and things like that (I am certainly guilty of this at times too!). If you're not fighting for your life or working your tail off, it's very easy to fall into hyper-sensitive self consciousness.

Besides keeping ourselves busy with worthwhile tasks, I think a necessary part of surviving our modern culture is to make a concerted and consistent push towards simplicity (and that this gospel is a great place to start).

What do you think?

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