It’s All in How You Hold Your Tongue - Part #2

Sorry, I had to lay the background for the phrase “It’s all in how you hold your tongue” in its own devotion for this to make sense today. 

Tonight, I was leaving the church, I was chatting with a group of women. Tomorrow, for me as I write this is Valentine’s Day. One of them, was explaining some holiday (Galentine’s Day) for groups of women’s friends on the day before Valentine’s Day. I was feeling a little ornery, so I asked her if that was misogynistic.

Caught off guard and likely to shut me up and get rid of me, she conceded my point and offered, from her perspective, to open this special pre-Valentine’s Day holiday to men and women both.

As I was driving home, all I could think of was “it’s all in how you hold your tongue.”  You see over our 39 years of marriage, this phrase has taken on expanded meanings. One meaning is that if you are concentrating doing something, the way you hold your tongue determines whether you will be successful or not.  In other words, if you hold your tongue out in just the right spot, you will be successful at whatever you are concentrating on.

To expand my phrase a little more, another way to think about it is that two people can look at the same situation where one of them thinks it’s fine and the other person thinks it is wrong.  For example, the Boy Scouts of America recently and officially changed their name to Scouting America to appear more inclusive.

I never saw a problem with having a club for boys only (think of the Men’s breakfast or the Women’s Game Night) but there was a lot of controversy (and lawsuits as I recall) that ultimately ended with the Boy Scouts opening their club to girls as well. That necessitated ultimately the change in the name to Scouting America.

There was a Brady Bunch episode where Marsha wanted to join the boy’s organization that Greg was in and, after a careful review of the rules, insisted that she should be allowed to join. Greg, in retaliation, threatened to join the girls group that Marsha was in. The comedy was good and ultimately both children realized that it was ok for boys or girls only groups. In fact, if I remember the episode correctly, Marsha, after successfully completing the boy’s tasks realized that she didn’t want to do them in a regular club manner. Greg never really wanted to join the girl’s group.

“Thus says the Lord of hosts: Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of great age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets. Thus says the Lord of hosts: If it is marvelous in the sight of the remnant of this people in those days, should it also be marvelous in my sight, declares the Lord of hosts?” - Zechariah 8:4-6 ESV

“Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” - Galatians 3:23-29

I am all for people to have opportunities. James Bond, to me, will and should remain a man. If you want a female Bond, then make it Jill Bond (in fact, they already made Atomic Blonde).  In other words, we should be cautious and rarely force groups to do something that they don’t want to just because it is “fair.”

“You shall not have in your bag two kinds of weights, a large and a small. You shall not have in your house two kinds of measures, a large and a small. A full and fair weight you shall have, a full and fair measure you shall have, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. For all who do such things, all who act dishonestly, are an abomination to the Lord your God.” - Deuteronomy 25:13-16

Maybe it really is how you hold your tongue?