My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. (James 1:9-20).

People bug me.

I may have mentioned that before.  It’s still true.

People bug me because (present company excepted) they can be so idiotic, and they say things that are foolish and untrue and just plain dumb and I feel honor bound to point out their idiocy and so I speak out and set them straight and then sometimes I find out that what I thought they were saying isn’t what they were trying to say at all and I never let them finish their thought I just jumped to conclusions and blew up and made the whole situation awful and then I have to apologize and that bugs me.

James seems to think that the above scenario does not bring about righteousness.

James is probably correct.

I had a choir director once who instructed us to, “Listen louder than you sing.”  His point was that, if you can’t hear what’s going on around you, you can’t blend, you can’t make music, you can only create dissonance.  The same appears to be true about life.

It’s Thursday, Beloved.

Listen loud.