Daily Reading for June 21

I have on my office door these words from an accomplished Indian yogi: “Before speaking, consider whether it is an improvement upon silence.” The man who wrote them once went nineteen years without speaking, setting a standard I can’t hope to meet. Yet his words remind me that when we do speak, we must speak truth. Even more important, because truth so often eludes us, we must speak in kindness. In fact, we might amend the yogi’s saying to read, “Before speaking, consider whether you speak out of love.” If we could learn always to speak out of love, we could change everything.

From Learning to Fall: The Blessings of an Imperfect Life by Philip Simmons (Bantam Books, 2000).