Just when you think people could not get any ruder, Kanye West bursts into Taylor Swift's award acceptance speech for Best Female Video at the2009 MTV Video Music Awards. Basically, he said someone else should have won. Kanye felt it was okay to burst in since he did say, "Imma let you finish." He did, but who cares? Fortunately, Beyonce showed class by turning over her award time to Taylor to let Taylor have her moment.
Seeing rudeness in others is not hard for us unless, maybe, the rudeness is directed at someone (say a politician) we don't like. But, more basically, any time we interrupt, we devalue the other person. I cannot count the times I am forming my (stellar, in my mind) rebuttal while someone is talking. Listeners are a rarity in an era where the zeitgeist is mouthy, stridently pressed opinions.
Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. James 3:5-6, 9 (NIV)
Will I listen today? Really listen. Can I let my opinion go for the sake of another? Will I set another person's life ablaze because I had to speak. May I honor those I encounter today by listening a lot and speaking a little. May I do more than, "Imma let you finish."
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