Keeping a simple four-letter reminder before one constantly—KYMS (Keep Your Mouth Shut)—is one of the ways to navigate in a world that is full of mere opinions, unresearched half-truths, loud-mouthed adherents of one cause or another. One needs to listen and to judge, to question and to search, to be an advocate of the one who “puts his money where his mouth is.” Maybe KYMS is not such a bad reminder, i.e. “to keep my mouth shut” temporarily until prayer and Scripture can influence words we speak or hear. Who wants to be a will-‘o-the wisp that follows every deception noised abroad in our wordy society?  That is not the truth that sets us free! Not the magician who releases us from the spell cast upon us in our current situation! Gullibility is not the way to go.

by Renée Domeier, OSB