Admittedly: “የወሬ የለውም ፍሬ!” And so shall we all shut up our mouths. Keep quiet! ጸጥ፣ ረጭ! በቃ? One may ask however: What is the purpose of our mouth then? To which a simple answer may suggest itself: just to let food and drink pass through. But is this the true sense of the saying? Of course not.
What then do they mean when they say: “የወሬ የለውም ፍሬ”? It is quite simple. To be sure, by “ወሬ” they do not mean any talk whatsoever; rather, they seem to refer to a specific kind of talk: to an “idle talk” (የሥራ-ፈት፣ ሥረ-አስፈች ወሬ!). For, in so far as the matter under discussion is either not known at all or deliberately covered over in idle talk, there can be no fruit to be obtained from it (ፍሬ የለውም). It indeed is doomed even from the get go to remain ineffective . What can idle talk help us gain other than killing our precious time?
Let’s therefore leave such kind of ineffective and fruitless talk behind and engage in an effective and fruitful kind of talk, in a kind of genuine discourse I am trying to evoke here (call it dialogue, colloquy or whatever), in a conversation, the first condition of which is ensuring that the other person is with us, all the more so as we perceive ourselves to be members of the one and same Tewahedo family.
Dear Nahuda,
ReplyDeleteI agree with all what you have said. But what shall I do with my lips if I grow up on unfertile ground and if the trunk of my thought is fruitless? What is wrong if I talk for the sake of talk just to do a physical exercise with my lips to make sure they are actively working? How can I make effective words, if the world I live in has already disoriented me with jerk ideas? Why you preclude me not to interact with my friends who share my senseless world? Who knows our conversation with fruitless words might be fruitful in itself not for you but for us? Would you please tell me which ideas are fruitful and which are fruitless so that I join your meaningful world?
Your fruitless friend,
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ReplyDeleteDear Nahuda,
ReplyDeleteI agree with all what you have said. But what shall I do with my lips if I grow up on unfertile ground and if the trunk of my thought is fruitless? What is wrong if I talk for the sake of talk just to do a physical exercise with my lips to make sure they are actively working? How can I make effective words, if the world I live in has already disoriented me with jerk ideas? Why you preclude me not to interact with my friends who share my senseless world? Who knows our conversation with each other with fruitless words might be fruitful in itself not for you but for us? Would you please tell me which words are fruitful and which are fruitless so that I join your meaningful world?
Your fruitless friend,
Thanks dear Yemaleda for your straightforward reactions/questions.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to speak out of a memory of growing on an “unfertile ground.” Fertile or not the ground was, I would however like to remind you of the fact that (as an adult) your Lord God has sure put you on the way where you would be able to take (or have already taken) a certain distance from it (that is, from your childhood and youth) so that you may now look back and bestow meaning upon it. When you say “the world… disoriented me,” I see nonetheless that you have once had a sense of orientation and, what is more, you are now longing for re-orientation—which by the way reminds me of my own situation, and the situation of each and every repentant for that matter. Disoriented as you seem to be at the moment, it is no wonder if the world turns out to be senseless to you. I guess this is just the time for you as for anyone in a similar situation to remember as vividly as possible that the world was after all created ex nihilo and, having experienced the nothingness of life that is not cleansed by the creative power of God and not filled with His Holy Spirit, to relentlessly pray: “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” When you do so, the world sure make sense again—and this time a genuinely spiritual sense!
I wish I had enough time to answer your last question in detail as it is directly related to this particular post as well as to the aim of the blog. To remain within the context of the colloquy this blog is intending to promote, I would say any idea that has a significant bearing upon the subject matter of the conversation (here, the unity of the Ethiopian Church) may be regarded as fruitful. Not always instantly though. There may be ideas that seem not to be directly concerned with the subject matter but have indeed an effect on it. Some ideas may even serve the purpose by way of negation. At any rate, it is not the conversant that should arbitrarily decide whether an idea is fruitful or not. Rather, it is from the relation of the idea to the subject matter, to the common concern that brings us together that ideas may be judged either fruitful or fruitless…