The very thoughts that allow us to hurt another limit our ability to express the will of creation through ourselves. At the same time, each time we love another, we have just loved ourselves. Each time we create time for another, strive to understand another, we have just done each of these things for ourselves. When we disapprove of the actions, choices or beliefs of others, we witness through them those portions of ourselves that ask for a greater healing.
An early century desert monk once shared an image:
"When the door of the steam bath is continually left open, the heat inside rapidly escapes through it; likewise the soul, in its desire to say many things, dissipates its remembrance of God through the door of speech, even though everything it says is good ..."
Timely silence, then, is precious, for it is nothing less than the mother of the wisest thoughts.