This morning, my deodorant ran out – well, nearly ran out at least. So I scooped the remaining piece of 
white goop out of the plastic canister it was nestled in and rubbed it on my armpits by hand.
(That’s because I’m cheap. Waste not, want not. Etc.)
It worked well: full coverage. The only problem? The next act in my morning ritual is to floss my teeth. I strung out a nice piece of floss (fingertip to shoulder – the perfect length, just like my friendly dentists says), and got right to work. Halfway through, I noticed that my tongue felt weird.
I didn’t wash my hands in between the acts of applying the deodorant and flossing my teeth; and I had deodorant on my tongue.
For those of you who are still reading, there IS a moral to this story. Deodorant doesn’t belong on my tongue – or yours. My deodorant is one of those hyper-manly, super-strong, tested for 48 hours on a sweaty, curmudgeonly camel in the Sahara desert kind of deodorants. It’s an anti-perspirant too; a dry up your sweat no matter how hot it is miracle of modern ingenuity.
It’s also very effective at drying up my tongue. It madth my tongue feel weally weirdth.
Some things just don’t belong on our tongues. Slander and sarcasm; insults and innuendos; perverted jokes and subtle jabs and angry diatribes and bitter comments…
We ought to be able to taste them as soon as they show up and know immediately that they shouldn’t be there. Impurity and arrogance and unkindness and negativity and chronic complaining – all of those things ought to madth our tongueth feel weally weirdth.
Do you have any deodorant on your tongue? Stop whatever you’re doing and wash it off. It doesn’t belong there.
May the Lordth bleth you.
And the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself… It is restless and evil, full of deadly poison.9 Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of God. 10 And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right! (James 3:6,8-10 – NLT)
