gossip-squashers unite!

i used to worry what people thought about me. i mean, i still do sometimes, but not nearly as much as i used to. i remember riding beside my mom in the car. i was about 10. i was telling her about some situation i was in and how worried i was about what some other person thought about me (in hindsight, it was probably a girl, but i don't really remember). her response was simply this, "robby, we wouldn't worry about what people thought about us if we knew how little they did." my mom was always good at keeping me grounded. she's taught me that life is usually a matter of perspective. change your perspective, and everything that seemed such a big deal usually disappears in minuteness.

gossip has hurt a friend of mine. fortunately, i was not the cause of the pain, i was simply an ear to listen. here's the situation...and don't worry, i'm going to stay as general as i need to, so that i'm not gossiping...

person "A" told person "B" that he (person "A") probably would not do "something." person "B" interpreted this to mean "A" definitely would not do "something." two months later, person "A" did "something". cue gossip. "B" found out about it when person "C" and "D" were talking about it at the lunch table. then "B" called "A" a hypocrite in front of several other persons ("E", "F", and "G"...i'm "G"). it's okay if you need to draw a diagram.

person "A" divulged how hurt he was to me, and now i'm blogging about how bad gossip is. get it?

now, i'm of the opinion that i cannot control what people say about me. i've worried about it a lot in my past, but today i'm comforted by the fact that as bad as the gossip may get about me, i'm certainly a lot worse than that. call me a whore...i'd agree. isn't that the point of the gospel, that even though every inclination of my heart is evil all the time, Christ has redeemed me? yes, it is.

but, a lot of people do not have this perspective, and the reality of gossip is, it tears community apart limb from limb. the closer and tighter the community, the worse gossip hurts.

i think there's a serious misconception about the nature of gossip. i used to think gossip was equivalent to slander. that is, falsely putting people down. nope. gossip covers a lot more ground than that.

webster says gossip is....
"a person who habitually reveals personal or sensational facts about others", "rumor or report of an intimate nature", "a chatty talk"

in other words, unnecessary talk about others is gossip.

nip it. nip it good.

i encourage you to be proactive about stopping gossip when you hear it. me and some friends were playing the cardgame Nertz one night when two guys started bashing another guy who wasn't there. another person said, "guys, let's talk about something else. i don't like talking about ____ when he's not here to defend himself." the guy who started the talk squirmed in his seat. it was the awkwardness of knowing he was in the wrong and someone had just called him out, mixed with the pride of not wanting to admit it.

you don't have to be so frank about it. simply change the subject. it's easy to do. join the movement of gossip-squashers across the world.