Train Wreck

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
Matthew 7:3-5

Such a juicy story! I have to tell someone right away. Even as you are reading this you are probably waiting for the details. What nasty thing am I going to describe. Gossip gets us going whether we know the folks in the story or not. This week I leapt into the muck. I had a juicy story and I passed along the info within five minutes. Come to find out however I got the name wrong. So now I am slandering a person who doesn’t even “deserve it” as if the first poor soul did. Why did I do this? The story didn’t end with me. I told it and then each person who heard it told their version to someone else. Why are we so interested in the train wreck of someone else’s misfortune?

Sunday morning. The sermon this week was about gossip. Now I’m convicted. Ouch caught in the act. This “small sin” was just a little lunch room chatter. Really? Why did I want to pass along damaging details? I do not have an easy answer here. I am not going to be able to wrap this up in a neat little lesson, I can’t put a bow on this and hand it to you to unwrap the secret to leaving gossip alone. This plagues me. I am a ”good person” I see the sunny side of life and yet I leapt on the train, pulled out the station with a full head of steam and barrelled through the life of someone I barely know. It was so easy because I didn’t know the person very well. I could speculate and add my opinion. The story got all mixed with many versions.

The best I can do this week is to admit my sin. I do know that my heart has hurt for my part in forwarding this gossip. I did finally see the harm and in later conversations I have been careful to think before I speak. “Will my words help or hurt the person I’m talking about?” This little thought has stopped me a few times from sharing a nasty detail.

As I said I can’t tie the problem of gossip in a neat lesson, so I’ll leave you with something I found in an old Readers’ Digest.

A woman goes to her pastor to confess she has been caught up in gossip. She asks what she can do to make it right. She is distressed about what she has done;. The pastor asks her if she has a feather pillow at home? Yes she does. Then go home take the pillow into your backyard and cut it open. Then pick up all the feathers from your yard. That’s impossible she complains. And so it will be to for you to stop the gossip that is spreading.

This is not a happy tale with hope of how to fix the gossip. However sobering thoughts on our shortcomings are equally as valid. Maybe, just maybe next time a juicy story comes your way you will pause just long enough to wonder if telling it is a good idea.

Posted 5/22/2007 @ 1:16 PM | Weekly Thoughts