I heard this story as a boy and it scared me. Once in a town, perhaps not too much smaller than Wagga, a woman went to confession to a priest. She confessed she had been gossipping around town about someone she didn’t like. “Today is a windy day” said the priest “so go to the top of the big hill just outside the town and let go a pillow full of feathers. After you do this, wait a week, then come and see me.” The woman thought this was a very strange request, but she did it all anyway and a week later came back to him.
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Then the priest told her “Now, go back to the top of the hill and gather up all the feathers you tipped out a week ago; every last one.” The woman replied “But Father, I did that a week ago! Those feathers would have scattered everywhere by now!” The priest responded “And what do you think has happened to your gossip?”
I think that priest was a bit mad; but his theory is sound.
Gossip is a habit and like many bad habits, the earlier in life it is picked up the harder it is to break later. Although social media has brought so many excellent things into our lives, it has contributed to making even children bigger and younger gossips.
Many of us give the youth and children the direct advice “If you haven’t got anything nice to say about someone, don’t say anything at all.” But then, through our behaviour, give them the indirect advice “If you haven’t got anything nice to say about someone, call them an idiot!” It’s amazing what bad example we can give and not even notice. It is important that we do our best to not only avoid gossipping ourselves, but also to encourage our friends to “kick the habit”. This is not easy, especially if they’re a good friend, but by slowing them down we may end up one day protecting our own good name. By silently listening, as enjoyable as it is, in a way we are showing we think gossip is okay.
I once had a friend who just went for everybody’s throat, even his closest friends, and me, because I didn’t want to lose his friendship, would stand there and say nothing, not really knowing how to break the bad news to him that these people he is rubbishing are my friends too. Eventually, I felt I had to say something, so I said “You know, I think I must be your best friend!” He smiled and asked “Why do you say that?” I replied “Well … because I’m the only person I have never heard you back-stab.”.
When you see two people fighting physically, verbally or even legally, it is not always easy to know who is the “good guy”. But the “good guy” is not the person punching into the other guy who’s already down and out on the ground; for as the Bible explains “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.” (Isaiah 42:3). Sometimes gossip does exactly this. We take someone’s fault, which may already make their life difficult and we make their life even more difficult by pointing it out to others. This can get messy and has even tragically caused suicides.
In a way, Wagga and the region is a very small town. This is good, however, when we gossip about someone in Mangoplah to someone else in Junee, it’s not impossible that the person you gossip to in Junee knows that person you are gossiping about in Mango better than you think.
Wagga is a great city where you can still walk down the street and bump into one person after the next that you know. Does this happen much in Melbourne or Sydney? Rarely. So let’s do all we can to protect each other’s good name; because in a small town, your name is very important.
