Cat got your tongue?
Funny how small towns invite the rumor mill, don’t ya think?
We all know how rumors get started. Someone hears something juicy and wants to tell their friend. From there it spreads like wildfire. We say things like “Well, don’t tell anyone, but this is what I heard…” Then BAM…it spreads.
Now here’s the thing, we all did the experiment as children where we whispered a phrase into the ear of our classmates and so forth for the message to be passed around the room. By the time the message reached the last kid in the class it barely resembled the original message. It was manipulated by our own biases and misunderstandings.
So why do we engage in this type of behavior as adults? Why do we participate in gossip like this? Well, folks, I’ll go ahead and tell ya, I hear gossip everyday, but it’s a rare thing for me to spread it. I kind of pride myself on being the person to which gossip goes to die. See, I just don’t agree with it.
Most of the gossip I hear about is focused on leaders in our community. There are those that want to tear them down. To pull away their credibility. Is it right? Absolutely not.
So why do we do it?
These are the people out there leading and making changes and differences in our community, so why is the first impulse to gossip about them? Is it to take away credibility? Is it to prove they are capable of faults?
Here’s the deal, at the end of the day, I’ve only ever heard of one perfect person and his name was Jesus Christ. With him setting the standard I find it hard to believe the rest of us will come anywhere close to those standards.
In fact here’s what the Good Book has to say on gossip:
“A perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends” (11:13; 16:28, NIV).
So there ya have it. Pretty straight forward if you want to know the truth. Gossip sows conflict- a bad thing. Gossip betrays friendships- also a bad thing.
So stop it. Join me and let’s put a stop to the nasty bits circulating about each other. Time and again, I see the good in Senatobia and see the hearts of gold that make up our community. Together let’s set another standard to separate our community and shine above the “common”. Let the rumors spread about the positive things happening here in Tate County. And basically, yeah, let the cat hold our tongue when it comes to spreading negative gossip.
