Both the Gretchen Rubin from Happiness Project and now Rachel Held Evans in A Year of Biblical Womanhood, both put this on their list of things to not do. Gretchen says that studies show when people gossip, the things they say about another are later attributed back to them. Rachel mentions several provers that suggest gossip leads one down.
So I twice have had to apologize to the people I shared my juicy thoughts to and twice they told me, don't worry about it, that I'm too hard on myself. That is what I wish were true, but as I consider the weight of sharing on people who have hard situations, are human, and are loved by God, I don't want to be cruel. I want to believe the best about those whose stories are dramatic and difficult or strange to me. I want to either support them through friendship or let them be.
Rachel's punishment when she messes up is sitting on her slanted roof for long amounts of time. I don't have to get to my own roof and my neighbors might think I was in trouble, so what would be a way to remind myself and work through this? Wearing dirty rags for an hour in public? (That's what I imagine a diehard writer would do). It could be reading the awful books on Angry bird star wars weapons, or Power rangers early readers to my kids or cleaning someone else's toilets. Hmmm.
I have asked people to hold me accountable and want to apologize if I have spoken to you or about you so others would like me or think me cool. In fact, I wish I could be okay saying, I'm not cool, and even if you disagree you could nod and say, "no your not, but that's ok." And I will respond, "Yeah, and I'm okay being a kill-joy (or whatever word you use for not feeding or leading with someone's strangeness). That's not what I want to be all about."
1 comment:
That verse, "the good that I want I do not do," that one haunts me. But less for gossip than for other things. I can see it as being detrimental, but there's also a thin line between detrimental gossip and sharing things about the hardship you're experiencing with other people in your life, getting emotional support from other people. I don't think you should be hard on yourself for that--you can't live constantly censoring yourself. And yet... Maybe the motivation is what's different between gossip and genuine sharing? I need help with this, rather than: guess what she got into. In any case: no sitting on the roof for you.
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