Did you know…?  Have you heard…?  Can you believe that…?

How many times have we felt trapped, lured or persuaded to the temptation of gossiping?  Gossip can occur in a small group setting, one on one conversations or in a large group, and sometimes those situations almost feel unavoidable.  We don’t want to be the person that walks away from it because we fear the consequences of being judged and we certainly (most of the time) would never speak up out of fear of also being judged and even worst, condemned.

Gossip can be disguised in so many different ways.  Sometimes, we even make it look "appropriate and acceptable", as if it were a perfectly normal thing to do, without accepting and acknowledging the fact that what we are doing is wrong.

Are we gossiping or sharing information?  Where do we draw that fine line?  Talking to people and engaging in conversations is one of the biggest pleasures of life, but when does it become unethical.

Gossiping is when we include malice in what we share and in the way we engage in conversations with others.  

Sharing is about acknowledging and celebrating with others the successes and achievements of family and friends.  Talking about our projects, our children and our family, our fears, concerns, deepest desires.

I recently read a quote from the play Doubt, A Parable by John Patrick Shanley.  One of the messages that impacted me the most from that play was a paragraph about Gossip and Shanley’s interpretation of it in his play was spot on in my opinion.  I share that piece of the play here with you:

“A woman was gossiping with a friend about a man she hardly knew – I know none of you have ever done this – that night she had a dream. A great hand appeared over her and pointed down at her. She was immediately seized with an overwhelming sense of guilt. The next day she went to confession. She got the old parish priest, Father O’Rourke, and she told him the whole thing.

‘Is gossiping a sin?’ she asked the old man. ‘Was that the hand of God Almighty pointing a finger at me? Should I be asking your absolution? Father, tell me, have I done something wrong?’

 ‘Yes!’ Father O’Rourke answered her. ‘Yes, you ignorant, badly brought up female! You have borne false witness against your neighbor, you have played fast and loose with his reputation, and you should be heartily ashamed!’

So the woman said she was sorry and asked for forgiveness.

‘Not so fast!’ says O’Rourke. ‘I want you to go home, take a pillow up on your roof, cut it open with a knife, and return here to me!’

So the woman went home, took a pillow off her bed, a knife from the drawer, went up the fire escape to the roof, and stabbed the pillow. Then she went back to the old parish priest as instructed.

‘Did you gut the pillow with the knife?’ he says.

‘Yes, Father.’

‘And what was the result?’

‘Feathers,’ she said.

‘Feathers?’ he repeated.

‘Feathers everywhere, Father!’

‘Now I want you to go back and gather up every last feather that flew out on the wind!’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘it can’t be done. I don’t know where they went. The wind took them all over.’

‘And that,’ said Father O’Rourke, ‘is GOSSIP!’”

Simply powerful!

Sometimes we get caught up in conversation with people and we overshare.  It's OK if we overshare about our own personal life affairs, that’s OUR choice, but oversharing (or even sharing) information that other people have entrusted us with, that's crossing the line, violating their trust and engaging in a subtle -sometimes not so subtle- form of gossiping.

Have you ever heard that voice inside of you when talking to someone that says... don't do it, don't share it, don't engage, it doesn’t concern you, it's just not worth it.  I think we ought to listen to it more carefully and more often.

Just as we often say that worry takes years off of our lives, I think too that talking about others in a destructive way, makes us less attractive, less beautiful.

The three questions below have been around for as long as I can remember, but I think they are worth sharing again and it fits this story perfectly.

IS IT TRUE?  IS IT KIND?  IS IT NECESSARY? Simple questions with deep meaning.

May we always be people who choose to be “feather keepers” rather than “feather chasers”. ❤