Living in community means our lives will be commingled, and our stories will intersect with others. We have all heard someone from a small town lament something to the effect of 'everybody knows everybody's business here.' Some of this is inevitable when you're doing life together. Yet, I have found that in families, churches, schools, and organizations, there is sometimes something else at play.
Lauryn Hill has a line in one of her songs where she sings: 'Led to believe because we live in neighborhoods telling us what's going on will be all right.' We often feel obliged to tell other members of the community what's going on with someone else. We share someone's good news before they get to. We share someone's challenges with others and before we know, everyone is privy to that person's pain. We do not ask permission to share other people's tales with the rest of the community, as if the whole community has a right to know. I have been guilty of this myself before, especially in sharing someone's good news. I am a pretty good secret keeper and confidante. I think that's why people feel safe sharing intimate details of their lives with me. They come for a listening ear and often for me to speak life into their lives. That is a privilege I do not take lightly. To be trusted is one of the most important aspects of who I want to be, now and forever.
Yet I have always felt uncomfortable and uneasy when someone shares something about someone else that does not pertain to me or the sharer at all. I wonder if we all have that little sensor that goes off when we know we shouldn't be saying or hearing someone's tale. My general rule for other people's business is 'if I don't need to know, I don't want to know'. I learned this early in life. Right around early adolescence my mother and grandmother began saying to me, 'if people will tell other people's business to you, they'll tell yours to other people.' I saw it play out in the years of middle and high school. That's about when it starts. Probably by age 9 or 10, we start telling other people's stories for them. I never wanted to be caught up in the mess of 'I heard you said blah, blah, blah about me!' So not talking about other people kept me out of that foolishness during my school days. People had to make up a lie in order to try to pull me into situations like that.
The line between gossip and care is very thin. Sometimes, we do need to share with a trusted source because we genuinely need advice in how to move forward or the story has had an effect on us and we need to work through it. My husband and I have ALWAYS gone to trusted confidants and advisors in major matters with our children. We had to share parts of the children's stories in order to tell ours and to get what we needed. Yet, even with our children, we do not share their stories willy nilly, without regard for their privacy and needs. It is so tempting to share about someone's trial and even their triumphs. I face it, too. But to keep myself far from crossing the line, I ask myself:
if this were my story, would I want someone I entrusted it to tell it to just anyone? Would I want this on the front page of the newspaper? Would I want this shared on social media? If it were my story, would I share it on social media, or with just anyone? How would I feel if I found out that others were discussing something personal, private and intimate in my absence?
Some people are open books with their lives. They may feel comfortable talking to absolutely any one who will listen. But that's for them to do, not me. Even if someone doesn't specifically ask for us to keep a secret, I believe we know intuitively, deep down inside, when that's the expectation or should be.
Gossip hurts everyone- the speaker, the listener and the main character in the narrative. Gossip destroys trust, integrity, and one's self-respect and esteem. I am pretty sure every major religion and philosophical teaching warns against it. There are all kinds of psychological reasons we indulge in it, but there are just as many reasons to abstain.
We all need safe places to let our soft spots show. We all need at least one person who we know will keep our confidences and have our backs. Let's all be the kind of people who others can count on to let them tell their own stories, especially those that reveal their challenges and vulnerabilities. We can talk to who we need to in order to process our thoughts, feelings and part in the story, but make sure that's what we're doing, not just spilling the tea as the young folks say.
-Andrea
