June 26, 2008

If you would like to read her previous monthly columns click HERE.

By Dr. Mary C. McDonald

Secretary of Education, Superintendent of Catholic Schools

Admiral Rickover was quoted as saying, "Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." His summation seems right on target. The pettiness of gossip should not be considered a lofty goal by anyone.

Years ago I heard about a woman who was noted for her "small mind" in spite of her intelligence, social status, and position of authority. Her mantra seemed to be, "If you can't say anything nice about someone, then sit next to me." Her judgmental approach was so crafted, so subtle, that she didn't really have to say too much at all. All she had to do was plant a seed of doubt about the ability, character, or lifestyle of her latest target in the mind of her listener. Although this was the habit of a lifetime, she never thought about the hurt, pain, and even loss of respect that her gossip caused others until the time when she was the victim of the gossip herself. The experience was life changing for her. She knew, or so the story goes, that her shortcoming needed to be addressed, and so she decided to wipe the slate clean and amend her ways.

She went to her parish priest to seek forgiveness, confess her sins and start over. When she finished her confession, the priest handed her a large feather pillow and told her to take it, cut it open, go to the middle of the Old Bridge and shake all the feathers out of the pillow. When there were no more feathers left in the pillow, she was to bring the empty pillowcase back to him. It sounded like a strange penance to her, but she did as she was instructed. When she returned to the priest, she handed him the pillowcase. With the exception of some feathers clinging to the woman's clothes and hair, all the feathers were gone.

"Now," said the priest, "go back and gather up all the feathers and put them back in the pillowcase." The woman was shocked at the impossibility of the task. "There is no way I can do that, they have blown away. I don't know where they went. They went everywhere. I will never be able to get them back." she cried.

"You are right," the priest said, "and neither will you be able to get back even a single word of gossip about another person, or collect all the seeds of doubt about the good character of another you have planted in the minds of others, that have already started to germinate." "The only thing that will remain when you gossip about another," the priest continued, "is the reputation that clings to you, like the feathers that now cling to our clothes and hair. Now, brush them off and start over, but remember the experience of the feather pillow." The woman left, changed by the experience, transformed by the crisis of understanding.

"A perverse man stirs up dissention, and a gossip separates close friends." (Proverbs 6:28)

"Without wood a fire goes out; without gossip, a quarrel ends." (Proverbs 26:20)

A gossip manipulates the thoughts of others to serve a self-promoting need. The focus narrows only on that need and does not see the "big picture", the interconnectedness of us all. When we wound, we are all wounded. When we heal, we are all healed. When we lift up another person, we are all lifted. When we are committed to a spiritual evolution, we come to understand that we are tethered, one to another, by God's love, and our words frame our commitment to live in that love.

Whenever we speak, our words should be like the feathers in the wind, so, that wherever our words land, they would be considered as coming from a "great mind" and we would be pleased that some would cling to us.