Ooops! I just looked and I am completely caught up with my post-dated entries! I try to have at least a week's worth of postings scheduled to go... so I'd better get cracking!
I've subscribed to the Prairie Messenger, a Catholic newspaper published in Muenster SK, by the monks of St. Peter's Abbey. It's quite a well-balanced publication, not quite as far out there as the BC Catholic or Western Catholic Reporter. Somehow it has a broader scope of stories as well, not just focussed on the Canadian or Prairie scene.
Anyhow, I have had this newspaper riding around in my book bag for the past week, waiting to be read. Every one in a while at Starbucks, I'll consider pulling it out, but then I don't. But today!! Today is the day, and I've skimmed through the articles to get a sense of what's in there. One article that struck me is by Donald Ward, and relates an experience he had 40 years ago. Someone told a lie about Donald, said that he was in the pscyh ward over the summer, for doing too much LSD. In truth, Donald was away all summer being a summer-camp leader. But when he came back home... all sorts of rumours and exaggerated stories were swirling around about him. Eventually they died down... but even today, 40 years later... it still raises its ugly head sometimes...
Which got me thinking about how gossip, particularly ignorant gossip, can stick worse than mud. It's not just that we are gossiping with the person across from us... For that gossip will go and spread and metamorphose and mutate into something else entirely. Yet, it seems to be one of our favourite pastimes! "Did you hear about so-and-so... oh my God... can you believe it... I heard that..." Yeah, so what. You heard something from someone who heard something, from someone who heard something... Big deal... And even when we think we have the facts straight from the horse's mouth... guess what... it still all gets filtered through our head, through our story, through our ideas and beliefs and judgements and opinions. And it gets editted and reworked until the horse's mouth wouldn't even recognize it as it's own!
The other thing we do is ascribe all sorts of judgements to things that people say... Or we put our own interpretation on what they said or what they did... or what they must be feeling. It's a great way for us to try and create meaning in the world... But, it's "our" meaning... it really has nothing to do with them... or what they're thinking... or what they are feeling... It's just what we think they feel, based on how we think we would feel if we were ever in that sitatuion. Guess what... even if you were in their situation, it's still you in the situation, not them. You, with all of your background, all of your history, all of your stuff. Not them...
It seems to me we could give each other a bit more room to just be... to allow others to just be, without trying to put words and feelings and thoughts on top of what they do or how they are... And if we don't do it to them... maybe they won't do it to us... But it starts with us...
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