“I Told Her Not To Tell You I Told Her”

Dalton Key

            Under the curious heading, “Have Tale — Will Tattle,” I found the following imaginary (?) exchange: One woman charges, “She told me you told her what I told you not to tell her.” To which her friend replies, “Why that mean thing! I told her not to tell you I told her!” The first woman pleads, “Well, I promised her that I would not tell you she told me, so don’t tell her I told you!”

            Sound familiar? Though a convoluted conversation like this may hint at humor, a more serious and deadly problem lurks beneath the surface. As you read the few words on this page, families are being divided, friendships are being destroyed, brethren are being alienated; and all because of nothing more than wagging, too-busy tongues.

            Solomon wisely observed, “Where there is no wood, the fire goes out; And where there is no talebearer, strife ceases” (Proverbs 26:20).

            Gossiping talebearers are the emotional vultures of the human race. They pass over all that is good and positive and true in their insatiable hunger for the putrid. They revel in the wrongs of others, whether real or imagined. Though Christ-like love “thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth” (1Corinthians 13:5-6), these prating parasites do just the opposite.