This week, until 15 November, Kevin Mayhew Ltd are offering 10 per cent off The Teacher, normally retailing at £14.99. That means a saving of £1.50 using the code UNFOLDING10 when ordering the book from the company’s website. Just type the code into the relevant box at the online checkout between the dates given.
Meanwhile, here’s the fifth of the sessions I’ll be posting this week from the book, to run alongside this promotion.
Gossip
‘Can you keep a secret?’ he asked. And his friend nodded. But the reality was different, and the juicy snippet of gossip was passed on . . . and on . . . ever more twisted and embellished with each retelling. Rumour fed rumour, scandal mounted upon scandal, invention built on invention, until none could see where truth started and falsehood ended. The one ‘accused’ had faced judge and jury, verdict passed, without even realising a trial had begun.
So I asked the Teacher, ‘Why are we like this? What is it about gossip that attracts us so?’
And the Teacher answered, ‘The words of a gossip are like tasty titbits; they soon make their way deep into a person. If you hear people running you down, don’t take it to heart. For aren’t you well aware, if you’re honest, that you’ve frequently run people down yourself?’
I saw then how we feed on scandal, drooling inwardly over what we outwardly condemn; how, once we have tasted it, gossip becomes not just an occasional morsel but our staple diet. And the more we have of it, the more we want, and the less our greed is satisfied.
‘But isn’t that just the way of the world?’ I asked. ‘Does it really harm anyone apart from ourselves?’
Then the Teacher answered, ‘A gossip divulges secrets; those who are trustworthy in spirit respect what’s told in confidence. An insincere person stirs up discord, and those who whisper tittle-tattle break up even the closest of friendships. Scandalmongers will air in public what’s revealed to them in private; so then, have nothing to do with them.’
And I understood that, for all our imagined virtue, we delight in doing others down in order to build ourselves up, in boosting our own esteem at the cost of another’s.
I saw too how in exposing secrets, we conceal our own, and in highlighting errors we mask our faults, for in pointing the finger at others we deflect scrutiny from ourselves.
And I saw how the more we betray a confidence the easier it becomes, and the more attention it earns us the more we crave it again.
But I realised also that those who gossip to us will also gossip about us, their word being like a fraudster’s promise, not to be trusted. And if we spread rumours about others, we will hear them of ourselves, for as we reap so shall we sow.
So then, my counsel is this: if you would hear no evil, speak no evil; and if you would have secrets kept, keep them first in turn. Gossip may slip down nicely – a tasty morsel indeed – but it will leave a bitter taste in the mouth, and life, of all.