You Didn't Hear This From Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip

by Kelsey McKinney

is ironic, in the end, that all of the pastors were right. The thorn was supposed to remind me that I needed God, but once I rejected the idea that it was a thorn, my faith faded gradually and painfully, like a bruise. The scales fell from my eyes, as they had from the apostle Paul’s, and suddenly all I could see in front of me bright and shining was gossip. I stopped praying for God to take away my desire to gossip, and eventually I stopped praying altogether. Without the fear of sin, I was able to stop policing my engagement with gossip, which in turn let me gossip more. I was so good at it. I loved buffing up the details of something that had happened with one group of friends and relaying it to another. I loved learning about the nuances of history where gossip had been written out. Because it is easy for me to believe in some kind of innate characteristics and predestination, because I was brought up to do so, I do think that maybe this thorn inside me really was there from the beginning. Maybe being a gossip is simply part of my identity and personality, unremovable and consistent. But I don’t know that to love to gossip I had to reject my faith. Now, much later, I can see that there is plenty of room within Christianity for a gossip like me. Not only would a just God forgive you, but the Bible itself does not speak out that strongly against the behavior.