How Gossip Is Like Drinking Diet Coke

It tastes delicious but burns your throat in the process.

It’s addicting. Soon you find you can’t live without it. No matter how many times you try to quit, it calls to you at every turn.

Even though you know it’s bad for you, even though it might cause irreversible damage, you just keep doing it.

Her name was Amy. And in junior high, she did one of the bravest things I’ve ever witnessed.

There we were, a group of junior high girls gathered in the locker room snickering as we gossiped about girls not in “our” group. Several of us noticed Amy looked a little queasy. We asked her if she was sick.

She shook her head, and then stood up and addressed us. “I think we should stop gossiping. Last night, Pastor talked about treating others how we would want to be treated, and I wouldn’t want people to talk about me like this.”

Having said her piece, she stood there uncertainly, poised to run, and on the brink of tears. It must take monstrous courage to face a group of feral junior high girls. I remember a couple of us raising our eyebrows, and then one of us said something like, “We’ll talk about whatever we want. If you don’t like it, you can leave.”

It was said with the implication that she should leave and that, as soon as she did, the conversation would turn to her.

As she ran out of the locker room, I was ashamed by my tacit consent. I, too, had been convicted by the Pastor’s message the night before but hadn’t had the tiniest inclination to act on it. Amy had that courage, and now she was outside the locker room – our group’s frequent haunt – friendless and alone.

I sought her out after our gossiping session – which had included Amy accompanied by words like snotty and stuck-up – and apologized.

“I’m sorry,” I told her as she cried into her Kleenex.

“It’s okay, “she assured me after a while, looking up through reddened eyes.

But it was not okay. I was ashamed by my actions, and the next time our group turned to gossiping, I made jokes and tried – sometimes successfully – to turn the topic to something else. Because I knew if I didn’t, Amy would walk out again, even knowing what it would cost her. Her convictions were that strong.

And I frankly, couldn’t live with the shame that brought me.

That episode from my childhood still resonates with me today. Most likely because I still struggle with gossip. Especially in my office. I work with talented, intelligent, and witty people who like nothing more than the good stop-and-gossip session. It’s how we communicate, relate, and de-stress.

I know that doesn’t make it right.

I try to imagine how my co-workers would act if I stood up and said something about not gossiping. My guess is that they’d listen politely, and then guffaw behind my back.

Office gossip is a unique thing for me. I’m observant when it comes to people, so I’ll observe a person – usually someone the majority of the office doesn’t like – and then formulate the perfect “zinger.” During the next quick exchange with a co-worker in the hallway, I’ll deliver my zinger, usually to howling laughs and snickers. It makes me feel smart and funny.

But all it really makes me is small and petty.

Perhaps the main point is that I know there is no possible way gossiping can ever bring glory to God. Remember the old, “Let me tell you about so-and-so, so you can pray for her” line? That was just Christian gossip. And how well I knew it. We “prayed” for a lot of people in my college dorm room.

I’m more than a little humbled that Amy, at age 13, had conquered the concept of gossiping as an actual sin. She understood the seriousness of it. And since her life had been affected by idle gossip, no doubt she’d felt the sting of knowing other people were talking about her. I’m 29 and just starting to realize how very wrong gossip is and what kind of irreparable damage it can cause.

Just the other day, I was sitting in our staff cafeteria with some co-workers, and we started in on the office misfits. I had zinger after zinger, and we were in stitches from laughter. On the way back to my office however, I felt sick. And it wasn’t from the food. I knew I had done the wrong thing.

So, I’m posting this on my blog. You are my friends and family. I can trust you to help keep me accountable - that my words would honor God and not tear others down.

Amy might not have known it then, but she inspired me by her godly example. I think it’s finally time I stand up and walk outside that locker room with my head held high.