All my life, I had been taught we shouldn’t gossip, and I had faithfully done so. My neurodivergent mind took this rule very literally. But as I watched my very social grandmother, who lived most of her life in the same small town, gossip joyfully on the phone during her weekly phone calls with friends, I realized something.
Gossip is necessary. We must talk about each other because gossip is a vital tool of knowledge sharing. I can’t drop by and deliver a good meal if I don’t know someone has been sick. I can’t be empathetic and kind if I don’t know that a traumatic experience has happened. I can’t know where to tread lightly in conversation without knowing that so-and-so had a miscarriage. This sounds like such a “duh” moment, but realizing there’s a nuance in the way we talk about each other was important to me.
Although passing along judgmental opinions, false information, or sharing confidential information from a position of power, authority, or trust is still very wrong, the actual act of talking about other people is right. Lightbulb!
While scrolling on Tik Tok the other day, as one does, I encountered another lightbulb moment. The Group Behavior Gal, a survivor of a cult and current scholar on cults, said, “Gossip is destructive to any organization that does not appreciate the contributions of women and gossip is destructive to any organization that relies on the status quo to maintain their power.”
Well. This certainly puts a different spin on statements like this one found in a 2018 general conference address from Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf:
“This is the kind of gospel culture we desire to cultivate throughout the Church of Jesus Christ. We seek to strengthen the Church as a place where we forgive one another. Where we resist the temptation to find fault, gossip, and bring others down. Where, instead of pointing out flaws, we lift up and help each other to become the best we can be.”
Gossip is always paired up with fault finding, evil speaking, and being judgmental, and while “standing for righteousness” is encouraged, since we never connect the act of talking about each other to that value, the result is a church culture that both disenfranchises women and preserves harmful status quos.
Look no further than the Bay Area women speaking out about the Area Authority’s decision to remove female leaders from the stands during Sacrament meetings. I can guess these women are probably not getting praised for lifting and helping those around them to be the best they can be. They’re probably not getting congratulated for speaking up or standing for truth and righteousness. There are probably some leaders, or at least an Area Authority presidency, that would rather not have seen coverage in a newspaper. And yet, in speaking up publicly, these women are naming the harm a priesthood leader can inflict and challenging the status quo. We must talk and hallelujah that we are!
The last time I was offered a calling, I also did some talking that felt rebellious, but actually shouldn’t be. I was asked to be ward chorister and I knew who the ward music leader was, so I called her up to discuss the calling directly. I explained my feelings and impressions about the calling and we discussed how to make the calling work for me and for her. My husband and I had already decided to curtail our Sunday attendance, because Sundays at home during COVID had been too good to let go, so we were attending once a month. With this new calling, I offered a compromise to be chorister two Sundays a month. A second part-time chorister was also called.
The person who was a little rumpled in all of this was the Bishopric counselor who didn’t really want the calling to be broken up, but since he wasn’t willing to die on the hill, the plans I worked out with the ward music leader directly proceeded and have operated beautifully.
We’re not supposed to talk about our callings, but I did and it was better. We’re supposed to think that sacred and secret are the same, and so never speak to the public, but when we do, it’s better. How many facets of our experience in the church as women could be made better because we talk about them? No wonder gossip is discouraged.
Be a rebellious woman. Talk.
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash
I did the same thing last time the bishop extended callings (plural!) to me. Talking with the lady who I would potentially be replacing in one calling and working with in the other gave me the information I needed to make a good decision about how I would allocate my time and priorities. I appreciated that the bishop acknowledged that extending callings is tricky, and that while they can be inspired, sometimes stuff just needs to be done.
A good calling fit is more likely when leadership has enough information about your life circumstances AND you have enough information about the calling’s logistics, time commitment, skills, expectations, and people you will be working with.
@Kaylee Preach! It’s lovely to see good common sense, like not all callings are divinely inspired all the time, at work.
It’s something a bit miraculous to see what can happen when transparency and communication are emphasized and valued. You’ve also reminded me that taking our time and priorities into account is also a way of showing that a person is valued that means far more than saying they are valued.
The secrecy surrounding callings in the church has always baffled me. Also, as with most feminine language, the word ‘gossip’ has evolved over time from something whole to something evil. In late Old English godsibb, literally meant ‘God’ + sibb ‘a relative’ (think sibling). In Middle English the sense was ‘a close friend, a person with whom one gossips,’ particularly a female friend. Unfortunately, as your piece points out, a divine closeness through speaking (a godsibb) has been demonized into gossip – evil speaking. Thanks for your piece!