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Steve Dennie

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Gossip, Gossip. Pass It On

Steve Dennie

Elementary school is the place where impressionable kids learn the everyday crucial skills, such as diagramming sentences, needed to function in a post-industrial society. I think this is why we played a game called "Gossip."

Here's how you play.

Miss MacDonald, our teacher, would whisper a phraseÑ"apples are red," for instanceÑin a student's ear. That student would then repeat what he heard in the next student's ear, and so on around the room. The last student would then say out loud what he heard. After being whispered through 30-some ears connected to extremely low attention spans, "apples are red" might transform into something like "ambulance car tread."

This game proved conclusively that gossip isn't a good thing, because as it goes from person to person, the original "true story" gets mangled beyond recognition.

This was especially true when I played "Gossip," because I never learned the rules. And being too timid to ask what exactly I was supposed to do when someone whispered in my ear, I winged it. And made the whole game meaningless.

At Paxtonia Elementary School, "Gossip" was evidently taught in first or second grade, this being a cutting-edge institution where Tomorrow's Leaders learned vital skills early, while kids in other schools piddled with such things as learning multiplication tables. Unfortunately, I didn't arrive at Paxtonia until fourth grade, so I missed out on all that essential Life Preparation. This has intellectually scarred me.

Miss MacDonald assumed that we all knew how to play "Gossip," so she didn't bother explaining the rules.

"Class," she'd say, "let's play Gossip. I'll whisper something in Jenny's ear, and she'll whisper in Billy's ear. We'll go around the room like that, and see how it turns out."

She then whispered, we'll say, "apples are red" to Jenny.

I didn't know what was going on. Fortunately, being about two-thirds of the way into the class, I had plenty of time to think. I knew that when the whispering reached me, I had to whisper something to the girl in the next desk. I didn't realize I simply had to repeat whatever was whispered to me. Nobody told me that.

My mind raced. I decided everyone was making up their own words to pass along. So that's what I did.

"Apples are red" makes its way around the room, with slight variations occurring as students don't hear it quite right.

"Apples are red."

"Apples are dead.

"Apple cart head."

"A plaque of Ned."

"A place called bed."

The latter is whispered in my ear, and I hear it plainly enough. I then lean forward to the girl in the next desk and whisper a totally new phrase of my own devising: "Go to the store."

She dutifully whispers that phrase, and it continues on for another 10 students.

"Go to the store."

"Go open the door."

"Grope on the floor."

Finally, it reaches the last kid.

"Angie," says Miss MacDonald, "please tell the class what you heard."

She stands up and proudly proclaims, "Throw up no more."

Everyone laughs.

"Isn't that amazing," Miss MacDonald says. "I started by whispering 'apples are red.' After going around the room, it turns into, uh, 'throw up no more.' This shows how the truth can get twisted when we gossip."

I'm sorry, but I failed to see the point. If we all made up something, of course we wouldn't end up with "apples are red."

Miss MacDonald shouldn't have assumed that we all understood the rules.

We assume too many things are true without ever questioning them. It's good when someone asks, "Is that really true?"

Church life teems with assumptions.

• We assume that adult churchgoers know the popular Bible stories we all learn in Sunday school: David and Goliath, Noah and the Ark, Daniel in the Lion's Den, Joshua and Jericho, the Israelites Crossing the Red Sea, etc. In church services and Sunday school classes and Bible studies, we casually throw around allusions to these stories--"After being visited by the IRS, I know how Daniel must have felt." And yet, there are gobs of people who didn't grow up in Sunday school; people raised in families that didn't attend church, or if they did, they skipped Sunday school. I imagine a lot of people in our pews feel kind of stupid sometimes, as if they have a huge biblical vacuum. Kind of like me playing Gossip: everyone else knew how to play, but I didn't, and I was afraid to admit it.
• Some of us assume that people don't really want to hear our troubles, so we keep them to ourselves, denying others the chance to pray and show concern. Others of us assume that everyone does want the most recent update in The Continuing Saga of My Ingrown Toenail, and we don't hesitate to tell them, in unbearable detail.
• We assume that people read the announcements in the Sunday bulletin. Ha.
• We assume that the pastor is content with a minimum salary.
• We assume that a lot of people are Christians, when maybe they've never made such a commitment. It's the Great Duck Illusion--"If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and acts like a duck--then it's a duck." Not necessarily with Christians. You can look, walk, and act like a Christian without being one. It's amazing how many people grow up in the church and remain very religious, but never hear the plan of salvation. We just assume they've heard. We assume they're going to heaven.

Those are just a few assumptions. Do yourself and your church a favor: if you assume something is true--question it. You might discover that it's not quite as true as you thought.

Copyright 2005 Steve Dennie