Featherweight

Do you remember Telephone, the game that you used to play in grade-school? The one where you whisper something in someone's ear; and, they whisper it to the next, and so on?

You might start with something like, "The bus will be late because the driver forgot his hat."

And, by the time it wends its way to the end, it sounds more like, "The mouse will inflate because the liar brought his cat."

The internet is much like a big game of Telephone. Versions of the same story get told and retold. Urban legends become gospel. And, truth is up for grabs.

This morning I remembered a story that I once read about gossip. I didn't recall the details, but I remembered that it involved feathers. So, I "googled" feathers + gossip.

You would not believe how many versions of the story I found. Depending on who told it, it was a man who gossiped...or a woman...or both. It was the Rabbi, or the priest or the pastor who told the gossiper to go buy a goose, or chicken, or a duck at the market. The feathers from said fowl were to be plucked and dropped on the way back. Or they were to be plucked and placed on the doorstep of every villager. Or, in some cases, the trip to the market was absent completely, and the feathers were already stuffed in a pillow ready to be flung from the belfry out onto the merry little breezes.

The story varied with each telling, but every single account required that the gossiper go back and collect those feathers. Words once spoken (or written) can never be taken back any more than one can gather those wayward feathers.

"...and the law of kindness is on her tongue." Proverbs 31:26

I remember reading the Proverbs Worthy Woman chapter when I was a young wife and mother. Back then I liked the idea of a wheeling, dealing woman who purchased land, laughed at the winter, and clothed her children in scarlet. What a strong role-model was she.

Now, I long only for her "law of kindness" to be on my tongue.

My own word feathers have traveled to the ends of the earth. I will never be able to take them back. And, for that I am so very sorry.

Who knew that a feather could weigh so much?