Dear Slitherlips,
As you well know, the Enemy has a rather unfair advantage in that He can, and delights to make things out of nothing. Our powers lag well behind, being limited to perversion. He takes what is not to make what is. We can but seek to distort and disorder what He has made. This has not kept our father below from doing astonishing things. He has learned to take the worst thing, God’s glory in His creation, and turn it into pride, and then take pride and turn it into an infernal combustion engine. On the day of our great victory in Eden he offered the woman the opportunity to be like God, knowing good and evil. Since that time we have distracted our foes by making them think that the greater problem and the deeper temptation is in the evil, rather than in the knowing. The seduction wasn’t principally to experience evil, but rather the pride of knowing a secret.
Our Gossip division has played off of this. While the enemy devoted verse after verse to speaking against the “sins” of the tongue in general, and gossip in particular, we have counter-assaulted by presenting His pleas as an attempt to protect the guilty. “Yes,” we whisper to the pious imps, “you must be careful not to gossip, lest you harm his reputation, or sully her honor.” This keeps them completely off guard against the real danger, their own pride. Gossip flowers first in the rich soil of our pride in knowing, second in the warm sunshine of having knowledge that others lack but crave and third in the slating rain of being in the inner circle, which together form the very trinity of pride. That they baptize their folly by feigning to be concerned for their brothers, or frame their gossip as passing along prayer concerns only gives our father fits of the giggles.
Remember then the basics. First, more important than the person about whom we gossip, more important than the information itself, is that that there is secret knowledge to be had. Second, do not lose sight that this knowledge can be made up of whole cloth. That is, humans have an insatiable desire to reach conclusions. Insufficient evidence never seems to slow them down. Third, don’t forget that the hungry ear is as valuable to us as the eager tongue. Or, in the case of the internet, may its destructive powers multiply, the eager eye. Remember last year’s mantra for the entire gossip team- Google is our friend.
Keep at it. I have been hearing some disturbing things lately about your work ethic. Very disturbing indeed.
With Deepest Concerns,
Tarnishtongue