Bless Her Heart and Other Incantations
Gossip and the Stories We Carry
When I was younger, there were a couple of people who didn’t like me. I know, I know, very hard to believe. 😇 I still don’t know all the reasons, beyond the fact that they were teenagers and I was not. They were about seventeen. I was twenty one.I was the kind of Christian who thought conviction and volume were basically the same thing, which probably came across as self righteous.. Maybe I was self righteous? Heck, who am I kidding. I was a twenty one year old Jesus freak. Of course I was.
What I do know is that they spoke about me to someone else.
That person had never had a single conversation with me. Not one. Still, based entirely on what she had heard, she decided she had no interest in getting to know me. When I attempted to engage her, she rejected me. The decision had already been made. She had “heard enough.”
That moment taught me something I didn't have language for yet. Gossip doesn't just misrepresent people. It preempts relationship. It closes doors before they are ever opened. It allows someone else’s voice to stand in for your own without your knowledge and without your consent.
At twenty one, I learned that its possible for people to decide who you are without ever meeting you, and for that decision to shape the course of your life in ways you never get to see or undo.
I made a decision then. I would never form an opinion about someone based solely on another person’s assessment. I would see for myself. I would listen directly. I would refuse secondhand verdicts.
For the most part, I've kept that promise to myself. Gossip about strangers has always been easy for me to shrug off. I can hold it loosely, take it with a grain of salt or discard it entirely. There is no emotional hook.
Gossip about people I already know is another matter entirely.
That kind of information slips in sideways. It doesnt announce itself as accusation. It comes dressed as concern, context, discernment or “just so you know.” And once it lands, it edits the story you are carrying about that person, even if you never consciously agree with it.
I know this because I've watched it happen in my own heart.
One of the cruelest features of gossip is it can condemn without confrontation and silence without recourse.
What Gossip Actually Is
When most people hear the word gossip, they imagine something overtly malicious, spreading lies, smearing reputations, passing along things that are obviously false and heartless.
That is gossip, but it's not the whole of it.
Gossip isn't defined by whether something is true. Its' defined by how the information is handled and who is absent from the exchange.
It can include sharing negative opinions about someone who's not present, even when those opinions feel justified. It can include repeating real events filtered through personal interpretation. It can include passing along information that's not ours to share. It can even include true things said without necessity, context or accountability.
In other words, gossip doesnt require malice. It doesnt require lies. It only requires absence.
This is why gossip often feels so reasonable while it's happening. We tell ourselves we're processing. We're discerning. We're just stating facts. We're concerned. We're venting. We're being honest.
But something still happens. A story begins to shape our heart about someone who is not there to speak for themselves. A conclusion forms without presence. Charity thins almost imperceptibly.
“I descended below it all, and know the sorrows of you all.… and I say to you, Forgive one another. Be tender with one another, pursue judgment….”
T&C 157:50
At first glance, pursue judgment sounds out of place among commands to forgive, be tender, bless and rejoice. It can even sound harsh. But the placement is intentional.
Judgment here isn't condemnation. It's not snap evaluation or moral posturing. Christ speaks as one who has already descended, already borne grief, already redeemed. Judgment in this context follows compassion, not the other way around.
Notice the verb.. Pursue implies effort, movement, patience and cost. You don't pursue what's obvious. You pursue what requires work. If judgment were merely forming an opinion, no pursuit would be needed.
To pursue judgment is to pursue light.
This aligns with Christ’s command to judge righteously. Righteous judgment doesn't come from partial information, rumor or distance. It comes from gathering as much light as possible before allowing a conclusion to settle.
In practice, pursuing judgment means listening directly, distinguishing fact from interpretation, holding competing accounts without rushing resolution and refusing conclusions while someone is absent and unable to speak for themselves.
This kind of judgment is demanding. It requires humility, restraint and willingness to discover that our first impressions may be incomplete.
Thats why this command is paired with tenderness. Without tenderness, judgment becomes interrogation. Without judgment, tenderness becomes sentimentality. Christ holds both together.
Once light is gathered, responsibility follows. Silence is no longer neutral. Distortion becomes a choice. This is why many avoid pursuing judgment at all. Light creates obligation.
To pursue judgment is not to rush to a verdict. It is to refuse conclusions without presence, without light, and without love.
However one feels about the phrasing, the insight is sound. The issue isn't intelligence but focus. When our attention settles primarily on other people (especially their flaws, motives or failures) something in us shrinks. When our attention lifts toward ideas, principles and truth, something in us expands.
Gossip pulls our focus downward. It narrows the field of vision. It keeps us occupied with stories about people rather than questions of integrity, accountability or love.
And this is where it becomes uncomfortable. Even accurate information can do harm when carried this way. Truth handled without presence can still be corrosive. Even when something really happened, repeating it can tilt the heart if it's not ours to carry or ours to resolve.
The Line I Want to Live By
Because I know how it feels to be talked about instead of talked to, a simple conclusion follows.
If I long for others to come to me directly, then integrity requires me to do the same.
If a piece of information has the power to change how I see someone, then it has earned the obligation of verification. Either it's important enough to be brought into the open, or it's not important enough to be carried at all.
This realization came home to me recently in a way that was uncomfortable but clarifying.
I noticed that I'd been careful and charitable with some people, while allowing secondhand narratives to harden my view of others. With those I already respected, I sifted criticism carefully, weighing it against direct experience and known context. With those I already felt wary of, I absorbed negative accounts more readily, without insisting on direct engagement.
The difference was not righteousness. It was bias.
Gossip doesnt persuade us because it's convincing. It persuades us because it lands where there's already uncertainty, tension or unresolved feeling. It sticks to the places we haven't fully examined.
Owning that doesn't mean excusing harmful behavior or denying real grievances. It does mean refusing to settle conclusions in the dark.
If information about someone changes how I see them, it obligates me to see them.
Not to confront with any type of aggression or to litigate every grievance. Simply to refuse conclusions without presence.
There is, of course, a lighter side. In our house, my husband and I joke that it's not gossip if you preface it with, “I’m not gossiping, I’m just saying.” Apparently, adding a “bless his or her heart” afterward also magically sanctifies whatever comes next. Humor helps us name the thing we are tempted to excuse.
But joking aside, we know the truth. Calling it something else doesn't change what it does.
Gossip thrives in the dark, but truth requires faces.
When we refuse to let opinions form in the shadows, we don't just protect others. We protect our own capacity to see clearly, to love honestly and to remain free from borrowed judgments that were never ours to carry.
It's not about moral superiority. It is about moral hygiene and keeping our inner world clean enough that truth, when it finally arrives, still has somewhere to land.
(If you want to see how strongly scripture treats this, see the sidebar below. Scripture repeatedly frames gossip as something that spreads, ignites and poisons whole communities.)
Gossip as Spiritual Poison in Scripture
Scripture treats gossip, slander, whispering and backbiting with a seriousness that surprised me when I first looked into it several years ago. It isn't handled as a minor social flaw or an unfortunate personality quirk. It is treated as a corrosive force, one that endangers entire communities.
One reason is scope. Sexual sin, theft or deception may devastate those directly involved. Gossip spreads outward. It reshapes trust, fractures unity and poisons relationships far beyond the original story.
This is why the language used for gossip in scripture is often bodily and systemic.
Paul includes whispering and backbiting in lists that describe societies under judgment, right alongside violence and sexual immorality:
“They were filled with all unrighteousness.… full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters…”
Romans 1:6
The point is not equivalence of acts, but equivalence of damage. These are all signs of a people who have lost charity and truth.
Proverbs repeatedly describes gossip as something that feed conflict and enters the inner parts:
“The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly.”
Proverbs 4:45
“A froward man sows strife, and a whisperer separates chief friends.”
Proverbs 2:212
“Where no wood is, there the fire goes out; so where there is no talebearer, the strife ceases.”
Proverbs 4:42
The imagery is intentional. Gossip isn't loud rebellion, it's quiet combustion.
James takes the warning even further, describing the tongue not merely as dangerous, but as toxic:
“The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity… it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature.… it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.”
James 1:13
This is communal language. A single tongue can ignite an entire system.
Paul’s fear for the Corinthians was not only moral failure, but relational decay:
“I fear…. lest there should be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults.”
2 Corinthians 1:46
Notice what is absent. No sexual sin is mentioned here. What alarms him is the breakdown of trust, humility and unity within the body.
In the Covenant of Christ, prosperity and stability are directly tied to charity, generosity and equal regard for all people. By contrast, those outside the congregation are described as indulging in behaviors that fracture community:
“Those who didn’t belong to their congregation indulged in.… gossip and foolish empty talk, jealousy, arguments…. proudly viewing themselves as superior… lying.… and all kinds of evil.”
Covenant of Christ, Alma 1
Gossip isn't a harmless habit. But part of a broader moral ecosystem that produces envy, pride, contention and violence. It's listed alongside sorcery, theft and whoredoms because it participates in the same social decay.
Christ’s own instructions reinforce this concern. His command to address sin privately first, then with witnesses and only finally before the community is not merely procedural. It's a safeguard against rumor, distortion and reputation damage. It prevents gossip by design.
Finally, in the covenant offered to us, the Lord explicitly warns against backbiting, accusation and speaking evil of one another as behaviors incompatible with covenant life. These arent framed as personal shortcomings, but as covenant-breaking patterns that destroy unity and invite judgment.
Taken together, scripture presents a consistent picture.
Gossip is dangerous not only because it can be false, but because even when it contains fragments of truth, it spreads without accountability, without context and without the presence of the person being spoken about.
That is why it is treated as a form of spiritual poison. It does not merely harm individuals. It corrodes the body itself.
This song keeps coming to mind as I write. I think it echoes the experience of being wounded by others’ words and actions, and the far harder choice of responding without hatred, retaliation, or borrowed judgments.
Application
Here is the simplest practice I know, and it is harder than it sounds!
- If I hear something that would change how I see someone, I will not secretly carry it.
- If it's serious enough to repeat, it is serious enough to verify.
- If it's not serious enough to verify, it is not serious enough to repeat.
And when I fail, because I will, I want to be quick to repent, quick to repair and quick to refuse the comfort of “I’m not gossiping, I’m just saying.”
Truth requires faces. Covenant community life requires them too.
I want to acknowledge something personal, briefly, because it relates directly to this post.
I recently became aware of an egregious rumor about me that is both false and potentially harmful to my family. I'm not going to repeat it here. I'm also not going to name anyone at this moment.
What I will say is this, I reached out directly to the person I believe is the source, and I included a witness for clarity and accountability. As of now, I have not received a reply. I don't know how widely the story has traveled, and that uncertainty is part of what makes gossip so destructive. It spreads faster than truth, and it often leaves no clear trail back to the beginning.
I 'm still deciding the wisest way to proceed. We're all learning. I'm learning too.
In the meantime, I want to make a simple request of anyone reading: pursue judgment. Seek more light. Refuse conclusions without presence. If you hear a claim about someone that would change how you see them, treat it as unverified until you have direct clarification. If its serious enough to repeat, its serious enough to verify. If its not serious enough to verify, its not serious enough to carry.
I also understand that I can rub people the wrong way. I often speak plainly and I don't always move with the grain. That doesn't make me beyond correction and it doesn't mean I'm immune from being misunderstood. If I have said something careless, I want to own it. But if something is being attributed to me that I didn't say, especially something that could harm my children, I can't simply shrug it off and hope it disappears.
For now, I'm choosing restraint. Im choosing presence where it's possible and patience where it's not. I'll continue to seek light before drawing conclusions, and I invite others to do the same.
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