Words have begun to confuse me.
Here are two of those conundrums:
- Treat everything you say about someone as gossip. Every statement you make about someone other than yourself, good or bad, pleasant or destructive, has now become a slanderous lie by the very merit that you don’t know the whole life story of the person that says it. Now what you say? When someone asks you about a friend or a foe or a relative or an acquaintance, what is your answer? I mean, what do you know about anyone? How do you know you haven’t lied anyway? And does that make you a liar? If you heard it through the grapevine, and share it, you are now another leaf on it - when the truth wins out, won’t you be a liar?
- What is forgiveness? If you ask for God’s absolution every Sunday so you can sin on Saturday night, are you sincere? Do you deserve it? Wouldn’t God be a fool to give it to you? Is a grudge sometimes necessary? Can you forgive someone, yet still remember vividly that they’ve wronged you, and not want anything to do with them ever again? People say no - forgive and forget, if you still remember their trespasses you haven’t let go and it will still burden you - but aren’t some things too bad or too frequent to forget?
