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Grapevine: The Spirituality of Gossip. Jerry A. Camery-Hoggatt. (Herald Press, 2002, 205 pp.) (Review by Helen L. Lapp)
Gossip has been given a bad rap, declares this author. He reminds us that we can only "do church" through talk. In between the worship service which certainly also includes much speech, there is talk. Susan Biesecker-Mast, Professor of Communications at Bluffton College, tells us in the book's Foreword that by talking and storytelling we "make new meaning out of the complexities of our world. Without "talk" we cannot find our way - although we can also sometimes lose it.
All the more reason to take a good look at godsibb — derived from two Old English words, god, meaning "good," and sibb, meaning "family relationship." Godsibb — shared knowledge, shared histories, shared interests, shared news — see the connection to the word gospel? This author does us a good service by helping to own the good and necessary uses of talk, to understand better how we talk together and how to avoid malicious talk or what in the past 100 years has been dubbed gossip.
Since we all do plenty of talking (those who do not ever speak or speak too little have their own problems!), the author holds up casual conversation for serious — sometimes scary — discussion! In the Sunday School class I am currently helping to teach this book leads us in examining the humanity, the community-building power of our daily flow of talk. We are finding the blessings and the hurtings in our own personal experiences. We chant, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, we are taught, but words can never harm me!" And we all know better! We have only to unwrap some still festering sores resulting from something-someone-somewhere-sometime said to us! But just as words can hurt, they can heal and build. To be human is to talk; to learn is to exchange ideas through talk, to create relationship — we need to talk. So much is passed on to our children by casual conversation. We need to think about this! This book surprises with its ability to make us talk about talk!
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