Here’s how my death notice took shape: It was a beautiful Sunday morning, and I had just returned to my room after celebrating the Eucharist. I noticed that the little red message light was on so I picked up the phone. It was a friend of mine who lives in a small town. I hadn’t talked with him in months. He left a message: “Call me as soon as you get this.” So, I did.
His voice was shaking: “I’m so glad to hear your voice. I was told that you’d died. The guy next door was supposed to take you off some church directory because you had passed away.”
I told him that I felt like Mark Twain who said as he got off the boat after an extended visit to Europe: “The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
After that we had a good chat which included the promise to get together soon. The threat of being among the dearly departed becomes more real after you reach a certain age, so we make promises to one another.
I can tell you that to hear your own death notice is unsettling, although I thought of staying dead for a while so that I could hear what people would say about me at the wake.
Rumors are grounded in gossip. Gossip is born of a part of the human heart which grows weeds.
I dislike weeds and gossip. Like weeds, gossip doesn’t need encouragement to spring up anywhere.
Each of us should get very skillful at pulling up the weeds that come up now and then in those untended places of our hearts. Otherwise, we’ll begin to share our weeds with other people. Then, new weeds grow and new species of weeds grow in their hearts.
Here –as I’ve pieced it together– is how gossip begat my demise: Recently, a wonderful retired priest who used to minister at the parish I served at a few years ago passed away. Someone simply got the name wrong and I became the deceased. By not checking the facts (phoning the parish office?), the gossiper compounded his error by causing a group of people to mourn my death.
Gossip can result in funny situations (like the premature announcement of my death) but gossip can also ruin a person’s reputation, or damage relationships. We have to be reminded of this by remembering that there is a commandment against it: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”
So, though I am very much alive and thriving, I’m not going to be adding anymore fertilizer to the ground that begets weeds. I’ve got my own gardens that I have to seed. First, though, I better pull up the weeds.