“I will speak ill of no man, and speak all the good I know of everybody.”   -- Benjamin Franklin

So, my name is EmilyCC, and I am a recovering gossip.

Several years ago, I realized that most of my conversations were about other people. I often felt bad at the end of a night of hanging out with friends because I had said things and heard things that I wouldn’t want certain people to know about.

At first, it was fun. It got me immediate friends (I’m still rather discouraged that I made friends so much faster at someone else’s expense rather than doggedly building a relationship built on trust and experience. Phbt…what fun is that?!). Everything that was gossiped about, I rationalized, was either general knowledge or not that bad. But, I didn’t like the way I felt, and I realized the people I most admired were people who somehow made it through entire conversations without saying a bad thing about anyone.

But, the biggest reason that I decided to stop was when I saw what rumors did to hurt my family.

Several years ago, my parents divorced. It surprised a lot of people; they’d been married 26 years. People talked, and rumors began. Most of my family was pretty oblivious to this. As the oldest of the kids, I thought I could protect my siblings and tried to make sure they didn’t hear those rumors. About a year ago, several of us discovered that we all, separately, had discovered the rumors and tried to keep them secret from the other silbings.

These rumors circulated near and far (beyond stake boundaries, across the country, even—who knew we were so popular?). And, the effects of them are still felt. Just last year, another completely innocent family member was hurt by them.

And, therein lies the rub, completely innocent people—children, parents, people who didn’t participate in the alleged incidents have been hurt.

I decided that it doesn’t matter if rumors are true or not. They’re just as damaging.

So, when I moved to a new ward, I vowed to stop.

After I made this resolution, it was easy enough to follow. I moved wards every one to two years. I can keep my big mouth shut for that long.

But, now, I’ve been in a ward that I don’t plan on leaving. I get comfortable in my friendships, and lately, I have to really force myself to remember my ongoing resolution. It’s so easy to slip up. In the moment, it feels more comfortable to dive right in: “Guess what I know!?” Such a quick conversation starter…

This has also been compounded by being in a Church presidency. As many of us have learned, when in a Primary/Relief Society/Young Women’s presidency, we sometimes have to discuss sensitive information.

My husband and I initially shared information we knew, feeling like it was helpful to have a Primary/bishopric discussion. We reasoned that we were better informed because of it. This may work for some couples, but we don’t do it anymore. For us, it didn’t feel right. And, really, why would I (or he) want to hear more sad stories? There was no pleasure in them.

The rules I’ve made for myself now are simple; I watch what I say, and I never say anything that I would be upset if the person I’m talking about heard. And, I’m certainly not always perfect, but I’m miles from where I was.

Still, this is a problem I’ve seen in the Church, firsthand. Sometimes, we have a hard time separating gossip and “necessary sensitive information” in our leadership roles. Sometimes, I think, “She’s such a good friend, I just want to mention to her…”

Yet, while the Church leaders often cautious us about gossip, I’m always a little frusterated at a lack of definition (someone sent home from a mission, another’s marital problems, what about someone’s annoying kid?) and a lack of concrete discussion about how to curb the problem.

So, what do you define as gossip? What do you do to stop it? Do you tell someone who’s life is making the rounds in certain circles (I actually haven’t been brave enough to do this, but I’m still grateful to my dear friend who did tell me about my family’s rumors when no one else would)?

A post devoted to an EXII classic is long overdue.

The Interview
(a short story)
Laura Hamblin
Provo, Utah
Vol 11, no 1 (Fall 1984)

“Do you pray?”

He had no business asking that question. I knew he didn’t, and he knew he didn’t. It wasn’t one of the twelve required questions. I had been through an interview with Bishop Jensen before, point by point. I had honestly answered all of the questions. Bishop Jensen and I had talked a long time about things, and he had never asked me about my prayers. Besides, if I chose to answer, I could say “yes.” After all, I did bow my head once a week, during the Sacrament. And I did say “amen,” even if I didn’t close my eyes. That was a type of prayer. I could say I prayed…But I had just told President Clark that I was honest in all of my dealings. I paused with my head bent and meticulously picked some lint from my skirt. With my eyes still down, I answered.

“No, President, I don’t.”

“I don’t understand,” he said. “You want to go to the temple but you don’t have a personal relationship with the Lord? You don’t pray?”

“Well, I used to pray,” I said with my foot tapping back and forth. “I used to pray a lot, up until a month ago. But I don’t pray anymore.”

“Why don’t you?”

“It doesn’t work,” I said.

“Why would you say that? God answers prayers.”

“Well, I asked him to save my marriage, and he didn’t.”

“Linda, you know the Lord doesn’t work like that. What could you do to help your marriage?”

“I don’t have a marriage,” I said. “I’m divorced. But I could still be married if I chose to take care of John financially for the rest of my life, and if I didn’t get upset over his girlfriends, and if I smiled. Living with a depressed person is no fun.”

“Well, Linda, you know depression and discouragement are the devil’s greatest tools,” he said.

Thank you very much, I thought. I’ve lost my family, and on top of everything else I can’t even mourn without committing a sin.

“You’re probably right.”

“What exactly did you pray for?” asked President Clark.

“I prayed for God to touch John’s heart, to make his want to change, so that he would love me and love Luke, and want to take care of us.” I paused, laughing to myself, and then said, “I remember reading an article in The Ensign, which told the steps to a happy marriage. One step was to ‘say you’re sorry and really mean it.’ Another was to ‘pray specifically for your family and your relationships at least once a day.’ The article stated that it was even better if you could pray twice a day. Well, you couldn’t count the number of times that I prayed. I prayed, and I prayed, and I prayed. And it was a righteous desire too, a righteous prayer. Families are forever. I had faith, I knew God would make John change.”

“The Lord doesn’t work like that,” President Clark said. “He can’t interfere with a person’s free agency.”

“That’s not true,” I said. “He can. And he does for people that really matter. He did for Paul, and he did for Alma the Younger. He stepped in on their free agency, and it wasn’t because of anything they did. It was because someone else was praying for them. The only thing that tells me is that either John, or Luke, or myself, or the three of us as a family, aren’t as important to God as Paul and Alma the Younger were. You see, I knew that God would do it, it was a righteous desire. I had faith. We were married ‘forever.’”

“But those men you’re talking about were harming a great number of people. They almost destroyed the Church at the time,” said President Clark. “Besides, John still has his agency.”

“What does that say for the worth of a soul?” I asked. “Never mind, I don’t need an answer. I accept it, for whatever reason there was. I don’t know why God wouldn’t touch John’s heart, but he didn’t. Okay, I can accept that…

…The semester I left him he was on academic probation for the third time. Three of his professors sat him down and told him that if he didn’t start to make progress they’d have to let him go. But John’s got his ‘P.R.’ skills down so pat that by the end of the meeting he had a once-a-week dinner appointment at two of the professors’ homes. He probably told them that his wife took his beloved son away and he was at his wits’ end, conveniently forgetting to mention his understanding girlfriends. It wouldn’t’ have taken a miracle. He could have been expelled or ‘ex-ed’ or both, and if he had been, I’m sure he would have left the valley. He would have nothing to keep him here. It’s so hard for me to handle the hypocrisy I’m forced to deal with daily, having him here. It makes my whole life, my whole understanding of the gospel and the values I’ve been taught, a farce. John should not get away with what he has done. And it wouldn’t take a miracle. It would just take someone in some position of authority to be inspired enough to see through him. Well, God didn’t choose to do things that way. Okay. I don’t understand it, but I accept it.

So then I prayed for one last thing. I prayed for a friend. You see, after you’ve been called a bitch to your face for over three years, more often than you’ve been called your own name, you begin to think you are one. You begin to feel like a bitch. And when you look in the mirror, that’s what you see. I mean, my own husband didn’t love me, after all I did for him. When that happens, you look deep inside and you start to think that something is really wrong with you.

I didn’t pray for a lover, or a spouse, or even two dates in a row. I just needed to know that God was aware of me and my needs, and that he loved me and really wanted me to be happy; that this was just some terrible mistake and that he would work things out. I needed to know that I was okay, and that someone, somewhere, could find me attractive and want to spend time with me, of his own free will, not because he had been set up, but just because he thought I would be a person he would take pleasure in being with. I just wanted to go out to eat and talk with someone, or go on a walk, or, or anything. It could have happened. I try to keep myself up. I meet people at school and at work. It’s not like I sit home all day eating chocolates and watching soap operas. So I set up a time limit. I asked him for a date by the end of March. That should have been plenty of time. I was friendly to everyone I met and I tried to be happy. But I guess that was just too big of a miracle for God to pull off. He could feed the Israelites manna for forty years—when they didn’t even ask for it, but he couldn’t find Linda date.

So, anyway, I don’t pray. I have prayed every prayer. There were no prayers left in me. You see, if I were to set myself up, even one more time, and then be let down again, I don’t thinking I could make it.”

Suddenly I felt very silly. My eyes were burning. I held them open wide, looking down, hoping they would dry. How dumb, I thought, who prays for a friend? To have a friend all you have to do is be a friend, right? It seemed to work for other people. What do friends matter anyway? I’d gotten along this far without them. I had my son—he was my friend. I wished I had told President Clark that I did pray. One of the questions they should ask in the interview should be ‘are you too honest?’ You can get in as much trouble being too honest as you can not being honest enough. Besides, they didn’t really expect anyone to be completely honest. If they did they wouldn’t have locks on the temple lockers. I noticed I had pulled a hangnail loose and a tiny drop of blood appeared. Disregarding President Clark, I sucked it clean.

“You’re bitter and vengeful,” he spoke softly. “’Vengeance is mine saith the Lord.’ I can’t let you go to the temple in this spirit.”

“Yes, I’m bitter. But it’s natural to be bitter, and Bishop Jensen said that going to the temple would help. He said it would be good for me to be in the presence of the Lord’s spirit.”

“I don’t agree,” said Clark. “I think it would just be a bad experience for you at this time. Look, Linda, my wife and I had three lovely, healthy boys and then we had a baby with Down’s Syndrome. Do you think I was bitter?” He paused.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Of course you were bitter, I thought. Any normal, healthy parent who had a handicapped baby would feel bitter that their child would never enjoy the experiences this life has to offer. Either you were bitter or you were an emotional cripple.

“No. I wasn’t bitter,” he said. “I accepted what the Lord gave me. The Lord will never give you more than you can handle.”

Well that does it, I thought. I can see someone being bitter about having a baby with Down’s Syndrome and then working through his feelings and overcoming it, and President Clark could have been like that, but then why wouldn’t he say that’s how it happened? And if it did happen that way, he would be more understanding toward me. Christ was sympathetic toward the adulterous woman, but this man couldn’t be sympathetic toward me. And I hadn’t broken any commandments. And besides, that scripture simply isn’t true. God does give people more than they can handle, all the time. Just look at the alcoholics and people in the mental hospitals: They certainly have more than they can handle. This guy is sick, I told myself…

…“Well, Linda,” President Clark said slowly. “The temple is a very special place. It’s for special people.”

I know that, I thought with a sense of panic tightening my throat. Of course it’s special, that’s why I Want to go there. I’m a special person too. They told me in Primary that I was God’s favorite person.

“I just don’t think you’re ready to go,” Clark said. “You have some serious problems to overcome first. Divorce is very serious. Do you realize you’ve given up the right to an eternal family?” he asked…

…“Look,” I said. “It’s not that big of a deal. My best girlfriend is just getting married and she asked me to be there. But like I said, she’s my best girlfriend, she’ll understand.” I didn’t bother to tell him that my sister and I had planned on taking our boys to Disneyland while we would be in L.A. for the wedding. Nor did I tell him that Mom and I had talked about going to the temple every other Thursday, and then maybe out for lunch. It wouldn’t have made any difference…

…“Maybe the Lord has answered your prayers,” he said. “He has given you supportive parents. You should thank Him for that. Who knows—it might have been worse if He had done what you asked. Maybe you really didn’t need those things.”

“But I did need them.” I said. “Even if I only thought I needed them, that’s still a need. And if God is showing me how much He loves me by giving me such great parents, He must sure hate Luke to give him such a rotten father.” Yeah, I thought, God answered my prayers.

God said, “Linda, I don’t like you anymore, and I’m never going to do anything nice for you again.”

“Look, Linda, I really hate to cut this short, but I’m due at sacrament meeting in ten minutes to help bless my grandson. Just pray about it, please. God love Luke and wants you to be a good mother for him. Come back next week after you’ve thought about the things I’ve said, and after you’ve prayed. You simply won’t be happy until you can forgive John and accept the Lord and His ways.”

By now President Clark had risen and walked around his desk, holding out his right hand. I quickly placed the moistened recommend into my left hand and shook his hand politely.

“Let’s get together next Sunday,” he said.

By the time I turned my back and left his office, the tears had come. I wiped each one away quickly with the palm of my hands. At least I didn’t cry in front of him, I told myself, at least he didn’t see me cry. I tore the recommend Bishop Jensen had signed into twelve tiny pieces and walked toward Mom’s car. She had popped in and out of the stake president’s office just before my interview and had been waiting all this time for me. I opened the car door crying.

“What’s wrong, Linda?” my mom asked.

“Nothing really,” I said. “Except that I guess I won’t be needing this.” I let the torn recommend fall in the gutter beside the car, thinking, that’s one thing that can’t be salvaged.

“What happened?” Mom asked.

“I’m not sure. I guess I Didn’t study my catechism enough. I said ‘no’ when the right answer was ‘yes.’”

*photo: “Family Reunion after the Partition, West Pakistan” by Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004)

As far as I know, my own marriage has been free of adultery. Not so for my parents. When I was 10, my dad was excommunicated from the church and shortly thereafter I found out why (both parents acknowledge it was a mistake to tell me at such a young age). A few years later, he was rebaptized and shortly thereafter ex’d, again. He was eventually re-rebaptized (after I was married, actually) and is in full fellowship, even serving as YM President at one point. My parents’ continuing marital problems aside, from what I can tell, the story of marital infidelity is fairly common, even in the church.

I have another family member who had an affair when she was young and unhappy in her marriage. She described it as” just a physical thing,” because she didn’t feel needed in her marriage and was disfellowshiped for a short time after her divorce. She soon remarried and was recently sealed to her new husband and child.

In my experience, four of the five of the men I know have been excommunicated for adultery, but none of the four women have been. Considering marital vows of fidelity run both ways, I am continually mystified by why church leaders appear to treat women differently than men for the same sin.

Here are a few reasons why this may be:
1. Women are more vulnerable than men, so should be treated more carefully and not punished as harshly.
2. Excommunication is a blessing, not a punishment. It is a way of separating the sinner from God and the church so he or she can truly repent and come back. If this is true, then perhaps women are not worthy of this blessing, or can achieve true repentance without excommunication.
3. Women are not accountable for their actions in the way men are.
4. God holds husbands to a higher standard of fidelity than wives because they preside in marriage.

Regardless of the rationale behind the church discipline, it directly affects the way outsiders judge the situation. My general sense is that most people see unfaithful men as weak-willed, sex-crazed, or unwise stewards. Men are attributed to acting on their mating instincts and need for physical intimacy. On the other hand, when a woman is unfaithful, perhaps she was a victim or taken advantage of by a predatory man. Or maybe she was in an emotionally empty relationship and found support or understanding in a sexual relationship outside of marriage. This makes me wonder how much the reasoning behind the infidelity factors in to church discipline.

As an end note, I believe it would be incredibly hard to be a bishop or stake president trying to help people found in difficult situations created by adultery. I know that these men do the best that they can and each situation is different. I am just interested in the trend I have observed and wonder if others have observed the same thing. I also wonder if others have a sense of why the church discipline appears to be sexist.

Feel free to respond to the post or the following questions:

Do you think men and women are equally responsible for their part in infidelity?
Why do you think they are often disciplined differently within the church?
Do you judge unfaithful wives differently than unfaithful husbands?
Does the emotional or physical nature of the extramarital relationship affect your judgment? Why?
Do you think the difference in church discipline affects the rate at which men and women in the church commit adultery?

I remember when I told two of my best friends. We were cutting through a neighbor’s backyard and I stopped them. “I have to tell you something . . . my parents are getting divorced.” There, I said it. Out in the open. For some reason, I had a huge smile on my face that I couldn’t wipe off. I was not happy, but my facial expression had taken on a life of its own and I had no control over it. That was that and we didn’t really talk much more about it. I was fifteen.Life went on. I became even more obsessive with my school work than I already had been. I involved my self in several extra-curricular activities and picked up extra hours at my job at the local public library. I was the star student. I made long lists of things to do to make myself feel busy. I grew depressed. I moped around, cried a lot and occasionally completely broke down. I would suddenly burst into tears while hanging out with friends. I felt ashamed of my dark emotions and my inability to be happy like my friends seemed to be. Somehow I did not connect those feelings with my parents’ divorce, and I thought I had no right to have them.

Time marched on. I moved away to college. I chose a major that initiated me into a journey of self-exploration. At the end of my junior year in undergrad I got engaged, and all hell broke loose. The shelf on which my family issues had been neatly tucked away came crashing down. A sequence of events led to my father writing me a long letter basically blaming me for the distance in our relationship and telling me he would put no further effort in. He threatened that if I did not do certain things he would not attend my wedding. In addition to my family pain, priesthood leaders said and did some things that in my perception were abusive, adding to my misery. The wedding day came and went, and life moved on. Now that I was married, I was in a safe place where I could face my past. I spent nights crying in my husbands arms as I grieved the ideal father I wished I’d had. So many times I wanted to scream at him “You left me, I didn’t leave you!” I was tired of being the “grown-up” in the relationship and was angry that he didn’t step up.As I continued my education in being a therapist, I began to see how depressed I had been in high school. I was angry at my mother for not seeing the problem and for not helping me. I was angry at my father for leaving me, and telling me it was my fault we were distant. I felt angry and hurt about a lot of things.Forgiveness is sweet. I have come to realize that my parents did the very best they knew how. My father wanted to be a good father. He has his own emotional pain to deal with, and did the best he could given what he was dealt in life. My mother had never dealt with her own issues, and had six other children at home. How could she have seen my pain when she couldn’t admit to her own, and was much too preoccupied with her daily caregiving tasks anyway? They did their best. They love me. I really know that. Things aren’t perfect, but I have now grieved the loss of what could have been, and forgiven them for not being perfect parents. Somehow grace has worked its miracle and I’ve been able to let go. It’s freed me of many of the burdens of my past and I look forward to my future with a more open heart. Now I only hope that my parents can forgive me for not being the well-behaved Mormon girl that they had hoped to raise.

My son is sad because he knows that goodbye hurts. He was shattered by his parents’ divorce. When his father left, my son lost part of himself. I remember holding this sobbing child tightly in my arms every night, waiting for the uncontrollable crying to exhaust itself. I felt his profound hurt and grieved along with him. The precious family unit had been broken, and things would never be right again.

Now that I am a single parent, I realize that Heavenly Father has entrusted two very special children to my care: a tender, sensitive boy with a rich inner life, and a highly gifted and creative girl. I must protect and sustain them, binding their wounded spirits so that the healing process can begin. I must teach them to know and love their Heavenly Father, and I must nurture their special talents. The three of us will heal together and gather the blessings of a loving family life.

As I gaze at my son, I realize that—with his dark eyes and hair, jutting chin, and handsome features—he looks a great deal like his father. With apprehension, I realize that he is made in his father’s image. Some of the things he says remind me of his father, and I often wonder if he may have inherited negative personality traits from him as well. At the time the portrait was taken, his speech was unintelligible: loud, fast, gravelly, and with few consonants. His father had always spoken too loudly, and it seemed that my son was imitating him. His little shoulders would become tense, fists clench, and he would shout, then shout even louder when nobody could understand what he was saying. Yet, I knew that he is also made in his Heavenly Father’s image. With this seed of the divine, he has the potential to be a spiritually wise and loving person. I knew that I needed to counteract the negative influences from his early childhood, whether they be genetic or environmental, to help him find his spiritual father within himself. I worked with him carefully along with a speech therapist and enrolled him in a Christian nursery school. He learned to relax and to speak in a normal voice. He started to make friends, learned all about Jesus, and tried hard to be a good child whom people would like.

Yet, the following year was still difficult. He was angry much of the time and was afflicted by constant headaches. He spent much of his time lying on the floor, too lethargic to play or enjoy activities. Although he was enrolled in nursery school, he was often too sick to go. There was more speech therapy and, eventually, work with a chiropractor. Through it all, my son and I were constant companions. He accompanied me on walks, helped with the laundry, sat on the organ bench while I practiced, licked stamps, mailed letters, and sat through rehearsals. Eventually, his anger lessened, and the constant headaches left. Now, after a glorious summer of swimming, playing, music, and reading, he has become the healthy, hearty, delightful child I always knew he could be.

I have mothered this small child. Who will his fathers be? Scenes from the past three years flash across my inner eye like photographs of the mind. I see my little son at three, walking in the mall holdingin tightly to the hand of his grandfather who walks with a cane. He has just discovered that his grandfather’s slower pace is just right for his own short legs. They stroll behind us: the grandfather, tender and careful; the boy, trusting and happy. I remember my son three years later, playing ball outdoors with a family of my teenage cousins. His face glows with delight as he finds himself in a house full of older boys—boys who play catch with him in the backyard and teach him to dribblew a basketball. In quieter moments, I visualize him standing next to me by the piano, barely able to keep his active body still. He is singing “I am a Child of God” in a beautiful, clear soprano with the sweetness and faith that only a child can have.

He knows many fathers. There is our home teacher—a loving, patient father of three small girls. There is a married couple who share family home evening with us every Monday night. There are the men who dress up as Santa Claus and Santa’s elf for the ward Christmas party. There is our family chiropractor—a handsome, well-muscled man about my age. My son always gives him a big hug after his adjustment. Finally, there are his two uncles, mommy’s “little” brothers. Because he knows what it is like to be a little brother, he can identify with these men, no longer boys, who now have families of their own.

He knows his own father. Although my son visits with him once a month, he imagines that his father won’t recognize him when he is grown. He plans to seek him out and introduce himself. I wonder if he will see his resemblance to his father. By then life will have become his tutor and his own sweet spirit his guid. How much he is like his father will be his own choice. I will probable cry when it is time to say goodbye, but I am sure that he will have an image of himself that is joyful and positive in part because I have nurtured and mothered him. As I wish him a happy trip I will know that—no matter what fathers he chooses to pattern himself after—he will always see himself as a child of mine and a child of God.

Deborah Mayhew
Paramus, New Jersey
Volume 18 No. 1 (1993)