Hearsay

Let me write about a strange phenomenon I've been observing.  People are much more inclined to believe some outlandish negative story they hear instead of trusting in their own experience and observation of the facts.  I've been watching it happen around me as I happen to attend a large, somewhat famous church that has a lot of attackers spreading rumors about it.  I know the stories are false because I've attended there for 2 years.  Because of my own experience, I don't believe the gossip.  It just has me thinking about where in life we have this tendency.  How is it affecting us?

A woman is told by someone that her husband is cheating on her.  What is her first response?  Is it 'I know my husband, that is outside his character so I don't believe you are telling me the truth.' or... 'Oh no!  I'm devastated!  My life is over!  How could this happen?!?!?'   I would hope that a married couple has a good relationship based on honesty and trust, but it seems that mistrust and suspicion are often lurking, ready to pounce.  How can a marriage be strong if there's no trust?  How can there be love without trust?

In the case of my church, not that it's unique, it has happened to many others...  People like to tell crazy stories about what happens there, and other people like to hang on every word and form opinions about the crazy people up on the hill.  I've overheard co-workers talking about how creepy "those people" are, yet at the same time, there are many of them employed here and these very people love them!  They think they're great and put them in leadership positions often.  Do you see the problem here?

It seems our first response is to believe a negative report about things we hear.  How about the news?  How many of us repost instantly when we see a scary "article" shared on Facebook?  How many of us actually look into it first instead of spreading fear?  How many "news" magazines post horrible things about celebrities that turn out to be not true?  How many of us can ever get those lies out of our heads when we look at our fellow man?  How many of us are willing to trust someone after we've heard something bad about them? What if it isn't really true?  How are our relationships affected by all this negative gossip we are constantly bombarded with?

In my observation, I can conclude that gossip and hearsay hold more weight than personal experience.  Does that make any sense at all?  I'm all for being open minded, being cautious, but I would hope people would actually look for evidence before passing judgement and believing all the things they hear.

I wonder how our relationships would change if we would stop speaking negative things about other people, if we stopped allowing others to speak negative things to us, if we trusted our own observations instead of instantly believing the stories we are told by people who have a grudge?  Would it make our relationships stronger?  Would it make people better?  Would it reduce our stress?  Would it add to world peace?  I think it would.