Taking Wood from the Fire of China Gossip

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

"For lack of wood, the fire goes out" Prov. 26:20

"Journalism is organized gossip." Edward Eggleston

Until I moved to Xiamen, in China's Fujian Province, I always thought that we had "news" and they had propaganda. It never occurred to me, naive as I was, that not only is much of our media slanted but a good deal of it is not even true. It is truly "organized gossip." During my 20 years in China I've seen foreign media not only incorrectly report events in China but actually report several events that I know, for certainty, did not happen.

Of course, the same thing happens back home. For example, my partner and I set up the security for the Shah of Iran in Texas, and I know first hand that the media, and the book "The Shah's Last Ride," presented some things as fact that were pure fiction. But we, the audience, read journalistic gossip and pass it on, magnifying it all out of proportion--especially in this age of e-mail and SPAM. Thank heavens for Snopes.com (even that is manipulated at times).

Of course, gossip can be used for one's advantageous. After I paid $450 USD for our first telephone at Xiamen University, and 3 years later still did not have one, I grabbed a ladder and connected the building phone to our apartment--but I spent several hours dragging it out so dozens of people walked past and asked what I was doing. "I know the university must be embarrassed that I still don't have a phone, I told people, so I'm doing it myself. But I can't, legally, so don't tell anyone!" Of course, within hours every one on campus knew about it--and within a week I had a legal phone.

Without wood, a fire goes out. The same is true for gossip. Today, I simply quote F.B.Meyer's comments on Proverbs 26:20 from "Our Daily Homily" (1890s):

"How simple a parable! Of course it must be so. As soon as a fire has reached the end of the material on which it fed, it expires.

"This is true of the fire of slander. As long as there is an ear to receive, and a tongue to pass on, some piece of malicious slander will continue to circulate. But directly it reaches a hearer who will not whisper it forward, to that direction at least its progress is arrested. Why do you not adopt this role, and urge others to do so? Hear if you must the whisper of the slanderer; but let it stop with you, locked in the secret of your own breast. You may be voted rather uninteresting and stupid by a certain society which thrives in whispered calumnies; but you will save many a heartr from being torn and lacerated by unkindness and falsehood.

"How graphic that word "whisperer" is! People always tell you to be sure not to tell; it is a way they have, though they do not expect you for a moment to keep the story to yourself. It is the kiss under which they betray. Always tell them that you refuse to be an accomplice in evil. If there is a wrong concerning which you must neither take action nor speak, you had better not defile your ear with it.

"This is true of the fire of the Holy Ghost. You must feed it by your lovingobedience, your study of the Word of God, your faith and prayer. Yield yourself more entirely to his possession. Let your spirit, soul, and body, your every act and desire, be as fuel to the Spirit of God. Pile up the wood of continual swacrifice and self-surrender, till the divine fire raches out its hands towards heaven. Even though the wood, like Elijah's, be drenched with water, God's fire will conquer!"