Gossip and Dictionaries

I'm reading a book my mom gave me: Open Secrets: A Spiritual Journey Through A Country Church. I get a kick out of how the author pokes a little fun at himself--he has a PhD in Theology and comes to a little country church for his first call. He thinks rather highly of himself. His father points out that a 28 all he's done is go to school, he's never worked, he's married and has a child coming--yet, he's not accepting the call from this little church in New Cana, IL- it's time to get to it! Richard (the 28 year old in question) doesn't want to come right out and say that he's waiting for something better, yet that's what it is. Anyway, he does end up in New Cana, and for all his book learning, he learns much more about his own inadequacies, and about you know, real people, than you can learn from reading a book and being in class. What does this have to do with gossip? Well, he has a chapter called "Gossiping the Gospel":

"The word gossip originally implied a spiritual relationship. A gossip was a sponsor at a baptism, one who spoke on behalf of the child and who would provide spiritual guidance to the child as it grew in years. A gossip was your godmother or godfather. Gossiping was speech within the community of the baptized. . .Gossip is the community's way of conducting moral discourse and, in an oddly indirect way, of forgiving old offenses. In our town all desires were known, no secrets were hid, and every heart was an open book. Every life was gossiped by all, and all were gossips."

Isn't that just fascinating? I had to look it up in the dictionary to make sure he was really telling the truth! It's almost as this definition has disappeared from our culture.

I recently had a conversation with a friend who was excited about how her students were using their dictionaries, and how excited they were to consider words and their meanings. Wouldn't it be great if we got back to that sort of rich language, in our writing and in our vocabulary. The only time I really use a dictionary is during Bible study. Almost every time the definition takes me deeper into the passage I'm studying. I need to do more of this in my recreational reading. Usually, I'm in a hurry to absorb the story, and don't want to take the time. I need to learn to slow down--perhaps I'll find the story will have more depth and meaning for me if I do.