{"id":3633,"date":"2016-02-07T10:00:06","date_gmt":"2016-02-07T15:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=3633"},"modified":"2016-02-03T16:49:17","modified_gmt":"2016-02-03T21:49:17","slug":"the-spirituality-of-the-christian-east-20160207","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=3633","title":{"rendered":"The Spirituality of the Christian East &#8212; 20160207"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/ladder.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2421\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2421\" src=\"http:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/ladder.jpg\" alt=\"Ladder of Divine Accent\" width=\"258\" height=\"327\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/ladder.jpg 258w, https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/ladder-237x300.jpg 237w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 258px) 100vw, 258px\" \/><\/a>The 12th Step on St. John\u2019s <em>Ladder, <\/em>FALSEHOOD<em>, <\/em>includes RUMORS and GOSSIP. He states that if it is indeed a grievous sin to bear false witness against our neighbor, is it not also a terrible thing to spread unfounded gossip about our neighbor? Nowhere is the propensity for self-justification more apparent than in the sin of gossip and slander. We frequently hear Christians spreading malicious rumors about others and justifying it by saying, \u201cI heard this from a reliable source.\u201d Several things must be said about this. No doubt this <em>reliable<\/em> source received this information from another <em>reliable<\/em> source, and that\u00a0 r<em>eliable<\/em> source found out from another <em>reliable<\/em> source. Before you know it, a malicious rumor has spread and become exaggerated over time through a chain of <em>reliable<\/em> sources. Meanwhile, a person\u2019s reputation has been ruined, or others have become secretly suspicious of him, all because you could not resist a bit of juicy gossip. Spreading malicious rumors about someone is not much better than bearing false witness against him. Believing that it is <em>true<\/em> and even if it is true, does now give us the permission to share it with others.<\/p>\n<p>Reliable or not, founded or not, we should not spread such rumors. Just as we would not like others to expose our sins, mistakes and stupid off-the-cuff remarks, so too we should not\u00a0\u00a0 expose the shame of others. Keeping our mouths shut, even if we know for a fact what someone has done, is the easiest expression of love and compassion. Yet how few of us manage even that.<\/p>\n<p>It seems that we humans find it very easy to gossip and spread rumors. I guess it is because at some level we think that it makes us look better if we expose the weaknesses of others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 12th Step on St. John\u2019s Ladder, FALSEHOOD, includes RUMORS and GOSSIP. He states that if it is indeed a grievous sin to bear false witness against our neighbor, is it not also a terrible thing to spread unfounded gossip &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=3633\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-spirituality-of-the-christian-east"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3633"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3634,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3633\/revisions\/3634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}