Like Down In The Wind

Many years ago I saw what rumor and innuendo could do to an innocent person.

It was not pretty.

There was one person that was most persistent in feeding the rumor mill. I have no idea why, maybe being the center of attention fed their psyche.

The person that was the object of the innuendos was hurt a great deal by the actions of this particular person, and when the tales were proved to be false, and found to be promoted only to cause sensation, others came down on the rumor spreader hard.

Around the same time I heard a story of a similar situation.

A person that had helped to spread many false stories about another found that none of the allegations were true. She asked her pastor what she could do to make up for what she had done. The pastor left the room and returned with a pillow, and walked out onto the porch of the home. There on the porch, he slit open the pillow and shook it in the wind. Thousands of white, downy feathers flew off into the air. Up and around the feathers twirled around the trees, and wires along the street. Down the street they flew, and onto lawns, porches, and rooftops. The wind continued to blow,and the feathers continued to fly further , and spread wider.

The lady stared at the scene, her head following the down as it fled from her porch, to her neighbors, and their neighbors, and theirs.

The pastor placed the now empty pillow case down on a chair,and said to the woman," Go and bring back to me each and every one of those feathers, and then we'll talk some more".

"But...but, there are hundreds of them! They've flown everywhere! I can't get them back!", the woman cried.

"Exactly.", replied the Pastor.