Murder Most Foul

I have a buddy in The Program who was grousing about one of our fellow Travelers. He knows that it isn't very spiritual to talk about someone who isn't actually present but he was pretty steamed and gossip, after all, is a deliciously satisfying character defect -- a minor character defect, in my opinion -- that is awfully hard to give up. The Book calls gossip a "polite form of murder by character assassination." Any defect that includes the words "murder" and "assassination" doesn't actually sound too minor, now that I think about it. Gossip is particularly pleasant when the other person has, in fact, behaved badly, which does happen from time to time. Not every one is as perfect as I am.

Sir Leonardo's solution to this irritation -- we are in the solution business, not the problem business -- was to go and sit next to this guy at each meeting. His sponsor made him do it. It wasn't his solution. His solution was to get as far away as possible then gossip after the meeting. A lot of the time if we make an effort to get to know someone who is frosting our cake then we learn a lot about ourselves. A lot of the time this individual is displaying character traits that we ourselves have. It shows me how irritating my little old character defects can be.

At our next meeting Sir Leonardo sat down next to me. I eyed him suspiciously.