Gossip! Why do people listen to it, read it, spread it? Why do otherwise fair and gentle people with no hint of malicious intent get caught up in the treacherous business of criticizing and meddling—often without even knowing they are doing so? Isn't it sometimes because mortal mind would adulterate people's purest impulses, those derived from God?

We are all endowed with an innate capacity to love, help, and support our fellowman. And the good Samaritan in every one of us must be nurtured and protected. But there is much about friends, neighbors, celebrities, and even close family members that is not our legitimate concern—that is just none of our business. We need to honor each one's inalienable right to work out his own salvation.

We need never be duped by mortal mind into imagining that we are expressing brotherly love when we are merely meddling, simply trafficking in the affairs of others. We are Christ-empowered to forbid such mockery of our natural magnanimity and lovingkindness. There is profound need for genuine love, for deep charity. There is need for healing. Any debasing tendency in us to criticize or meddle we can pray to see exposed and destroyed.

Curiosity is a clever little culprit, but we need not be fooled. God, Mind, is not curious; Mind knows, and Mind knows man as good. Because we are in truth the reflection of God, we should get on with the business of proving this by loving and healing. We need to obey the divine law of loving our neighbor, and this requires obedience to the commandment "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour." ^{Ex. 20:16.}

Sometimes the most innocent, friendly, and newsy conversation about people slips over the line into gossip and criticism. In a family I know, when this happens, one member or another alertly brings the talk to a halt by asking, "Is this really any of our business?" In steering the conversation back onto the right track, they find these test questions useful: Is it factual? Is it loving? Is it necessary? And "yes" to two out of three isn't good enough.

We can pray to preserve the integrity of our natural concern for and interest in the well-being of our fellowman. Our earnest prayer for grace, for patience and meekness, purifies our expression of benevolence, keeps us about our Father's business, and brings practical blessings to those about whom we're concerned.

Prayer in Christian Science affirms the truth of the one infinite, perfect God, good, and of His perfect, spiritual manifestation, man. Scientific prayer also denies error. We can recognize, for example, that God's knowledge of His own allness leaves error without a place to exist even as belief. Such prayer helps bring us into the understanding of the oneness of Mind. Consequently, in the measure that we let God, Mind, be our Mind, we find ourselves conscious of the perfection of Mind and Mind's ideas. We know man to be the evidence of the infinite self-completeness of God. Here within Mind's knowledge of its own beloved idea, man, there is nothing to be criticized; God is satisfied with His own idea.

We can realize that in truth there is no evil to entice us away from the wisdom and love of Mind's knowing, and entangle us in the snarls of so-called mortal mind's thinking. Such thinking, which picks and pokes, is ruled out through the true knowing that comes from Mind, the knowing that loves, blesses, and heals. As we destroy in ourselves the devilish tendency to gossip, an additional blessing comes: freedom from the belief that there are mortal minds out there aiming slanderous thoughts at us. We know but one Mind. Our prayer for grace gathers our thoughts into God's orbit and out of range of error's suppositional activity and claim to existence. Here we are at home with all of God's spiritual creation.

Much news coverage is gossipy and sensational. It is obviously insidious, and we reject it. But, of the newspaper she founded—The Christian Science Monitor—Mrs. Eddy says, "The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind." ^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 353.} Embracing this same Christly objective, we can edit our own thoughts and conversations in accord with this goal.

Nobody should want to be a busybody. And one knows the difference between loving concern and meddling when he is humbly watching and praying to follow the Way-shower, Christ Jesus. The Christ is ever present to separate the chaff from the wheat, the lie from the truth. Mrs. Eddy links humility with spiritual discernment when she writes: "Cherish humility, 'watch,' and 'pray without ceasing,' or you will miss the way of Truth and Love. Humility is no busybody: it has no moments for trafficking in other people's business, no place for envy, no time for idle words, vain amusements, and all the et cetera of the ways and means of personal sense." ^{Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 356-357.}

It's funny, isn't it, how often when someone is minding someone else's business or finding fault, he begins his comments with phrases like "I hate to say this, but ..." or "I'm sorry, but I just don't like ..." or "It's probably none of my business, but ..." Mortal mind admits, even apologizes for, the wrongdoing before heartily going ahead with it!

The impulse to share our concern about another usually indicates our own deep need to pray to the Father in secret and gain the wonderful blessing that comes when our thought about that person or situation is corrected. Whenever we are tempted to meddle, that is a good time to ask the Father, "What do You know about this?" and then quietly listen. This brings not only the heart-to-heart communication we seek but also healing. The moment we are tempted to condemn someone is the time to pray to see perfect man.

Are we frequently critical of people, places, and things? Have we noticed that we disapprove more often than we praise? Do we evaluate our world mostly in terms of "What's wrong here?" rather than "What's true here?" We can begin to correct this practice right now. We can pray for the same Christ-spirit to be in us that was in Jesus, confident that as the false tendency to criticize and meddle is healed, whatever ails us as a result of this error will also be healed.

In the Gospel of John we read the account of Jesus' morning meal with his disciples after his victory over death and just before his ascension. At that time he gave Peter his assignment regarding the church. Then we read that Peter, seeing another disciple nearby, asked Jesus, "And what shall this man do?" Then follows the response we all may attend to when concerned about something that is not our business: "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me." ^{John 21:21, 22.} In those last three words our beloved Master tells us how to mind our own business.

Christian Scientists earnestly pray to follow Christ. As a result of this commitment, people often confide in them. In the Manual of The Mother Church by Mrs. Eddy we read, "Members of this Church shall hold in sacred confidence all private communications made to them by their patients; also such information as may come to them by reason of their relation of practitioner to patient." ^{Man., Art. VIII, Sect. 22.} This statement is addressed not only to practitioners listed in The Christian Science Journal but to church members in general. Abiding by the spirit of this By-Law is the business of everyone.

What a precious privilege it is to mind our own business, the healing business, in obedience to Christ Jesus' command "Follow thou me."