The Spin Doctors

“When a stretch of street swelled, cracked and then returned to normal within 20 minutes last summer, one city official joked that it was the work of a giant earthworm. Fire Dept. spokesman Charlie McCafferty, who make the quip, later chalked the 20-foot-long bulge up to a natural gas accumulation and forgot about it. Until Tuesday, when he learned that the weekly National Examiner carried the headline, ‘20-foot earthworm terrorizes city, swallows dogs.’ The story told readers about a ‘top-level investigation ordered into the horrifying sighting of a giant earthworm.’ McCafferty said he heard about the article when two frightened women phoned him about a creature ‘eating up dogs’ they’d read about in the magazine. The tabloid quoted unidentified city officials and witnesses who said they saw the worm grab dogs and swallow them whole. Cliff Linedecker, news editor for the West Palm Beach, Fla. weekly, said the paper got the story from Frank Kendal, a stringer who ‘has given us some pretty good stories. It was a very good story and I saw no reason to question it,’ he said. ‘We run into a lot of really unusual stories here. ‘ When asked if he believed in such giant earthworms, he said, ‘Well I do now. When you’re dealing with the printed word. All I had to deal with was the printed word.’” (Taken from Spokesman Review, of Fort Worth, Texas). In recent years we have come to add another meaning to a very common word: “spin.” This is what Webster’s Dictionary lists as the definition of “spin”: 1. To draw out and twist into threads, either by the hand or machinery; as, to spin wool, cotton or flax; to spin goats' hair. All the yarn which Penelope spun in Ulysses' absence did but fill Ithaca with moths. 2. To draw out tediously; to form by a slow process of degrees; with out; as, to spin out large volumes on a subject. 3. To extend to a great length; as, to spin out a subject. 4. To draw out; to protract; to spend by delays; as, to spin out the day in the idleness By one delay after another, they spin out their whole lives. 5. To whirl with a thread; to turn or cause to whirl; as, to spin a top. 6. To draw out from the stomach in a filament; as, a spider spins a web. It is amazing how comfortable we have become with something less than the truth! Lying is one of the many tools Satan has used to since the beginning of time to keep us from the fullness of God’s presence. The trouble with his lies is that they sound so believable! Perhaps one of the most destructive forms of these believable lies is that of gossip. The Scripture has some very specific things to say about this subject. A worthless man plots evil, and his speech is like a scorching fire. A dishonest man spreads strife, and a whisperer separates close friends. (Proverbs 16:27-28 ESV). For lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases. As charcoal to hot embers and wood to fire, so is a quarrelsome man for kindling strife. The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels; they go down into the inner parts of the body. (Proverbs 26:20-22 ESV). Truth is always the better of the two choices in our speech, especially when it concerns the lives of others. The old adage is still true: If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all! Today, determine to use your tongue for good and not evil.