There is a popular folk saying that "God takes care of fools and babies." Growing up in rural Jamaica, I used to laugh and say that to myself, choosing the path of the joyful "fool" to protect my peace. But this everyday idiom carries profound scriptural wisdom. In the text of Psalm 116:6, it is written: "The Lord preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He saved me." Stepping through life with that simple, child-like faith is a shield. It fills you with a positive energy that blunts the sharpest arrows before they even touch you. While other children might have curled up in a corner when the heavy weight of village malice came crashing down, I held my head high and kept walking.
Years ago, a UCLA report noted that the vast majority of human gossip is actually harmless social data that can help bond communities together. An elderly lady from my home village in Manchester once echoed this, telling me that "gossip should be put to good use." Yet, there is a dangerous canyon between harmless community chatter and weaponized lies. My mother always warned me, "When you can dodge a thief, you can’t dodge a liar." A thief only takes what is physical, but a liar tries to steal your peace, your identity, and the trust of those who love you.
As a young girl, my only crime was that I was beautiful. In a small village, unearned favor breeds deep envy. Some people simply could not stand it. They concocted a fabricated story about me and the local boys, carrying the scandal straight to my parents. Believing the rumor mill, my parents dealt with me harshly, and I received a few unforgettable slaps from a belt. It wasn’t easy. Yet, even with the sting of that injustice, I brushed it aside. I knew my truth. Eventually, the lies crumbled, my parents realized they had been deceived, and their love for me grew even deeper—a fact that griped the living hell out of the envious onlookers. Decades later, when my mother moved to Canada after my father passed, she finally obtained the exact names of the enemies who started that childhood fire. Knowing their names didn't make me bitter; it gave me a hearty, triumphant laugh.
The sheer green envy in that village ran so thick it even followed me into the church house. Everyone knew I was learning to play the organ, a milestone of growth and accomplishment. One envious village lady couldn't contain her resentment, loudly remarking to the community, "Any day Grace Dunkley begin to play the church organ, I will not return to church!" I had to laugh because that lady used to greet me with a smile. The thought that someone would boycott the house of the Lord just to avoid seeing me succeed showed exactly how deep their bitterness ran.
The absurdity of weaponized gossip followed me straight into adulthood, across the ocean. About a decade ago, I attended a wake in Brooklyn, New York for someone from our village. As I was ascending the steps to the church, an old friend called out my name and revealed a bizarre confession he had just witnessed in the car ride over. It turns out a group of primary school boys had all been secretly in love with me back in the day, entirely unbeknownst to me. To stake their imaginary claims, they had actually gotten into a physical fistfight near the local horse pond, arguing over "who was with me first." Their fictional claims were entirely erroneous, cooked up to satisfy schoolboy egos, yet they had fed the village rumor mill for years.
As fate would have it, one of the very men who had been in that fighting group sat right beside me inside the wake. We had been primary school classmates and always maintained a good rapport. I couldn't resist. I leaned over, gave him a firm pinch on the arm, and whispered, "I heard about the confession!" I laughed so loud I forgot for a moment that I was at a wake, luckily before the official proceedings had gotten into gear. What could have been a detrimental rumor in my youth was reduced to a ridiculous, laughable memory.
But village life wasn’t just psychological warfare; sometimes the malice was physical. In primary school, a notorious local troublemaker walked up to my desk one day, stood right beside me, and without a single word or provocation, punched me squarely in the face. Blood gushed from my nostrils. My older brother was alerted in a neighboring classroom and rushed in just as the culprit fled. My brother caught him, and my parents flatly refused to let the village elders smooth it over. They got the law involved. A doctor's X-ray revealed my nose was "broken but not splintered."
The boy was legally bound over for a period of years to keep the peace. His family begged us to drop the case, but my parents stood firm: he needed discipline. He eventually left the village for Kingston, continuing to cause a stir wherever he went. A few years ago, I inquired about him and learned he had passed away, but the person delivering the news added a comforting detail: by the end of his life, he was a changed man. Accountability, it seems, has a way of working its code into a person's life, even if it takes a lifetime.
Gossip will always drive people for a little excitement, but it remains a volatile, dangerous thing. It can create erroneous realities out of thin air. Yet, if you possess that positive, resilient energy—the saving grace of an innocent mind preserved by moral—the world's envy cannot take you down. Now, years later, as I share these hidden truths with my two daughters, I look back on it all with a haughty and hearty smile. You can sit right next to the architects of the rumors, pinch them on the arm, and laugh out loud at the story they tried to write for you.
Tah-Tah! Treat children with kindness.
Grace Dunkley-Asphall, Copyright © 2026
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