Spinners No Longer

In the world, people often get what they want by demanding, begging, cajoling, manipulating, and coercing everyone around them. The way to win is to knock everyone else off the top of the mountain and become the “King of the Hill.”

One of the more subtle ways we do this is by what has become known as “spin.” We tell people the truth, but shade things just enough so that we come out looking like the hero in the story. Or we explain things in such a way that we are just a little bit less evil than the other people in the story. The goal is to spin the story in such a way that we come out looking better than we think we might look if we came right out and told the actual truth.

Spin is what Adam sought to do in the garden when God came looking for him after he had eaten the forbidden fruit. “Where are you Adam?” God called. Adam, clothed in leaves, hiding in the bushes, fearing what God would think, say and then do, said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” And God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?” And Adam, who had already begun setting up the spin, said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” And Bam! Spin begins and we have been using it to get what we want ever since.

But it should not be this way with us. We are Christians, we are redeemed from our spin. We are spinners no longer. We speak the truth in love. We say things that are meant to edify, and to help others become more like Jesus. We lay down our lives for one another and work diligently and hard (for it is hard work) to say only what builds one another up.

Canon Press Published this article.