“Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and
went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands,
and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go."
(John 21: 18)
These word are about Peter. I wonder if he met them with
some degree of reluctance – if, when halfway through and realising this was not
going to end well, he put his hands to ears and went lalalalalalala really loudly till Jesus was done. If this was my future,
I would much rather you keep that kind of information to yourself thank you
very much. Nothing ruins a picnic like the promise of an afternoon storm, even
if it is momentarily all blue skies and cannot be seen on the horizon just yet.
You still know it is coming.
I’m not, for instance, particularly good with sick people. It’s not that I don’t like sick people – also, I’m not sure categorising people like that is very helpful – I do, but I’m a dyed-in-the-wool hypochondriac, so illness is a mine-field for me. I have yet to leave a hospital after a visit without exhibiting the exact same symptoms of the person lying in the bed; I’ve changed my hospital exit strategy to avoid the check-in counter as I’m tempted just to book myself with a quick call to my Catholic colleague to come and administer last rites.
Hospital visits. There are ministers who can take a world of
pain upon their shoulders and not flinch at all - ministers with high pain
thresholds, eyes like flint that absorb hardship with a colossal heroism.
That’s not me.
“…and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to
go."
So it was that this week I was called out to a meeting that
I did not want to attend. If this not wanting to do stuff’ reminds you of the
attitude of a teenager who would rather carry on playing XBOX than, I don’t
know, going to the dentist or something, I would fully agree and own that.
There are glaring deficiencies in this life of mine and some worrying areas of arrested
development.
This meeting involved conflict resolution. For my sins I
have oversight of a number of churches. I’m in charge of more than just ‘my’
church. Now, having read the above few paragraphs, I completely understand the
furrowed, worried brow and the quietly-birthed question tickling the back of
your mind: how on earth has he…?
(That is a blog for another day.)
Having oversight basically means nobody is interested in you
unless there is a problem. So, by no fault of your own, you often assume this
aura of negativity, the trumpet blows a flat note when you enter the building.
Just the phrase, ‘the Superintendent is coming,’ is a mark of failure, or at
least worry.
And I’m not great at conflict resolution. I’m a conflict avoider. Consequently, when those
moments of conflict arise I only have so many arrows in my quiver and none of
them am I able to shoot with any great accuracy or skill. I sometimes do the
passive-aggressive thing, get a little snarky, a little sarcastic, make a curt
remark or two - eye-rolling is in my wheel-house. When I do get confrontational
I over-egg the pudding to the degree that I don’t recognise myself. People have
walked away from me carrying shrapnel, wondering about who this guy is and
asking what did he do with that nice minister Andrew Robinson.
Oh, and I shake. A lot. Uncontrollably.
So I was called to this meeting to resolve this issue;
because of my limitations I take back-up – my Circuit Stewards accompanied me,
my posse as it were. This church with
this issue is in an outlying area. One of the leaders of that church, instead
of calling the other leaders ‘society stewards’, which they are, kept on
mistakenly calling them shop stewards. This unnerved me; this sounded less
Methodist and more, I don’t know, Marikana?
So the storm cloud of this meeting that had been building on
my horizon since the morning broke at about six in the evening. What I have
found in places of conflict is how ordinary most of the problems are. Most
problems, even the big ones, are not that salacious: a misunderstood comment
here, a stupid text message there, a staggering lack of social intelligence,
and a blatant disregard for protocol. Misunderstanding lurking behind every
corner, and a little mischief that will interpret that misunderstanding in the
worst way possible. These are more often than not the building blocks of a
fully-realised conflict.
Like I said, nothing salacious. By way of confession,
sometimes I wish for the clarity of the salacious scandal - "He did what?! With
whom?! Where!? In the church?! On the ORGAN!? You’ve got to be kidding me!?
No?! Seriously!? Well I NEVER! Listen, you’re not allowed to tell anybody…"
You know, truly scandalous stuff that gives birth to
fully-fledged self-righteous indignation. Don’t judge me for this, these are
the hot sins that John’s Revelation seems to favour over the insipid, boring
stuff of trench-warfare disagreements.
One part of the conflict saw one individual chewing gum to
the immense disapproval of other people present. Why the disapproval, you ask?
Well this was done in front of the church, during a service, and the gum was
being chewed - how can I put it - in a particularly aggressive fashion. I
understand the disapproval. I hate gum chewing at the best of times. People
never look more intelligent for chewing gum. I’ve never once thought, “You know
that person looked pretty stupid until they started flapping their gums up and
down in that metronomic fashion. And then he blew a bubble. Whoa! Blew. My.
Mind.”
No. Gum-chewing should be banned and let’s start by banning it in
church, especially among the clergy, especially when they are sitting up front
helping lead worship – so let’s start by banning it there and more the circle
outwards till, I don’t know, teenagers are banned from chewing gum while
watching T.V. – the final frontier.
Most of us are familiar with a type of gum called chappies and this individual who was
commenting on how bad this gum chewing was said that the clergy person was “chewing
the chappies”. I like that. “Chewing
the chappies.” It has a beautiful alliterative and euphemistic ring to it. It
can be used to describe so many situations where people have their noses out of
joint or are just sulking.
Where’s John? “Oh,
I turned the T.V. off so he’s sitting in his room, you know, chewing the chappies.”
What happened to
Albert? “Oh, he voted DA and the ANC smashed the elections. He’s gone off
to play golf. Chewing the chappies.”
Where is Andrew? “The
secretary told him it’s time to do some house-visits to the elderly. He went
off not looking too happy. I think he is chewing the chappies.”
"Chewing the chappies"
is a wonderful phrase acknowledging that slow-burn we all feel from time to
time. That quiet rage. Not unlike Thoreau’s quiet lives of desperation except
perhaps a little more aggressive (and a whole lot less poetic).
So I’m going to ban the chewing of chappies. Sometimes in conflict resolution, you’ve got to start
small: “Yes, I understand that this could lead to cataclysmic failure but
please, for the love of humanity, spit that rubbish out of your mouth right now!”
You’re probably desperate to know what happened at the
meeting right? We resolved the issue. At least I think we resolved the issue. Okay, the issue is on the way to being resolved. Okay, so
we’ve taken a tiny step forward in what we tentatively believe to be generally
the right direction. Everybody got to speak, everybody got to air the chappy they’re chewing (you see, it
really works doesn’t it?), and we worked hard at finding the way forward. Now
I’m no expert, but I would like to suggest a small model for conflict
situations:
1. Listen to everybody.
Get it all out there. Give everybody space
to speak and make sure that you understand what they are saying. Don’t listen
in the fashion of so many people, where you’re vaguely aware the gums of the
person in front of you are moving up and down while you’re wondering who is
winning the Champions League Final. Don’t listen in the way that makes you tap
back into the conversation three minutes down the line now wondering
hysterically what the person has actually
been saying, praying it wasn’t that important, while trying to hide the
ignorant-born alarm sweeping across your face.
2. Find the common ground.
It is there. It might seem like you have
better chance of finding a camouflaged watch in a forest at midnight, but look
for it and when you find it, speak it up. Understand how God values unity and
the life it brings (read Psalm 133). You might have to become a contortionist
trying to keep people together, but work hard at it.
3. Put your pride in your pocket.
This is not about you. If you are doing most of the speaking, you’re probably not doing this properly. If your words – from
the get go – are not formulated to bridge gaps, bring healing, and offer
possible solutions, shut up and go home and hand the job over to someone else.
4. Care.
If you don’t care, don’t pitch up. Using
church as the example, you’d better love this thing Luther called the ‘leprous
bride’ for it is very, very, very often a mess. As I sat there on Tuesday
evening – having resented this meeting the whole day – I was flooded by a sense
of how good these people are and how privileged I was to be a part of this.
I’ve long lived with the suspicion that as clergy we don’t deserve the people
God has put into our care. As each spoke (keeping in mind these are volunteers
attending church after their work hours) I was humbled by their sincerity,
their commitment, their love and deep desire that we make this thing called
church work. Now, not all lay leaders are like this; from time to time you will
come across lay leaders who you think would best serve humanity by being drawn
and quartered. But that is far and away the exception.
5. Laugh.
Even the most intense meetings have moments
of levity, milk them as they are fuel for the journey and joy in the midst of
conflict can be an immense healing balm; it reminds us, when we most need to
hear it, that we are not to take ourselves too seriously. We are to take Jesus
seriously, but not ourselves.
6. Pray.
Okay. In all honesty this came to me a
little late. I was putting finishing touches to this blog and thought, “Dude,
you forgot prayer!” I imagined some saintly person offering a comment along the
lines of, “Maybe prayer should be in there?” You know, in a way both
disarmingly low-key but powerful enough to highlight an absence that could draw
into question the validity of the entire blog-post. So prayer. (Please know
though that I did not just add this to silence critics; I had people praying
for me through-out and we spent time in prayer before.) So, in short, prayer is
important. Do it!
So there you have it. You might read this and think to
yourself, “My giddy aunt, this boy is naïve!” You might read this and think to
yourself, “So these are the six
impossible things I’m supposed to believe before breakfast.”
I suppose there are some situations where none of these
things will work. Where people are so hell-bent on fighting that not all the
king’s horses and all the king’s men can put the thing together again. In which
case, I don’t know, move, change your name, join the Witness Relocation Program,
and hope to live long enough that the nightmares of where you used to be fade
into oblivion.
Whatever happens though never be the one chewing the chappies, but if you are please, please
only ever do it metaphorically.
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