Gotcha

One of the Bishops of Pennsylvania that I was close to was Lyman Ogilby. His father was one time President of Trinity College. He wanted our family to see his home in Maryland when we were frustrated with looking for land to build a home. He invited us down to his place on the Chesapeake. We loved the view of the Chesapeake as homes sat up on a bluff surrounded by woods. He arranged for a real estate agent to meet us that afternoon. We built the home ourselves and became one of his neighbors. He taught our whole family how to sail as he was the Connecticut State Sailing Champion when he was younger.

He was Ex Officio Chair of the Board at EA. There is nothing that I wouldn’t do for him. He asked me to visit a parish in the Diocese that was having trouble with their Rector. The parish thought he needed an exorcism. We do that in the Episcopal Church.  So, one cloudy morning like the moors of England, I left the house to meet with the priest with my green booklet of exorcism with me. The priest was nowhere to be found so I went into the church and sat in the front. After a good bit of time, I just decided to leave. When I turned around, the designated priest was in the back row with a monk’s robe and hood over his head and face. He was as psychotic as they come. I called the bishop, and said, “He doesn’t need an exorcism. He needs immediate psychiatric hospitalization.”

During the summers, EA is a large community, so things are happening twelve months of the year, but I had more control over my schedule during those summer months.

He asked that I go to a troubled parish where the Rector lasted nine months before he was forced to resign. After I met with the leaders and did Sunday services, I noticed that there was a small group of people who had been in the parish for a long period of time and literally ran the parish. As they described how wrong the priest was for their parish, they proceeded with a series of questions that ended with “You see why he didn’t work out.”

They were gotcha questions with a series of questions that lead to an obvious answer if you had any intelligence.

But some of the parishes that I went to were just needing some tender loving care and some understanding when they had recently lost their rector to a move or retirement.

But then, reminiscent of the where the rector had been asked to leave after a short period of time, I went to a parish in the Gray’s Ferry Section of the city which had problems with any clergy that the bishop had sent in. It was near to streets where a lot of shootings have occurred. Even today when I see a shooting that has occurred in the city and the avenues where the parish is located is mentioned, “my ears perk up.”

When I arrived there for the first Sunday, I was met by a few people who clearly were running the show there. Most of the parishioners didn’t live there but grew up in the area and moved out to the suburbs but returned because they were attached to the place. I never talked to any rectors before going in as that would bias my view.

I first thought that it was the location because I usually walk around the neighborhood when I go to an inner-city parish. When I was walking around the neighborhood for the first time, I was cautioned by a group of young twenty-year-olds to remember just who the authority was who ran the area. Hint, it wasn’t me! I also noticed holes in the side of cars that were caused by bullets. But what really got my attention was the fact that it seemed that every other row home had a resident pit bull or German Shepherd. It wasn’t because they were dog lovers.

When I went to visit one member of the parish who was ill, I knocked on the storm door which was locked as the regular door was open. In front of me was a German Shepherd running down the hall toward the storm door with the woman screaming in the background. My only prayer was I hope that the storm door holds. It did. She put the dog away, and we had a visit.

Yesterday, Vicki reminded me that when I invited her down to attend a worship service, there was a dead dog in front of the church. It wasn’t the horse head as was put in an offender’s bed in the Godfather movie, but it could have been a message to me.

But it wasn’t that symbol that was the problem. It was the gotcha questions that probably most clergy got tired of answering. So, why do I tell you all of this. It is so that you know that gotcha questions used by the Republicans and Democrats build walls and not bridges. They are the power player asking the visiting victim in a session before a Congressional interrogation that is the dominant part of our problem.

Recently, I noticed that AOC went through a series of yes or no questions which is another terrible example of disempowering conversation. When she asked the person being questioned with the final question, he had to confess that he was in the wrong. Think of the Presidents of Penn, MIT, and Harvard, trapped without opportunity to explain when questioned by Representative Elise Stefanik asking yes or no questions. She didn’t want any discussion.

The Republican version of Gotcha is done better than anyone by Senator John Kennedy of Louisianna. We watch him weave his questions like he is dumbfounded about the situation and then gets to that final question and the person interviewed is caught in their yes or no responses to conclude that they are wrong. He plays this slow Southerner fool all the time.

This fundamental communication style can destroy any entity where power and the powerless are set up to shame the individual. It doesn’t matter if it is in a parish or in the halls of Congress. How can we build bridges and unity when this form of communication is the dominant mode of the currency of expression. It really isn’t about policy as much as it is about fear of change and control in our way at getting to the heart of any issue.

Watch for these exchanges! Gotcha must go if we are to move forward in any parish and in our nation.