The Fog of Transition
“How do you handle being triangulated by a supervisor whom you really trust to be wise? Someone you would normally trust to not try this kind of manipulation? What about when the triangulator gives me the whole ‘you need to do it, they’ll listen to you’ song and dance? What about when they lay guilt on you (i.e. ‘I’m just worried about him and whether he would do or say X, especially in front of others’)?” -Assistant pastor with last day on the job: June 30
“Things are coming undone all over the place on our team. The admin is about to resign and will be the third staff member to quit since January. I am meeting with the senior pastor Tuesday for an intervention. I think it’s best for me to do it, since I won’t be around much longer.” -Assistant pastor with last day on the job: May 16
Transitions make people weird.
Two questions that came my way this week originated from people who are going through enormous changes in their lives. They are leaving jobs where they have been deeply invested, and they are grieving. Chances are, they are feeling extra-sensitive to the dynamics around them, as those who are getting ready to say goodbye are bundles of exposed nerve endings. The goodbyes that ministers must say to churches are especially poignant, with all their deep, intersecting relationships. Never have I cried so hard at goodbyes as I have to ministry settings, where I’ve felt like a plant pulled up by the roots.
The first questioner is getting drawn into conflicts that aren’t theirs to handle by a senior leader who ought to know better. They’re feeling disappointed, disillusioned, and ill-equipped to say “no thanks” to requests to get involved where they shouldn’t. The second is contemplating having a come-to-Jesus conversation with their boss because, hey, why not? They won’t be around to receive any retribution or live with the fallout; doesn’t that make them the perfect candidate to poke the bear? No, it does not.
In both cases, we see evidence that the ones leaving their ministry positions aren’t the only ones who are experiencing transition weirdness. Surely, the triangulator in the first instance is letting down their guard, having come near the end of a mentor-mentee relationship, too tired to remember that it’s still a mentor-mentee relationship. In the second case, the staff team is in the background, cheering on the one who is going to speak truth to power, while themselves staying far away. Why are they staying away? Because interventions where one with less power confronts one with more power almost always fail. Why would this law of leadership physics be different for someone who has one foot out the door?
Transition weirdness is not just affecting our two question-posers; it’s a world-wide fog in which we’re all trying to orient ourselves. We are starting to come out of the Covid-19 pandemic, but we aren’t there yet. For more than a year, we have lived in fear. We have adjusted our habits, changed our work patterns, isolated ourselves where we could, and stressed ourselves sick where we couldn’t. We have lost loved ones, weathered a contentious election, and experienced a society-wide reawakening to the prevalence of racism. Now, we’re trying to figure out the nature of “normal,” because soon we’re supposed to get back to it. We don’t know how.
If transitions generally cause people to forget themselves, behave in ways that are out of character, and make bad choices, we all need to be on high-alert during this season, because transition is the water in which we are swimming. Whereas we can usually trust our instincts, during this time, it’s more important for us to check them. Questioner 1’s instincts say, “Trust person who usually doesn’t triangulate and do what’s asked of me.” Questioner 2’s instincts say, “Take one for the team.” Don’t. And Don’t.
Next week we mark Holy Week, the emotional roller-coaster we choose to board to deepen our faith in two directions: agony and ecstasy. As is so often my advice in studying the Gospels, I commend to you: watch the disciples. In their hours of greatest distress, those who are supposed to stand guard for Jesus while he prays fall asleep. Judas betrays those closest to him for a bag of metal. Peter pretends never to have met the person to whom he’d dedicated his life (Ca-caw! Ca-caw! Ca-caw). Transitions make people weird.
The best we can do is watch our own choices especially closely, trusting that the weirdness is affecting us; and then treat others with tenderness and acceptance, knowing that it’s affecting them, too. We are going to get through this Holy Week. It’s got a surprise ending. Wait for it, in hope.
