Harboring a Fugitive

Six twenty eight…in the blessed a.m….after talking with two wayward souls until one in the morning and texting a worried spouse five times to tell her that everything was all right.  Now, six twenty eight, and that same spouse was grumbling about people who couldn’t leave them alone for even a few hours of rest.

Six twenty eight, and it was the chair of the personnel committee on the line.  This was not going to be good.

“Pastor, I understand that not only are we hosting a squatter in the basement boiler room, but now you are harboring a fugitive felon who is in a romantic relationship with the aforementioned squatter.” 

The committee chair paused.  The pastor tried to wipe the sleep out of his eyes and to shake the dust out of his brain.  It was not a speedy process.

“Hello…Pastor?  Are you there?  Did you hear what I said?”

“What?  Yes, well I can explain…Wait a minute?  Would you mind sharing with me just where you got your information?”

There was a longer pause and a deep sigh.  “Pastor, I’ve been asked to keep that in confidence.  Let us just say that someone called me late last evening with this information.  I decided not to disturb you in the wee hours of the morning, so I waited until now to call.  Be that as it may, could you please explain to me how it is that we are sheltering a trespasser and giving sanctuary to a fugitive from the law?”

It was obvious that someone overheard the conversation in the boiler room—or at least enough of it to draw some rather interesting conclusions.  In all likelihood it was one of the committee members who showed up for the non-meeting last evening.  That was a meeting of the congregational care committee—aka The Galloping Gossip Gang.  Any one of the committee members would have savored this juicy information like a sweet, dark truffle.

“Gossip,” write Feinberg, Cheng and Willer, “represents a widespread, efficient and low-cost form of punishment.”  Gossip can be used to control those who might be outsiders or those who might challenge the status quo.  Anxious systems use gossip to monitor threats to the homeostasis of the system.  Harriet Lerner has noted that the volume of gossip in a system is the most accurate gauge of a system’s anxiety.

If that was the case, then the congregation had enough anxiety to light up the lower forty-eight states.  And it wasn't the first time the Galloping Gossip Gang tried to cut the pastor down to size by inflating his negative reputation.

The pastor cleared his throat along with his head.  “Let me clarify a few things.  First, the woman in question is not a fugitive from the law.  She is a convicted felon who has completed her sentence and is now on parole.  We are not harboring her in the church.  She was, instead, a guest in our building last evening.  I confirmed her parole status by checking her out on the Department of Corrections website.  Her story checks out.”

The committee chair was undeterred.  “That’s all well and good, Pastor.  There remains, however, the matter of the unauthorized person who has commandeered our boiler room as his personal apartment.  I cannot believe that the authorities or our insurance carrier would look kindly on this situation.  What do you intend to do about this ridiculous state of affairs?”

Now it was the pastor’s turn to take a deep breath.  “It may be that you aren’t aware of the situation.  The man in question is the brother-in-law of our congregational president.  It seems that this whole arrangement was informally approved by the church council without my knowledge.  I am in the process of tracking these things down and figuring out how to make some sense of all of this.”

The committee chair sniffed in derision.  “Pastor, I have not missed a council meeting in four years.  I don’t recall any discussion of this matter or anything like it.  It may be that our bully of a council president intimidated some of the weaker minds into some sort of illegal vote at an unofficial meeting.  But that is no reason to tolerate this outrageous situation.  I believe that I shall call the police and take care of matters, since you seem to be unable to do so.”

The pastor had an urgent need to use the bathroom.  He had a more urgent need to reach through the phone and throttle the pompous and officious committee chair.  By this time, however, his wife was awake and had heard enough to know that an explosion was seconds from detonation.  She took her spouse’s hand, squeezed uncomfortably hard, and mouthed the words, “Don’t do it!”

He gasped at the pain, but it focused his attention.  He spoke in measured tones to the committee chair.  “Please don’t take any actions like that just yet.  I would like to investigate a bit more and see if we can come to a more humane resolution.  In the meantime, I’d be grateful if you might set the record straight with the people who were in touch with you last night.  That sort of inaccurate gossip can be very destructive.”

“I have a better idea, Pastor.  Please be at the church at 7 p.m. for an emergency meeting of the Personnel Committee.  I will ensure that the congregational president is there in all his sniveling glory. If you will be so kind as to make sure that the squatter is there as well.  We’re going to have this out, once and for all.”

End of transmission.

In the next three hours, the pastor answered nineteen calls of concern over the use of the church as a sanctuary for a murderer, rapist, terrorist and/or pedophile.  The only bright light was that Phil had prepared a lovely mushroom and Gouda omelet for breakfast and had enough to share with the pastor.

Where are the nodes of the gossip network in your congregation or organization?  How does gossip function in your congregation or organization—social glue, social punishment, social control or intimidation, all of the above?  What are the most effective responses to the corrosive effects of gossip in anxious systems?