Father John Series #8

Chapter 8

When The Third Position Is Destructive

Bob called Father John and invited him to come to his home on Hopkins Street because his Parkinson meds weren’t quite right. “I can think fine,” Bob had said. “I’m just not getting about so well. So if you don’t mind, come meet me here.”Father John rang the bell. Bob yelled, “Door’s open. Come in.”Father John expected the house to look like Bob’s office. It didn’t. The house had a living room with a fireplace surrounded by windows on two sides.“Come on back,” Bob yelled.Father John started down the hall and was met by a wire-haired Dachshund darting at him tail wagging and dancing in a circle around his feet.“That’s Jenny,” Bob said. “Don’t let her bother you.”On his way down a hallway Father John passed an open door to a room filled with books, papers, file folders and boxes with a desk with papers and books spilled about. As he passed this room Father John said, “Bob, this must be your office here.”“That’s right,” Bob answered. “Lynn confines me to that space. But I like to meet back here on the porch. Keep coming this way.”Father John followed Bob’s voice. He turned right, walked through a neat well appointed galley kitchen to a breakfast nook and then saw Bob to his left sitting at a round modern white table in one of the five matching white swivel chairs on a porch that looked out on a backyard filled with plants, flowers and trees. It looked like a park.“Lynn likes to garden,” Bob said. “She did all this. I enjoy sitting here when I work, but I have to clear my things off the table before Lynn gets home or I’m in trouble. Lynn doesn’t want the house to become my office she says.”“I can understand that,” Father John said.“So have a seat and tell me what we are talking about this week,” Bob said.“Lying,” Father John said, “I have had my fill of liars for a while. First, there is the Bishop, then, its Raoul, our church treasurer.”“Tell me about the Bishop,” Bob said.“He is going to this Bishop’s convocation,” Father John said. “And he wanted me to go with him. I go. He got up and showcased my parish, and making him look like an inclusive liberal who cares about diversity in his diocese. He said I came to Nashville as a revolutionary who wanted to burn down the cathedral and I have become a cooperative player who has helped him raise money from the conservative wing of the church. I have built my church with architecture that conforms to Nashville, rather than the culture of the people of my parish, helping them assimilate and become good American citizens. Hell over half of my parish are illegals and will never be American citizens. He lied about me and he lied when he took credit for my work. It makes me sick. I want to quit.”“I see,” Bob said. “I would be demoralized too if I were you.”“Yes, it felt like someone hit me in the stomach,” Father John said. “And then I get a phone call while I was at the convocation. The church secretary called me to say that her paycheck bounced. I came back a day early. I go into my office and I find Raoul, the church treasurer, mostly naked with a prostitute in my office. The prostitute didn’t seem to be bothered by my surprise entrance. She took her time getting dressed, seeming to enjoy the embarrassment she caused Raoul and me. When she left he confessed that he stole money from the church. He admitted he was a cocaine and sex addict. He had been using my office as the place for his assignations for some time because I am rarely there.“I’m angry about the stolen money, but the lying, the secret life he led, the deception, the hypocrisy, the contempt for me and the church. All this happening right under my nose.”“Let’s talk about Raoul first,” Bob said. “His secret life is a demon’s third position.”“Oh here we go again,” Father John said. “The third position has something to do with lying and addiction. And you are invoking the devil. I thought you didn’t believe in the devil.”“I don’t,” Bob said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in negative forces. Lying or deceit is the opposite of working with a transcendent, transparent and an agreed upon third position. A secret agenda can become a hidden third position that one party has kept from the person in the second position. Here Raoul had a secret third force playing with him and the church. He had hidden the third master that he served. Raoul has violated Habermas’ principle of free and uncoerced communication.”“Who the hell is Habermas and why is that relevant?” Father John said.“He is a world class critical philosopher who thinks a lot about moral living. He believes the foundation of moral living is transparent truth, truth available to all. He adds to truth the skill of active listening and that is the stuff of free and uncoerced communication.”“How is this relevant to Raoul and the third position?” Father John asked.“He has a hidden third position. This blocks transparent truth and that is destructive to communities and to communion,” Bob said.“Yes, what Raoul did was certainly destructive to our church,” Father John said.“Are you still angry at Raoul?” Bob inquired.“I’m angry at his betrayal,” Father John said, “but now I mostly feel sad for him. He is in a treatment program for addictions. He has been there for a week. He could lose his wife, family and his job. But when I visited him, he said he felt better than he had felt in a long time. I’m not sure I understand that.”“I do,” Bob said. “Living with a hidden third position is exhausting. It is hard to support a life serving a secret master. When he made his secret third position public, when he confessed, he was redeemed. Isn’t that what Jesus preached?” Bob asked.“It sounds familiar,” Father John admitted.“I don’t put much stock in the virgin birth or the resurrection,” Bob said, “but the transformation that can come with confession feels very real to me.”“What does confession of sin have to do with the third position?” Father John asked.“A better question would be, how can the third position become corrupted?” Bob said.“Okay, I’ll bite,” Father John said, “How does the third position become corrupt?”“It is simply the third position turned upside down,” Bob said. “When you hide the third position or put it below the surface, you are sabotaging your community. You are a spy. You are an addict. You may be destroying a family with an affair. You may be leaking energy from your team by pretending to care about the game when you really only care about the uniform. Hidden third parties under the surface act like cancers in any relationship and in any community. This is why the press serves a community. A good newspaper or television reporter exposes hidden third positions. When third positions are exposed, when sins are confessed, the third position flips from below the surface to above the surface. This is what you call redemption.”“Wow that was a neat trick,” Father John said. “Isn’t the third position convenient. It just described sin. How about that?”“Yes, but for Raoul,” Bob said, “It also describes how he can feel better now. His secret third position has been exposed to the light. Everyone can see it now. Everyone can see him now. He can be known and loved, instead of loved for someone he pretends to be.”“That’s was my last week’s sermon,” Father John said.“The church community has a job to do here as well,” Bob said.“What’s that?” Father John said.“It has the job of forgiving Raoul,” Bob said. “If it doesn’t the church community will have a secret third position.”“What is that?” Father John said.“It is revenge and bitterness,” Bob said.“I see, if church members carry a grudge,” Father John said, “ignore Raoul, shun him or hate him, then they have an agenda to kick his ass. Of course, they would deny that if I asked them. This anger becomes an aura that surrounds them with bitterness. That is dangerous. You are right.”“We all need a community to confess our sin to,” Bob said. “We all need to flip our secret third position from under the table to above the table. We need to get rid of our secret and show ourselves to a public of some kind. We need to join with our community in condemning our behavior and pick up again the values we share with our community and begin to serve those values. That is redemption.”“I see why you give the press an important role in society. A good free press does that for a community,” Father John said. “It creates opportunities for redemption and healing.”“The people of Philadelphia, Mississippi recently had such a moment of redemption,” Bob said. “The editor of the local paper crusaded for a trial of a man who was a conspirator in the murder of three civil rights workers there in 1964. The local prosecutor dug up the evidence. They tried the man in the local courts and convicted him of manslaughter. This showed the world that the community of Philadelphia would no longer keep a secret hatred alive. They would stand for the principles of justice shared by the human community. Philadelphia rejoined the world community. They flipped the third position over so that the whole world can see the truth. Now their third position is visible and clear in Philadelphia, Mississippi. They were redeemed.”“So with Raoul,” Father John said. “My job is to help him uncover his illicit third position, to hold him accountable, give him a chance to do right by the church, repay the money and help the church members lay down their bitterness and forgive him.”“Sounds like a plan,” Bob said.“But what about the Bishop?” Father John asked.“You and the Bishop seem to keep dancing with each other in the first and second position,” Bob said.“Yes, but he is lying,” Father John said. “He has a third position below the surface. He is evil. Your explanation of this proves it. I have always felt this to be true.”“And I suppose you are good,” Bob said. “And it’s your duty to destroy evil.”“Oh, I get it,” Father John said. “I am constructing another two category myth. And you are about to say that there is a third position.”“Yes I am,” Bob said. “But what I’m really talking about here is building consensual knowledge or building community knowledge.”“And I suppose you use the third position to do this as well,” Father John said sarcastically.“As a matter of fact I do,” Bob agreed. “First, I want to suggest that the Bishop isn’t lying. He sees reality from his perspective.”“And what is that?” Father John asked.“I can only guess,” Bob said. “But I can imagine it would go something like this. Imagine I am him speaking:‘I asked the cardinal to find me a priest who would develop a parish with the Spanish speaking people in Nashville. I take credit for that. He was a little rough at first, but I have whipped him into shape. He has accepted my authority. He has helped me raise money. He has worked within the structures I have placed over my diocese. He even wore a suit and a collar when he came to work in the central office. I’m quite proud of my achievements. We will have a good Spanish speaking church that fits into the Nashville community and does not threaten the status quo, thanks to me. Oh, I may have to rein him in from time to time, but I have done that before and I can do it again if I have to.’“That’s exactly what he thinks,” Father John said.“Then he is not lying is he?” Bob said.“Well it’s not the truth,” Father John answered.“It’s his truth,” Bob countered.“Yes but it is not the truth,” Father John repeated.“And I suppose you know The Truth,” Bob said emphasizing the words “the” and “truth.”“Well I know my truth,” Father John said. “Oh, I remember us talking about this when we talked about how we know. From the perspective of third position thinking, truth is relative until you get to yourself. Then it is absolute. I am the absolute authority on what I feel and know.”“And the Bishop is the absolute authority over the truth of what he feels and knows,” Bob concurred.“So now we have two different positions with their truths exposed,” Father John said. “They seem contradictory to me. They can’t both be true.”“I’m not so sure about that,” Bob said. “Most of the time there is more that you agree with in your opponents truth than you disagree with. It is the feelings and the power dynamics that hurt feelings and distort what things we might agree upon.”“So what do we agree on?” Father John said.“Did he recruit someone with your qualifications to organize the Spanish speaking population in Nashville?” Bob asked.“Well I’m not sure he wanted what he got in me,” Father John answered.“Come on. Answer the question,” Bob said. “Yes or no. Stop quibbling.”“Yes, he did recruit someone more or less with my qualifications,” Father John acknowledged.“Does he deserve credit for this?” Bob asked.“Yes, but he wants the Latinos to fit in, not to be themselves,” Father John said.“Come on,” Bob said. “Stop letting your feelings answer the questions. We know he doesn’t want you to cause a revolution in Nashville. That’s not the question. Will you give him credit for bringing you here?”“It’s hard to do,” Father John said, “but I guess you are right. He deserves it.”“Did you build a church that he approves of?” Bob asked.“Yes or no?” Father John asked.“That’s right,” Bob said. “Just be straightforward and answer yes or no.”“Yes,” Father John admitted.“Did you help him raise money and stop the far right in the church from undoing his work with the catholic schools?” Bob asked.“Yes,” Father John said. “I did his biding there too, but I made no compromises to do that.”“See now you are saying you agreed with him,” Bob said. “And you did, didn’t you?”“Yes, you are right, I did.”“Now take each one of these agreements and use them as bricks in building your consensus with him,” Bob said. “This is how a community and a relationship builds shared truth, brick by brick. You assume that you and your opponent have some shared reality and interests. You use this assumption as your third position. That position gives you enough trust and faith to go looking for agreed upon reality. When you find it you make note of it. You announce it to yourself and your opponent and you set it into the shared reality that makes you collaborators as well as opponents. This makes the world a bit grayer, but this building the truth with the third position is what allows communities to function. It is what enables relationships to work.“So is the Bishop lying?” Bob asked.“I guess not,” Father John said. “It is a lot easier inside myself to believe he is. It justifies how I feel about him.”“Yes,” Bob said, “but then it is you who is lying. Here help me take some of my things off the table and back into my office before Lynn gets home.”“Sure,” Father John said.Bob shuffled ahead of Father John through the kitchen back to his office. Father John followed carrying a stack of yellow pads, files and books.“Where do you want to put this?” Father John asked.“Put it on that stack on the chair,” Bob said. “But remember to put it on at a 90° angle so that the stacks don’t get confused.”“How did you develop such a simple elegant, clear way of thinking as the third position,” Father John asked, “with an office like this?”“I don’t know,” Bob said. “It all seems natural enough to me.”