Father John Series #5

Chapter 5

Father John: How to Use the Third Position in Mediation

Father John bounced a soccer ball as he approached Bob’s office. When he got to Bob’s open office door, there was no uncluttered space of the floor for a ball to bounce. There was no chair available with an empty seat. Everything was covered with files books and journals.

Bob’s office was empty. Empty is not the right word. The office was its usual cluttered state. The only spots clear of debris were Bob’s desk chair, a semi-circle on the floor around the chair and Bob’s desk. Empty in this case means without Bob.

            Father John stood there waiting for Bob because he wasn’t sure if he did clear a chair for himself, which chair he could empty or where to put what. Shortly he heard a shuffling noise in the suite reception area. He looked and saw Bob walking with a cane, shuffling his feet forward in very small jerky steps.

“Bob what’s wrong,” Father John said.

            “Nothing out the ordinary,” Bob said. “My medicine hasn’t kicked in yet.”

            “Are you sure you are okay?” Father John asked. “I’ve never seen you like this.”

            “Yes and no,” Bob said. “My mind works, but my body doesn’t. I have Parkinson’s disease. When my dopamine gets low my muscles freeze and I walk like this. I just took my medicine so in about twenty minutes or so I will be able to move again. What’s with the soccer ball?”

            “It represents this week’s failure,” Father John said.

            “What are you talking about?” Bob asked.

            “I’m talking about the two gangs I have in my parish,” Father John said. “They are having a war over our church. While our new church is being built we meet in a large warehouse. This is a very adaptable space. It has good ventilation. We installed fans hanging from the ceiling and we have large fans near the roof at each end of the building. In the winter we close it up and bring in industrial butane heaters. It’s not fancy, but it is comfortable most of the year.”

            “So how did your church become the prize in a gang war?” Bob asked.

            “There are two predominantly Catholic ethnic groups in our neighborhood,” Father John explained. “One is Laotian and the other is Hispanic. Both groups are poor. In both groups, the parents often work two, sometimes three jobs. The children of these families are searching for an identity in a world where their parents have no power, a world their parents don’t understand and a world where they do not fit. Naturally these children look to each other. Their mentors are their peers. Their ages range from twelve to seventeen. At seventeen they start working and they start a family and they don’t have time for groups. These are young teenagers. They bond together in gangs and they sometimes have the good sense of a loyal bulldog with no master at home.”

            “What does this have to do with your church?” Bob asked.

            “Look whose being impatient with theory,” Father John observed. “Well gangs mark the boundaries of their territory with their gang symbol. You’ve heard of gangs tagging buildings?”

            “No,” Bob confessed. “I haven’t.”

            “A tag is a spray painted symbol,” Father John said. “You’ve seen them painted on interstate bridges and on the walls of buildings. This has become such a nuisance that the Tennessee legislature had to pass a law requiring storeowners check ID’s and sell spray paint only to people over twenty-one.”

            “Yes, I’m the one getting impatient,” Bob admitted. “What does this have to do with your church and with that soccer ball?”

            “Both gangs have tagged my church as their territory,” Father John said. “I came out of church one night to see two lines of boys facing each other with broken bottles, pipes and knives. Before I knew what I was doing, I found myself standing between them as they cursed each other.”

            “Oh my God,” Bob said. “How awful to be the prize in a fight.”

            “Well it has an upside,” Father John said.

            “What’s that?” Bob asked.

            “I’ll get to that,” Father John said. “Let me tell the story.”

            “Sorry,” Bob said. “Go on.”

            “So I proposed they settle this a different way,” Father John said. “I challenged them to a soccer match.”

            “That sounds like a good idea.”

            “Well it wasn’t,” Father John said. “Oh grandmaster of the third position. You should know you don’t solve a problem with a winner and a loser.”

            “So it didn’t work?” Bob wondered.

            “No,” Father John said. “They came to the soccer field the next Saturday at Church of the Holy Mother, as I asked. I was the referee. The game began. The Laotian gang called themselves ‘the Tigers’ and the Hispanic team named themselves ‘the Bandits.’ There are many fewer Laotian than Hispanic kids. The Tigers had less players to substitute and they got tired. So the Bandit’s were up three goals early in the game. It was obvious the Tigers weren’t going to win. Just before half a Bandit committed a hard foul against a Tiger. Suddenly the Tigers were all armed with knives. The curses began and the game was over. I barely got them to leave the field of play.

            “Later I talked to Lin Chi, one of the Tigers. He said, ‘we claim the church as our territory. We are Catholics just as much as they are. Our parents go to this church. We want to come to church with our families on Easter and Christmas. If the Bandits are there we will fight. That would upset our parents and you. You have been good to our families. You came to the hospital to visit my grandmother. You helped me get out of jail. I trust you, father. We all do. We don’t want to start a riot in church. So we don’t come. But we won’t give up the church to Bandits.’

            “Then I talked to Carlos a leader of the Bandits. His story was pretty much the same. The Bandits wanted to be a part of the church community. They saw the church as belonging to them.”

            “That is quite a compliment,” Bob said. “It says a lot about your good work.”

            “Yes, my good work,” Father John said mocking himself. “You haven’t heard the rest of the story. So then I got the idea I would get them together and talk. I thought if they understood what the church meant to each of them that they could negotiate a peace. That didn’t work. I got them together, but the rage was so strong that no reasonable, constructive words were spoken. Then I separated them and I thought I would be their mediator. I asked them each to make a proposal. Then I would shuttle back and forth explaining the merits of the Tiger’s proposal to the Bandits and vice versa.”

            “Did that work?” Bob asked.

            “No,” Father John said. “Each side made some reasonable proposals, but each side viewed compromise as a show of weakness. To maintain their pride they had to reject the other’s proposal. Nothing was accomplished. They left just as angry as when they arrived. All I did was add another chapter to their angry legacy. I have nothing to be proud of. Here I have children wanting to find a way to be a part of my church. That’s a good thing. And I can’t create a way for them to do that.”

            “Well,” Bob said. “I don’t think you have to give up just yet. Mediation is something that every community psychologist should be trained to do. It should be a part of the training programs.”

            “This sounds like you have an ax to grind,” Father John commented.

            “I do,” Bob said.

            “Most programs ignore this skill.”

            “It’s perfect for the third position,” Father John said.

            “Yes it is,” Bob said, “and that’s where you made your mistakes with these young people. You didn’t create yourself as a strong third position but I’m not a trained mediator. All I know is that mediation and the third position have a lot in common. I have this friend, Marietta Shipley. She is the Judge of Second Circuit Court in Davidson County. She started mediation in Tennessee. She helped write the law that made mediation mandatory in divorces in Tennessee. Let’s meet with her next time and see if she can help you. I wish it was as easy as taking medicine and waiting twenty minutes.”

            Bob stood up and turned around in a circle with complete balance and ease of movement, with no evidence of shuffling and frozen muscles. (Of course the circle was the only clear place on the floor to move).

            “See I’m better,” Bob said. “The medicine is working now.”

            The next week Father John came into Bob’s office to find the same cluttered office and Bob sitting and talking with a strikingly dressed tall woman with short blonde hair. He knew this must be Judge Shipley. She smiled at him warmly. They were introduced. Father John retold the story of his failed mediation.

            Marietta responded, “You haven’t failed. You have just begun. Let’s look at the things you did well. You established yourself as a true neutral. You don’t want anyone to lose. Both parties seem to trust you. Both parties want your approval. You represent a third entity, the church. You can talk to both sides. They will come to your table. You are a legitimate player, but you are not a contender.”

            “Yes,” Father John said. “I suppose you are right.”

            “Most contests have opponents like yours,” Marietta said. “Their egos are fragile. They are terrified of losing. Their pride won’t let them compromise. They don’t trust anything that comes out of the mouth of their opponent.”

            “That’s sure the case here,” Father John said.

            “But they do trust you,” Marietta said. “You have no stake in this. Your ego is not on the line. You are strong enough to be criticized or to have them reject your ideas. You can’t just be a messenger boy carrying messages back and forth. You can’t let them be the author of a proposal. Then you simply have another winner and another loser. You must offer a proposal to each party that reflects their values and interests. Then let them criticize your ideas. You can use their criticisms to develop a contract. They can agree with you even though they can’t agree with one another. If they do agree with you, then they find themselves bound to an agreement with one another.”

            “I see,” Father John said. “The third position has to take a position.”

            “That’s right,” Marietta said. “I see you have been talking to Bob. Yes, a mediator is a third position, but not just an empty third position.”

            “You said what I did right,” Father John commented. “What did I do wrong?”

            “Normally with families,” Marietta began. “We work with parents together. This is because there is some history of goodwill and because they have future problems they must solve together. But here you are working with two groups that have no positive history. This is like working with the Catholics and the Protestants in Ireland or the Jews and the Palestinians in Israel. When one works with groups like these, the first goal is to establish safe boundaries. When this is your context and boundaries are the problem, you don’t put the groups in the same room.”

            “So that was my first mistake,” Father John said.

            “Yes,” Marietta agreed. “Your second mistake was not designating who the negotiating representatives would be. You can’t negotiate with fifty people representing one side. You must work with only one representative. You should be sure that the parties will be bound by their representative’s commitments.”

“So that was my second mistake,” Father John said. “I should have required each side to designate their negotiating representatives.”

            “Yes,” Marietta concurred. “You got it.”

            “So these are the things I should not have done,” Father John said. “I should not have put the two sides together and I should not have tried to negotiate with the members. I should have worked with their leaders. Now if I try this again what should I do?”

            “You have enough sense of their positions now I think to make a proposal of your own,” Marietta said. “So begin by presenting a draft proposal. Write it down. Do not give it to either side. Be sure they see and understand it is not a finished agreement. It is only a draft and only a proposal. Do not ask for a solution from the parties. It locks them into that one position. They take ownership of that option. It makes it difficult for them to consider any other. And it makes it easy for the other side to look strong by rejecting that option. Then you meet with each side separately and present your proposal.”

            “Why should I present my ideas?” Father John asked. “Shouldn’t I listen to their ideas and use them? I thought I was to be neutral.”

            “Neutral doesn’t mean empty,” Marietta said. “It merely means you do not care whether anyone likes your ideas or agrees with you. It means that you have no coercive power nor any vested interest in the outcome, other than peace. Why don’t you go back to the parties, have them designate their negotiator, present them with a draft proposal and ask them to criticize it and evaluate it. You and I will meet again in two weeks and see how you are doing.”

            “Fine by me,” Father John said.

            At the meeting in Bob’s office one week later Father John reported his progress. “Both sides loved laughing at me. You were right they loved being critical of my ideas. I presented my draft proposal. It was to stop all fighting and tagging. That’s when they began to laugh. Both sides thought that was ridiculous. After they finished their jokes at my expense, perhaps they felt sorry for me. I’m not sure, but they opened up and told me what they really wanted. They would not stop fighting. Their identities were formed by being against each other. That idea was much too grandiose on my part. They wanted to come to church with their parents, not often, but sometimes, maybe Easter and Christmas or for a baby christening. Both sides wanted the church to belong to them. I took notes of all their points. Occasionally I would try to confront them about their expectations. This always lead to cursing, posturing and threats. I’m not sure what to do next. Neither side seems flexible and they both want the same thing.”

            “You’ve done some good things here,” Marietta said. “And you’ve made some mistakes that you can fix.”

            “Start with the good things,” Bob said.

            “Well you presented your ego as a target,” Marietta began. “Letting them laugh and criticize you opened them up to tell you their real agenda. That was one thing you did well. Another is that you listened and took careful notes. That now has you in a good position to draft your next proposal.”

            “Yes,” Father John said. “But I don’t know what to propose?”

            “We will get to that,” Marietta said, “What to propose next is not as important as continuing the process. That you are doing. The parties are engaged and the process is on-going.”

            “So what could I have done differently?” Father John asked. “I feel like both sides are so entrenched in their tough guy ‘take no prisoners’ posture.”

            “That’s how it appears,” Marietta said, “but a posture is just that. It is for show and postures can change. What you did wrong was that you provoked the posturing by confronting them with their unreasonable expectations.”

            “But I felt I had to be honest with them,” Father John said. “I don’t want to lead them to believe I can deliver a deal when I cannot.”

            “You are not delivering a deal yet,” Marietta said. “Right now you are simply stirring the pot of creativity. You are generating ideas, hoping as you begin to think creatively that they will join you. Raising objections to things they want will stifle this creative process. Right now all ideas, all wants, all agendas are worth considering. Don’t try to get concessions at this stage. Mediating in the third position, as Bob would say, is not about your power to produce change or deliver a deal. It is about creating an atmosphere where people see opportunities for change. Don’t ask challenging questions that will allow them to look strong by saying, “No.” A proposal from you doesn’t require that either side concede to the other. No one will be required to consent or commit to anything until the end.”

            “Oh,” Father John said, “That’s a good idea. I should have said that.”

            “Yes,” Marietta said. “I should have told you that earlier. No concessions or agreements until the end is an important guideline to make clear at the beginning. But you have not lost your parties’ interest. You can still put this guideline in place.”

            “Okay,” Father John said. “But what do I say in my next draft proposal?”

            “Notice how alike both sides are,” Marietta said.

            “Yes,” Father John said. “I see that. They both have the same emotions, the same poses, the same curses. They even want the same things.”

            “And much of what they want is very reasonable,” Marietta observed. “They want to go to church with their families.”

            “Yes, but if they show up at church at the same time they will try to kill each other,” Father John said, “We can’t have a church service in the middle of a gang war.”

            “I don’t see what the Bandits have to gain through mediation. They are the dominant group. They have more members. They will win in a fight and eventually take over the territory. How are you going to get them to talk?” Bob asked.

            “I don’t know,” Father John said.

            “For two reasons,” Marietta said. “One is to please you and their parents. The second is that they may win a few battles, but they will drive their enemy underground. Under cover of darkness their enemy can do great damage. Winning battles won’t bring peace. Peace and stability is good for everybody.”

            “I have gotten them to agree to mediate,” Father John said.

            “How did you do that?” Bob asked.

            “Two things happened that got them to the table,” Father John answered. “The first is that the Tigers stopped tagging. They carried on their warfare on a different level, like Marietta said. Since they were smaller numbers and they did not live in just one separate part of the neighborhood, they figured out that they could never maintain their tags. The Bandits could paint over them faster than they could paint them.

            “What the Tigers did was revert to Southeast Asian guerilla tactics. They attacked in secret. They did damage when no one could see them. They keyed the Bandits cars. They slashed bicycle tires. They stole tools from the Bandits that were old enough to work. They were good enough at these guerilla tactics that they were able to leave evidence pointing to another Bandit. (Father John knew of this because he heard the confessions of some of the Tiger recruits who had to commit some of these crimes as initiation into the gang.)

            “The second thing that happened was a tragedy. There was a wild horrible night of shootings. The Bandits shot into the homes of the Tigers. The Tigers shot back into the homes of the Bandits.  No Bandit or Tigers were hurt, but four children died. Three were Hispanic and one was Laotian.

            “At the funerals I talked to the gang leaders. I asked if they would come with their members to a memorial service for the loved ones who died. I held separate services for each gang. At each meeting I showed them the movie Westside Story. I used their grief at the loss of these children. I told the Bandits that they will turn their enemies into guerilla warriors that they cannot see to fight and that peace is the only thing that will bring jobs and opportunity to this neighborhood. They seemed ready to hear this. They agreed to mediate.”

            “So what do I do?” Father John asked.

            “The first thing a mediator does,” Marietta instructed, “is to enlarge the pie. For parents with children, they simply introduce the notion of taking turns to their fighting siblings. This gives everybody a chance to play. Expanding time from now to into the future enlarges the alternatives and expands your options. But I’m not sure how you can take turns with Christmas and Easter.”

            “Oh that’s easy,” Father John said. “We have several masses every holiday. In fact we have three masses every weekend, one Saturday night, one early Sunday morning and one at 11:00 AM Sunday morning.”

            “There you have a pie that you can expand,” Marietta said. “That’s the mediator’s gift. People locked in a disagreement are like two gear cogs in a transmission that are meeting teeth against teeth. They don’t see that if they move just a little bit that the teeth of one will fit inside the other and that they can work together. Here both sides want the same thing. If you can get each side to recognize these wants in each other as legitimate, then get them to move just a bit to accommodate one another, things can fall into place for both sides.”

            “I will try that,” Father John said. “Can we meet again in one week?”

            “Sure,” Bob and Marietta concurred.

            When they reconvened one week later, Father John reported progress. “I got them to consider taking turns. The Bandits like thinking of the church as their territory on Saturday night, because they can be out of church by 8:30 or 9:00 PM and back with their gang for gang business and fun. The Tigers liked thinking of the church as belonging to them early Sunday morning. They would only be coming to church on special days and they could get up with their families for those times.”

            “That sounds like you have a deal,” Bob said.

            “I’m close,” Father John admitted, “but I have a problem with them thinking of the church as belonging to them. And I’m not sure what to do about that. After they seemed to agree that they might take different times, the tagging of the building resumed. I go out and paint over the tag of one side and then the tag of the other side appears. I paint over that and a tag appears the next day. I want that to stop. I’m supposed to be neutral but I have my own agenda with who the church belongs to.”

            “You do,” Marietta agreed. “This tagging though is not about one side winning and the other losing. You have to frame it for them so that they are not making a concession to the other side. That is how they are thinking about it now. Conceding a point, losing a position is not something people want to appear to be doing.”

            “So what do I do?” Father John asked.

            “Reframe the issue of territory,” Marietta said. “So that neither side loses. Give them a principle that they can embrace instead of something to which they must concede. The church belongs to God might be an example.”

            “I was thinking about the church being considered like Switzerland,” Bob said.

            “It is about keeping you as a neutral, like Switzerland,” Marietta agreed. “They need a place that neither of them owns. It is not a concession to the other. It is a concession to God and to you and to having a third position that they both respect. Your position needs its own territory. That is a principle that they might embrace.”

            “I’ll put that in my next draft,” Father John said. “I think we are getting close to an agreement. Can we meet once more in one week?”

            “Sure,” Bob and Marietta agreed.

When they met again Father John handed Bob and Marietta a two page document on the stationary of the Church of the Holy Mother.

“This is it,” Father John said. “I have a signed agreement.”

Bob and Marietta turned to the last page noting the signatures.

“You don’t have to read it,” Father John said. “You know what it says. It says, ‘The Church of the Holy Mother is neutral turf. No member of the Bandits and no member of the Tigers will ever come to the church with a weapon. There will be no territorial tags on the church building. Only the signs of Jesus and the Christian faith will decorate the church. The church belongs to Jesus.

            ‘The Bandits will come to church as a group with their families for Saturday night mass. The Tigers will come to church as a group with their families on Sunday morning early mass. Individual Tigers and Bandits may come to church for the Sunday 11:00 AM mass.

            ‘On church holidays the Tigers and the Bandits will treat the church in the same manner that they treat the Sunday 11:00 AM mass. They will come as individual worshippers of Jesus and not as a member of their gang.’”

            “I see a lot of signatures here,” Bob observed. “Did all the gang members sign the agreement?”

            “Yes,” Father John said. “We had a signing ceremony at the church. I personally called as many of the parents as I knew to invite them too. A few parents came.”

            “That’s great,” Marietta said looking over the document.

            “Yes,” Father John answered. “And I am also excited about what happened the next day after the signing. Lin Chi came to see me with two other members of the Tigers. ‘We want to play soccer again,’ Lin Chi said to me. ‘Why would I agree to that when last time you all pulled out knives? Someone could have gotten hurt.’ I answered.

            ‘We won’t bring knives.’

            ‘Or other weapons?’ I asked.

            ‘No, the soccer field will be like Switzerland and like Church for us. We want to play soccer.’ So I am refereeing a soccer game this weekend. I asked the police to come and watch. They agreed they would have a couple of policemen there at the game. If this works I plan to take the best players from both teams and form an all-star team to play in the Catholic soccer league.”

            “You stuck with it,” Bob said. “You didn’t fail.”

            “The third position, you and Marietta, rescued me,” Father John said. “Thank you.”

            “What you did took a lot of work and patience,” Bob said. “I wish working with people was like taking a pill to unfreeze my body. But it is not. It takes time and patience.

            “I need some help with my yard,” Marietta said. “Do you have any parishioners who might want this work?”

            “Sure,” Father John said. “I will give you a phone number for Miguel. He can help you.”