Unwilling to Understand

Story time!

Twenty years ago, I was the managing director of a small summer arts space in the tiny village I lived in near Albany, NY. The building has an historic organ, but no heating or air conditioning, so we squeezed a lot of concerts, shows, and other events between June and October. This means that the schedule was tight and rehearsal space was at a premium.

That one year of my running the space was ultimately fraught with other problems that meant I only ran it for that one year, but the biggest problem I had was with a woman I’ll call April, whose small theatre troupe I brought in to perform two plays over the course of the summer. Initially, it seemed like a perfect match - April had connections and a fan base to draw from, and I am always here for more theatre.

The trouble came when I reviewed the schedule with her; along with her shows, I had booked the organ series, a trio of mystery dinner theatres, a children’s drama program, and several concerts by regional folk musicians. I had worked tirelessly to ensure each program had the requisite rehearsal time, including time on the stage. I had found other spaces where people could rehearse. With each group coming in, I discussed the constraints, showed them the schedule, and everyone agreed before they signed the contract.

So imagine my surprise when April got in a snit the week before her rehearsals started. She could not understand why she didn’t have free run of the space for the entire time they were in rehearsal/performances. So I explained it again to her. She couldn’t understand the calendar grid I provided, so I turned it into a list. She couldn’t understand the entire list, so I gave her a list of only those times that she could be in the space. She didn’t understand that list, so I showed her another grid with all the busy times blacked out. She didn’t understand that either, so I wrote it out in paragraphs and bullet points. She still didn’t understand, and she resorted to screaming at me loud enough that my bosses (the village’s board of trustees) would come running.

I cancelled the contract with the board’s approval, saying that I had run out of ways to explain what she had agreed to months before.

Because I realized that my communication wasn’t the problem.

The problem was an unwillingness to comprehend as a tactic to get what she wanted. April didn’t like the schedule, so she refused to comprehend it. She wanted to only understand the schedule she wanted.

She weaponized a lack of comprehension.

I’m sorry to say it almost worked on me back then. I was nearly willing to completely change the schedule and move a whole lot of other things to accommodate her, until i realized the chaos that would create. And I was a silly millimeter from quitting on the spot, until I realized what was happening.

And I’m sorry to say that I’ve seen this kind of thing all too often in our congregations. People are sometimes unwilling to understand what they’re being told if it’s not what they want to hear.

It often shows up in governance and congregational life issues, and sometimes it shows up in worship too, especially when the preacher takes seriously Karl Barth’s exhortation to ‘comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.’

But whether from the pulpit or the board room, preachers and leaders get pushback when they offer ideas, policies, and interpretations that address problems or speak truth in a way that means folks have to change or reconsider their choices. (Unfortunately it often shows up when speaking about racism, oppression, and other forms of injustice.) They make relentless requests for explanations that are often tangential or previously addressed, while maintaining a pretense of sincerity and feigning misunderstanding.

But it’s a bad-faith approach, and it weaponizes comprehension (or lack thereof) in favor of being let off the hook, proven right, or getting their way. We call this sealioning, based on this web comic, and it’s an all-too-common tactic of manipulation.

And that’s all it is.

Yes, be clear in your communications. Strive to be understood. Strive for comprehension.

And learn when someone is weaponizing it. I promise you, sticking to what you know is right, equitable, and reasonable may be hard, but it matters. It matters for your faith, it matters for the congregation.

Understand?