Yesterday, on facebook, I posted a status message about the fact that several people, apparently including the minister who married us, had dropped Allison from their friends lists. Those same people had not, however, dropped me. It made me angry; if someone harbors so much animosity toward my wife that they need to de-friend her, I think they ought to de-friend me, too. Do they really think I want to be friends with someone who doesn’t like my wife?

In the absence of a lot of past drama, this might have passed without comment. Petty behavior is to Facebook as barking is to dog parks. However, this wasn’t an isolated incident.

A few monhs ago, Allison was called upon to present some information at a church group known as Women of Faith. Due to an unfortunate set of circumstances that were not entirely of her making, she ended up missing the meeting. Since there were only four people at that meeting and all were to have been there anyway for regular business, this should not have been a huge issue, but the leader of Women of Faith, Karen Fothergill, decided to make it one.

Publicly, on Facebook, Fothergill scolded Allison for keeping “so many” people waiting, and not in a gentle way. She followed that up with a series of condescending e-mails, lecturing Allison on organization and implying that she couldn’t handle her responsibilities. She did this, by the way, while Allison and I were out celebrating a very special anniversary with dinner and wine.

It got ugly from there. My wife was upset and under attack, and I don’t sit still and allow that. I lashed back — both publicly and in private, as Karen had done. I then received complaints that my facebook “note” on the subject was putting the church in a bad light, and that I should take it down. In reality it was only embarrassing Karen, who remained unpenitent and blamed Allison for everything.

The pastor of the church even got into the act, although not in the way you’d think. This particular church has been through some trials and challenges in the past few years, and has gone through a number of pastors. Fothergill and her husband have been there through all of this and are probably more influential among the core members of the church than any pastor will ever be, so he predictably took Karen’s side. Speaking to Allison, he once went so far as to ask us if we really felt this was the right church for us. Finding no support, we decided that we were simply finished there.

Allison had a project to finish with the church children, something she’d committed to, so she continued with that while I made preparations to leave permanently. I’d trained someone to handle sound, and he was doing fine, so I didn’t feel I was leaving the church in a bind.

On what was to be my very last night at the church, out of the blue, Karen found Allison and apologized for the attack. I was dumbfounded — it was the last act I expected. I offered apologies to Karen and Tony for my strong reaction, and things seemed to improve. I even removed the offending post from my facebook account and blog. (Don’t worry — it was saved and will be back up momentarily.) We still did not feel accepted by the church or by more than a few of its members. Following the incident with Karen, we also were not offered membership, which was no surprise, even though this is the church we were married in,  but they really seemed to want my help with audio.

Less than a month later, things again deteriorated — this time, the church’s new music minister decided she needed to be more in control of the sound.  Her idea of an audio engineer is someone who sets all the knobs and faders where they need to be before the service, and then doesn’t touch anything. That allows her to wait until the service starts, then crank her keyboard’s volume control up so she’s the loudest thing in the room.

When you work the way she often does outside of church, with one amplifier, one keyboard, and two or three microphones, that approach might work. In a church sanctuary where there are two keyboards, three guitars, an acoustic piano, seven or eight vocalists, two stage monitor mixes and a very powerful house system, that approach is not only idiotic, it is dangerous. At best it results in a truly horrible, unlistenable house mix that sounds like a keyboard drowning out some nearly-inaudible voices and guitars. At worst it results in feedback, excessive volume, and the possibility of hearing damage.

She insisted that nothing should be touched, and I insisted that I could not work that way and call myself a professional. Appealing to the pastor to resolve this impasse produced the same indecisive dismissiveness as on previous occasions, with the added comment that he couldn’t lose his music minister because it would take him forever to find another one.

There was a lot of drama going on behind the scenes. Allison was still being treated badly, and people were saying things behind her back that reached my ears and made me very unhappy.  That, combined with the fact that I was no longer able to make a difference professionally, led me to resign and leave the church entirely. It was my hope that we were leaving behind this church which really didn’t want outsiders in the first place. We weren’t the first couple to be run out of the church by Karen Fothergill, and we won’t be the last, but it would no longer be our cross to bear. I tried not to burn any bridges or slam any doors — I kept the personal issues out of my resignation letter, citing professional differences only. They wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

Of course, the gossip didn’t stop. Allison still has several friends who attend that church, and those friends either hear or overhear the gossip. It has always amazed me that while the stated purpose of gossip is to spread information throughout a community, those who engage in it are always sure it won’t get so far as to reach the person being gossipped about! I think that says something about those people and their general intelligence, really.

That brings us back to the de-friending. The three people who disappeared from Allison’s friends list never said a word on the discussion thread my status post started. Others did. Karen did, in fact, saying things which seemed aimed directly at Allison. This was a bad idea; it had both of us pretty tense and unhappy, particularly since Karen’s parents were two of the people who de-friended Allison.

Karen didn’t like being called on her passive-aggressive statements at all. The same temper that caused her to attack Allison before seemed to rise anew. Finally, toward the end of the thread, she let loose with a message that was so offensive and insulting that I’d had enough. I de-friended her and blocked her, and advised Allison to block her, too, because I don’t want to see another comment from her on anything either of us writes, ever again. (Don’t bother trying to comment here either, Karen … I’ll delete it faster than you can say, “Did not!”)

I then put up another status post, sharing that for the first time I’d had to unfriend and block someone on facebook and that I was unhappy about it. A friend offered a sympathetic comment, and in my anger, I called Karen a condescending b-word. Only I didn’t write “b-word”; I wrote the real b-word.

Seconds later, Karen’s mother, who I really do (or did)  think of as a nice, kind lady and a friend of mine, opined that if I intended to call her daughter names, I wasn’t her friend either, and asked to be removed from my friends list as well. She also said that I am critical of anything and everything (could be some truth there — professionally, that’s an asset), and called me false. I replied that if I were false, I would have simply held my tongue. I then de-friended her, as requested. Just to practice what I preach about husbands and wives being teams, I de-friended Karen’s husband and father, too, explaining my actions in each case. I did go back and remove the comment with the b-word in it and replace it with one that didn’t foment namecalling. Karen’s mom had me there … it wasn’t called for.

In a fit of anger I deleted Karen’s final, ugly post. I regretted that almost instantly.  It’s such a fine piece of writing that I wanted to share it, translating its phrases, dangerously overpressurized with arrogance and self-importance, into plainer English.

Fortunately, Allison captured it before it was deleted, so now I can do just that!  So, let’s see what sort of wisdom comes from the pen of a “Woman of Faith.” I will translate these exemplary, Faith-based writings into plain English for those of us who don’t speak holier-than-thou.

Allison, You are simply amazing and should possibly think of a career change.

“I consider myself an expert in the field of education, and in that professional capacity I find you unqualified for your job. Or maybe I’m just insecure and insulting you makes me feel better about myself. I haven’t decided.”

It doesn’t matter what you personally think of me, I have lived my entire life in this town and everyone knows me.

“I am the local here, you are the outsider, and I will always consider myself superior to you. Your opinion matters about as much as the opinion of the fly I swatted off one of my pigs this morning.”

I honestly can’t think of one single person that would privately send you a message about me, and if there is “one” it’s probably someone with your same deceiving personality so you will probably have lots to talk about.

“No one I know would dare repeat my gossip to you. Anyone who would go and tell the truth in spite of me is just deceitful and can’t be trusted. By the way, you’re deceitful too — why must you keep saying things that are true?”

I’ve never been one to duck and run and your long winded disertations are not intimidating to me at all. Spout off as you will, you’re very good at it and sooner or later people will begin to see who you really are. I saw it early on…

“I am never wrong, and my ears are completely closed to any sort of criticism. It doesn’t matter that you take a lot of time to explain things to me; I’m not listening. I don’t like you, though, and I think if I keep saying that enough, others will stop liking you too. I figured out that I didn’t like you early on, so all that stuff I said when I apologized and said you were my friend? SUCKER! Boy, you’ll fall for anything.”

Thankfully I don’t have to deal with your drama anymore. You’ve been in this town for 6 months and lost how many friends? I see a pattern wether you choose to or not.

“Again, you’ve only been in this town six months, so you deserve no respect. There is a pattern here. If I gossip and complain enough about you, a lot of people seem to stop liking you. Cool, huh?”

I didn’t care that you removed me from your FB list. That’s why I didn’t message you. I’ve grown weary of this day long back and forth she said this, she said that.

“I’m glad you’re not my friend, because all back-and-forth arguments are one-sided and entirely your fault. If you’d just agree with me there’d be no arguments — why can’t you just be like everyone else?”

I know who I am and thankfully we having nothing in common! I bid good day to you and to your husband. Scott, I’ll remove you from my list because I don’t want to have to deal with the drama of your wife any longer.

“I know I am the head of this church and that everybody likes me, and that I can do no wrong, so I will flick you away like a troublesome insect and sleep like a baby after doing so. Oh, and let me tell your husband I’m flicking him away too … maybe he will be loyal to me, too, and unfriend you!”

I’m sure my candid words will come back to haunt me but I would expect no less from this thread.

“In case I am ever quoted, I want it known that that’s someone else’s fault, too … accurately quoting someone is just deceitful. Besides, you can’t harm me by quoting my words, no matter how ugly they may be, because everybody likes me, remember?”

If this is the kind of talk that comes from the leader of a group called “Women of Faith,” I think I’d rather be around “Women of Deceit,” because in this church’s world, they’re the ones who tell the truth.

Either way, for Allison and me, these are “Women of the Past.” We are already putting our talents to work at a place where professonalism, skill, knowledge, experience, and even integrity seem to be valued. This has been a lesson for us, a very hard-learned one, but I’m hoping that a few people have learned a lesson from us, too. Oddly enough, Tony Fothergill, Karen’s husband, said it best.

If you’re fixing to poke at a bear with a stick, and the bear takes a swipe at you, don’t blame the bear.

Poke at me and you’re liable to get away with it. I’m not so fiercely protective of myself — I can take my knocks and get up again. Poke at my WIFE or my FAMILY and if you’re lucky, I’ll only take a swipe and not come blasting out of the cave after you. To expect otherwise is an insult to me, personally, and to blame me for that reaction is sheer lunacy.

As several rappers have so eloquently put it, “Don’t start no $hit, won’t BE no $hit.”

Peace out. 🙂