Dear Friends in Christ,

The late Rabbi Edwin Friedman, one of the wisest observers of congregational life, identified a single dynamic he believed did more damage to communities than almost anything else: triangulation.

Here is how it works.

When two people are in tension with each other—anxious, hurt or conflicted—they instinctively pull in a third party. Rather than speaking directly to one another, person A talks about person B to person C. Person C now carries the anxiety of both. The original conflict doesn’t get resolved; it gets distributed. And person C often becomes the unwitting carrier of the unfinished business between A and B.

Friedman, drawing on the family systems theory of Murray Bowen, argued that this pattern is nearly universal in anxious systems—and that congregations are among the most anxiety-prone communities in human life, precisely because so much of what we care about runs deep.

The antidote is both simple and genuinely hard; go directly to the person you have a concern with. Not to their friend. Not to a mutual acquaintance. Not to the clergy—at least not as a first move. Paul’s vision of a healthy community in Ephesians is one where members are “speaking the truth in love” to one another—not speaking truth about one another or around one another.

This is not about being cold or formal. It is about honoring the other person enough to speak honestly with them, and honoring yourself enough not to outsource your discomfort.

Friedman believed that a congregation where members practiced direct communication—where the reflex to triangulate gradually weakened—would become more resilient, more honest, and more genuinely loving. Not without effort, but alive.

What would it look like, in your own relationships, to speak your truth in love this coming week?

Your fellow traveler,

—Richard