Deception can present a significant challenge in conflict resolution. By the time parties “get to the table” the truth has taken a brutal beating. Differences in their versions of what happened can be a product of deception.
Most deception is benign; it consists of accounts scripted to take the edge off transgressions or oversights. It is natural for us to want to save face, and we often do so by deceiving ourselves or others.
As parties take turns recounting the past, however, these benign distortions fall away or are recognized as tangential and unimportant. Thus, parties are frequently successful in cobbling together a common narrative of the past. Intentions are clarified, clearing away previous attributions of evil. The new, co-authored narrative stops short of painting either party as a villain, but even when the process ends in success and the parties reconcile, their stories of the past will not be a perfect match, as parties tend to grant one another poetic license, honoring face-saving needs.
In other instances, however, deception takes on a darker tone: one or both parties suffer from an intense need to defend self with fabrication and deceit. The parties fail to achieve agreement on a common narrative and become caught in a thicket of fabrications. It seems they have entered a house of mirrors in which reality becomes impossible to pin down.
Deception renders the parties unable to embrace a common story; deception renders them unable to construct a foundation upon which to launch a collaborative search for a shared future. Frustration grows and the party facing deception engages in increased inner scrutiny; they inspect, once again, their own conscience and the validity of their perceptions. They also renew their efforts to verify external facts in search of an acceptable reality.
Two Doctors of the Church who preceded Saint Francis spoke to these issues. It is likely Francis was aware of their thoughts.
Saint Gregory the Great offered the following advice:
Amid the words of flatterers and revilers we should always turn to our soul, and if we do not find there the good that is said of us, great sorrow should arise; and again, if we do not find there the evil that men speak of us, we should break forth into great joy.”
— Epistle 11, 2
St. Augustine noted things are not always what they seem:
Sometimes there is a kind of contrariness apparent in the products of hatred and love; hatred may use fair words and love may sound harsh… Thus we may see hatred speaking softly and charity prosecuting; but neither soft speeches nor harsh reproofs are what you have to consider. Look for the spring. Search out the root from which they proceed. The fair words of the one are designed for deceiving, the prosecution of the other is aimed at reformation.”
— The Confessions of St. Augustine
Thus, knowing that appearances can be deceptive, a party seeks to discover their own true intentions and the actual intentions of their opponent.
The prompts in Taming the Wolf help a party discern intentions, their own and those of the other party. This prepares them to “listen deeply to the heart” in contemplative prayer and in dialogue with the other.