A recent blog post by Heather King, reprinted on Father Robert Barron’s Word on Fire blog, raises key questions we face during conflict. She focuses on the tension between our desire for spiritual fulfillment and the challenges that arise in our worldly pilgrimage.
In the years before I studied conflict resolution I searched for a “magic bullet” solution to the unpleasantness of conflict. I hoped I could learn to smile the right smile, say the right words, or draw from a deep well of charm to put out the fire of hostility. While I do not wish to dash my readers’ hopes, I have to report I did not find easy solutions.
Heather comes to a similar conclusion:
It’s a very difficult line to walk. To not take the easy way out and talk in vague terms of love and peace without facing how that pans out in the constant dilemmas of our daily lives: personal, municipal, national, global. To speak truth to power and realize that means not everybody is going to like you; maybe hardly anyone is going to like you.”
When we turn to the spiritually transformative style of mediation we have learned from Saint Francis, we also should not expect a comfy walk in the park. It is unrealistic to expect our faith to provide us with a prepackaged set of easy–to–apply routines. Answers are not easy to come by; this should be obvious but often is not. Heather writes, “How anyone can regard Christ nailed to the cross above the altar of every Catholic church in the world and get either ‘easy’ or ‘answer’ out of it is beyond me.”
She pinpoints, in a broader context, the same dilemma mediators face when they seek to convene a conciliatory process. “You want to focus on the joy but not at the expense of the suffering. You want to focus on the suffering, on the terrible spiritual peril in which we live, but not at the expense of the joy.”
We seek not to give in to avoidance. At the same time, we do not want to drain joy from our lives. We seek balance as we embrace the difficult task of making peace.
Perhaps the biggest challenge for a mediator is bringing parties together. Most often they would rather not face difficult conversations. Heather’s humorous take on delivering the bad news would make mediators smile knowingly:
Then, as soon as you say, ‘There is no easy way; there are no ‘answers’,’ people complain, ‘You’re all about suffering and sickness and darkness; we want Eat, Pray, Love, we want to sleep our way around the world and meditate for a night in a cave, then meet the guy who says ‘I’m madly in love with you,’ live happily ever after, and write a best-selling book about ‘spirituality.’”
Mediators talk about bringing the parties “to the table” where they can overcome hostility and collaborate on the creation of a common future. Heather speaks in terms of a parallel concept—being called to the banquet table.
Spirituality is to proclaim that we’re all invited to the banquet table and to also proclaim that that costs: to get in shape to welcome the next person to the banquet table takes all our mind, all our strength, all our hearts, all our souls.”
In a spiritually transformative approach to conciliation we are called to the banquet table at the same time we arrive at the negotiating table. There are significant costs to be paid. Resolving conflict is not an easy journey; neither is our faith pilgrimage. Heather’s blog post unintentionally but beautifully captures the paradox of conflict resolution in terms of the similar paradox of the faith journey:
You have to have no answers and also be in joy. You have to be ready to dance when your heart is hemorrhaging; and you have to be ready to sing a dirge when things–for ONCE!–are going okay for you, and every last one of your friends is in crisis. To hold the tension between the light and the darkness; pain and joy; life that we love so much and the fact that we all must die is the intersection of the cross.”
Note:
Heather King’s blog is Shirt of Flame.
