It's
clear to me that conflict, its transformation, and everything that occurs
in between is as undeniably expressive of who we are as any other aspect
of life. Our day-by-day, almost routine encounter with it places all
that we use to define ourselves on the line, calling on our inner strength,
wisdom, and confidence, and also often drawing out personal insecurities,
anxieties, and blind spots that serve to both fuel our reactions and
test our reason.
As individual as it is repetitive, the journey through conflict is
never quite the same for each of us, and the most difficult rule to
remember may very well be that no singular or finite set of rules can
ever complete the process. Change is a steady reality, and when our
reality changes, particularly in ways we don't anticipate or like, it's
all too human to resist it and experience this thing we call conflict.
If I've learned anything in the more than decade of coordinating the
Annual International Conference on Conflict Resolution, it's that developing
effective personal tools and clarity along the way is crucial to navigating
these straits. What I've also found is that going too far in attempting
to overly "systematize" or "program" this process
is likely to simply fall short. Once the essential dilemma is at hand
what remains is to purposely engage in our own unique journey, exploring
useful paths and choosing those that may naturally move us along toward
more self-understanding, harmony, and peace.
There are, however, some clearly universal commonalities, particularly
when it comes to truly deep, destructive conflict - the kind that can
shake our fundamental sense of well-being in feeling connected to the
real world around us. Such a profound disruption in our known reality,
and the solitary despair that can often come with it, challenges our
limitations to the extreme, while at the same time revealing more of
what we're capable of transcending.
Transformation at this level of experience isn't wrapped up in simply
containing or eliminating the flow and source of conflict. Transformation
emerges as reclaiming that which we need to be "true" about
our reality, and ourselves; that which validates the existence of "goodness"
in the world, and our place in it.
It is by instilling vital elements like esteem, integrity, respect,
and, most certainly, authentic trust into this relationship with the
world, and even individual relationships where there's previously been
a deficit or loss, that we can achieve the restoration of these qualities
in our world. To recover from such loss and recreate our reality, though,
takes a lot from us; and sometimes a lot out of us. It can be tough
and heavy work, testing our fortitude and patience, and very often our
courage.
And yet it takes still more. Even courage, fortitude, and patience
can fail at some point. What it takes is compassion; a strong, resilient
compassion that comes from a deep faith in the intrinsic goodness of
ourselves and others.
Healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation is a freeing dynamic for both
victim and perpetrator; freeing from the chronically toxic energy of
"wrong" and "wronged." It is investing or reinvesting
a healthy, life-endorsing "wholeness" into our world at large.
When the acts of others, whether careless or with malice of intent,
cause suffering and grief, it's much more possible to achieve genuine
healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation if the person involved is acknowledged
as possessing at least the basic, elemental level of humanity and "potential"
for goodness.
How we frame and define others and this world we share with them, then,
is key to what occurs in the space between conflict and transformation.
When we frame with broad-brush negative stereotypes that demonize and
dehumanize those we're in conflict with we risk creating the very untrustworthy
universe we fear and rail against. Not surprisingly, we further concretize
this version of reality if we respond by engaging in hostile reactions
ourselves, ironically providing others with proof of their own counterpart
negative stereotypes -- of us.
The ability to recognize the fallibility of another person's mortal
dilemma, and sometimes painfully lost way, particularly those we have
serious grievances against, presumes a certain truth about the nature
of "our" human character, and in doing so allows us to face
and transcend our own individual despair.
My experience has been that it's not toward a state of "lack of
discord or threat" that we strive so constantly and diligently
in the largeness and smallness of our daily lives. It's no less than
simply toward a state of profound grace, within us, with others, and
with the world. A grace that's easily recognized and familiar down to
our bones when it's even slightly approached. A grace that forms the
final confirmation of our belonging to each other and to the vastly
interwoven universe. The best we can do is strive toward it, and honor
the basic drive in each other as we do; sometimes faltering, sometimes
misdirected, sometimes perhaps even grimly distorted beyond recognition;
but none the less struggling toward the same horizon.
When defensive, fear-based emotions are triggered that test our lonely
courage, fortitude and patience in standing firm against the painful
actions of another, yet remaining open to acknowledging that person's
inherent human potential for goodness if and when it truly emerges -
to offer forgiveness to, to reconcile with and welcome back into a state
of grace - compassion is the essential ingredient needed. In the end,
it's compassion that will get us through.
The challenge here is to not unwittingly dismiss this view as naïve.
It seems to me, in fact, the most sensible, practical, and responsible
stance, not to mention the most hopeful for humankind. In light of today's
mounting global crisis, it's no exaggeration to say that how well we
choose to maintain this stance, even in the face of often overwhelming
emotion and knee-jerk reaction, will invariably determine the ultimate
fate of our species, and perhaps that of all other species.
Clearly, compassion doesn't presume indiscriminate acceptance of destructive
behaviors, or tolerance of them. Behaviors - particularly those that
blatantly and intentionally inflict harm on others - can be more accurately,
consistently, and fairly judged than people, especially groups of people
clustered by some arbitrary or chance association. Indeed, judging "behaviors,"
as separate from people, has historically produced the highest degree
of common sense and moral consensus, both within societies and between
them. It's when we fall into justifying behaviors according to "who"
perpetrates them that we begin to lose our consensus, and our common
sense.
Compassion presumes that actions of violence, hostility, hatred, and
cruelty are expressions of a gross distortion or loss of contact with
one's own innate goodness; a disconnect that leads to warped interactions
with others, and even one's self. It offers understanding and an unwavering
endorsement of the ability for positive growth and change, for redemption,
for remaking ourselves in the image of our own inner potential as positive,
good, and loving human beings - all the while allowing for being completely
resolute in condemning and holding "actions" firmly accountable.
Especially in the face of these greater challenges, then, the task
is to cultivate deep compassion and genuine trust, as we reveal to ourselves
the paradox of change - change we resist and rebel against, and change
we seek or even demand -- suffering and enduring with some, while discovering
and empowering ourselves through others. And in the process we begin
to further define ourselves; to arouse vital, fundamental questions
to contemplate and integrate along the inner journey of rediscovering
the essence, and the grace, of who we are.
Steve Olweean
Perspective magazine, December 2002
Voices Of Reason
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