I often get phone calls from pastors and other congregational leaders who want help resolving conflict — as soon as possible. Usually I decline, at least initially, telling them that I probably can’t be much help if conflict resolution is their goal. Indeed, I explain, resolution may not be desirable or even possible in most conflicts. And almost never is a quick fix a good idea.

But if they are interested and willing, I offer to work with them as they and their congregations learn from, grow through and are transformed by the heat of conflict. I offer to assist them as they are “redeemed from fire by fire,” as the poet T.S. Eliot wrote. No, I can’t help them resolve their conflict. But I can help them learn to live with the tension, moderate the anxiety and grow from conflict. For me, “conflict resolution” is not about resolving anything. It is about maturity, not resolution; growth, not comfort; deepening the soul, not simply easing the spirit.

The problem with “conflict resolution” is that it creates or reinforces the notion that conflict is bad, sinful and destructive and should not exist. Once we stop seeing resolution as an end in itself, we can understand more clearly the real nature of the underlying conflict — what it says about the system, the living body and its needs.

“Conflict resolution” tends to focus on “fixing what’s wrong,” while ignoring process. Yet process is the very thing of which relationships are made. Processing is learning how to relate to and how to connect with the other person or group while remaining self-differentiated or self-defined. Typically, when conflicts are “resolved,” either no one is happy or everyone is happy but isolated — still trapped in their own egocentric selves, having achieved no deeper sense of community. The basic problem is not how to resolve conflict but how to be in conflict.

Sometimes communities that are in conflict and chaos focus on the need for “healing.” But what do people mean when they say they want to be healed? Often, I find that what people really mean is that they want things the way they want them. They want things as they were before. They want to feel secure or to have their own way.

When I work with congregations, I have three assumptions about healing:

People can only be healed if they want to be healed and are willing to take responsibility for it.
People have healing resources within themselves. Healing is an inner process and responsibility that cannot come from external sources. Although outside forces can help people find inner strength, healing must ultimately be found within. As the writer Marc Barasch notes, “Healing is more a process of uncovering what we already posses rather than manufacturing a ‘better self’.”
As mindfulness researcher Jon Kabat-Zinn writes, healing is largely about coming to terms with and accepting things as they are. In my experience, most systems in chaos do not need to focus as much on healing as they do on maturity and quality of life for the community.

As long as a community focuses on healing, it continues to focus on pathology. It lives into being victims and adapts to its weaknesses. Of course the underlying hurts and grievances should not be ignored. But by focusing on maturity, meaning, direction and purpose, a community has a greater chance to obtain genuine healing and move forward. Healing is a by-product of maturity and growth, not the goal.

Whenever I work with congregations, one of my basic premises is that where they are is where they need to be. If they can accept and be where they are and listen into their system/community, they will hear what the living body, the body of Christ, is telling them and us. They will hear and see what is trying to emerge and where it is leading them to go for their own and the community’s growth and evolution.

Eventually, when the time is right, the tension will resolve itself. With that knowledge, we can relax and try not to solve it too quickly. In Unfolding Meaning, David Bohm writes, “Tension is almost essential for harmony. It is not stillness; it is more an active stillness. If you take a musical composition, harmony is the harmony of movement, and movement of various themes which have tension between them.”

Out of the tension comes the music.

This week I made some presentations on South Africa and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to 8th graders at the nearby Waynesville Middle School. Most of them are heavily involved in the Peacejam Program, which encourages them to find ways to advance peace in the world. This Saturday, through their initiative, groups in the county are assembling over 35,000 meals to send to Haiti! Peacejam was founded by Nobel Peace Prize Laureates like Desmond Tutu, so this was a chance for them to see video excerpts of Tutu’s work with the Truth Commission.

After I had introduced them to pictures from our trips to South Africa, showed them video clips about the Commission’s work with respect to apology and forgiveness, and explaining some of the connections between their history and ours, the instructor asked them when they were born. Around 1996 or 1997. “So this was happening when you were born.” “It is not part of their lived memory,” he said to me. I responded, “Yes, but it is the world they have inherited.”

Memory. Again. How do we remember, personally and collectively? Here was the struggle of the Commission and of Red Clay, Blood River. I didn’t have time to lead them into how my memory, in some slight way, might become part of their memory. Will it live in their memory? Will it shape their action? Will it help them find a role in our common story?

Teaching is passing on memory, whether of scientific discoveries made by earlier generations, or of the history, suffering, hopes, and achievements of long-gone predecessors on this planet. Loss of memory, as with the vicious ravaging of Alzheimer’s disease, robs us not only of our sense of identity and agency but even of our relationships beyond our immediate bodily senses. Our collective loss of memory, as with our forgetting of the lessons of the Great Depression, unlocked the floodgates of financial speculation that have ruined millions of lives today. Forgetfulness can kill.

The 8th graders impressed and encouraged me by their attentiveness to this piece of possible present memory, watching it like an asteroid entering the heavens. Now, their instructor said, we need to chew on this for the rest of the year. As they join our common memory I am aware of how important it is that we remember so that we can forgive and act anew. Thank you, ‘jammers!

PS. They actually packed 60,000 meals!

(This article is reposted from the United Methodist News Service and written by Linda Bloom, a UMNS writer.   It features quotes from Bishop Hope Morgan, the President of the JustPeace Board of Directors).

Filmmaker Jeb Stuart and historian Tim Tyson are both preacher’s kids, now in their 50s, who grew up in North Carolina at a time when attempts at racial integration still sparked tensions that could lead to violence and murder.

So when Stuart read “Blood Done Sign My Name,” Tyson’s evocative memoir focusing on the murder of an African-American Vietnam veteran in the writer’s hometown, the director felt an instant connection.

The connection extended from a young person’s perspective on the struggle for social justice and racial equality in the South down to the moral issues faced by their fathers, white pastors forced to take unpopular stands in their communities.

The result is the movie “Blood Done Sign My Name,” which opens on Feb. 19 in selected theaters nationwide. The film, whose title is taken from an old gospel song, had its official premiere on Feb. 10, opening the Pan-African Film and Arts Festival in Los Angeles.

At the centerpiece of both Tyson’s book and Stuart’s movie is the 1970 murder of Henry “Dickie” Marrow, an African-American Vietnam veteran, in the small town of Oxford, N.C. The refusal of an all-white jury to convict the men who eyewitnesses had identified as his killers generated anger but also led to the empowerment of Oxford’s black community. Tyson’s father, the Rev. Vernon Tyson, was pastor of the United Methodist congregation.

Although better known as a screenwriter for blockbuster action films such as “Die Hard” and “The Fugitive,” Stuart in his new movie has produced what both men believe transcends the typical Hollywood treatment of a civil rights story.

Instead of a narrative that pits the good white folks against the evil white folks, with black characters “being used as props,” this movie shows a movement against injustice emerging out of the African-American community, Tyson pointed out. That diverse community reacts in different ways but has the same goal: “to push down the rotten old social structure of Jim Crow,” he said.

Arriving in Oxford

As the film opens, Vernon Tyson (Ricky Schroder) has moved with his family to Oxford, N.C., where he has been assigned to lead the United Methodist church there.

The movie locations were shot in Shelby, N.C., and images of the church there evoke a sense of déjà vu for anyone with Methodist roots. On the first day of filmmaking, Tyson said he and his father sat in the first pew, off camera, and watched about 200 actors performing in 1970-vintage clothing. “I just kept forgetting we weren’t actually in church,” he recalled. “It felt like every church we’d ever served.”

As the plot unfolds, the pastor gets his first real taste of the town’s racial divide when an uproar occurs after he invites an eminent African-American minister to preach to the congregation on a Sunday. The elder Tyson cites the denomination’s Book of Discipline when he refuses to rescind the invitation.

Stuart asked his father, the Rev. James G. Stuart — now retired and living in Gastonia, N.C. — about the difficulty of pushing a congregation toward integration at the risk of losing a job. “He lowered whatever he was reading at the time and looked at me and said, ‘It was the most stressful part of my career.’”

The story moves beyond the Tyson family and the church’s all-white congregation to the other residents of Oxford, most notably Ben Chavis (Nate Parker), a young teacher – and future civil rights leader– who has returned to his hometown.

After Marrow, his cousin, is attacked and killed, an all-white jury acquits the white storeowner and his sons who are charged with the crime. Oxford’s African-American community is outraged. Reactions range from rioting and the vandalizing of public monuments to the organization of a 50-mile freedom march and economic boycott.

“Jeb did a brilliant job cutting to the heart of the matter,” Tyson said about Stuart’s adaptation of his book. “The movie is not a memoir but more of an ensemble story about these families…in a community that is being torn apart by this murder.”

Faith-based audiences

Stuart hopes the movie’s story will resonate with faith-based audiences.

For United Methodist Bishop Hope Morgan Ward of Mississippi, “Blood Done Sign My Name” is both a Methodist story and a family story. She grew up on a farm in eastern North Carolina and her sister, Perri Morgan, is married to Tyson.

“The events of our lives mark us and form us. Tim’s telling of his family story invites us into our stories where we meet God still at work within and among us,” the bishop said.

“This is a movie for every person who has experienced injustice, every clergy family, every lay person, everyone engaged in the ongoing journey of racial reconciliation.”

Tyson was impressed by Stuart’s understanding of race in America.

“When the screenplay came in the mail, I read it standing in my driveway,” he said. “I didn’t even get back from the mailbox. It was so powerful and dead on.”

He believes the film will have a similar effect on others. “I hope that church folks will find this film challenging and inspiring and engaging and that it will open up a fruitful conversation, not only about race and a history that we’re still wrestling with, but about the challenges that confront us as Christians today,” Tyson said.

Stuart also wants to get across a message to young people about the history of race in the United States.

“There’s always going to be injustice,” he said. “The idea that, in every generation, you have to stand up to injustice is an important lesson.”

*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in New York.

News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

New York-based filmmaker and producer Helen Whitney focuses on ‘forgiveness’ in her new documentary series to be debuted in the Fall of 2010 on PBS.  Forgiveness:  A Time to Love, A Time to Hate follows a long list of award-winning work that often focuses on religious and spiritual matters – including an exploration of faith and doubt at Ground Zero following September 11th, a series on Mormanism, a close up of a Trappist monastery and a biography of Pope John Paul II.

The new four-hour, 2 part film will cover a wide range of stories that demonstrate forgiveness and reconciliation – in both the personal and political realms – and will explore forgiveness in even the most tragic circumstances by following stories of individuals facing agonizing choices.  The series will focus on the public discourse and understanding of forgiveness and will cover a wide range of stories from adultery and personal betrayal to global reconciliation after genocide.

The first half of the documentary will focus on personal stories of wrongdoing, forgiveness and reconciliation, including an in depth look at the community in Philadelphia that immediately responding to the 2006 shooting of Amish schoolgirls by forgiving the killer and embracing the killer’s family. (Listen to or read a story about this from NPR’s Talk of the Nation)

The second half of the documentary will study the role of reconciliation and forgiveness in the lives of nations and the growing trend of governments stepping up and taking responsibility for past crimes. According to Whitney’s agency, Blue Flower Arts, the “subjects range from the genocide in Rwanda, the truth commission in South Africa, Germany’s penitential journey to more intimate dramas of emotional betrayal and the struggle for forgiveness.”

(The following blog post is an article from Alexandria Skinner’s website, Just Mediation, LLC.  Skinner is a certified mediator and licensed attorney based out of Columbia, South Carolina.   She is also an active Presbyterian and writes about faith, peace and social justice issues on her blog Peaceworks.)

The process of mediation is not faith based.  Mediation is a good tool for addressing most types of conflict, without regard to faith.  For people who are Christians, however, scriptural principles in the New Testament have much to say not only about the value of settling disputes outside of court, but also about the spiritual ramifications that are inherent in how we respond to wrongs.  Because of these scriptural principles, Bible-based mediation can differ from secular mediation in several respects.

First, a first key goal of Christian mediation is that the parties become genuinely, and authentically, reconciled to one another.  The essence of Christian reconciliation is based on repentance and restoration of a right relationship.  Restoration of right relationship cannot occur until there has been a genuine acknowledgement of wrongfulness of our actions, acceptance of responsibility, and also forgiveness.

Forgiveness can be a challenge.  It goes against the grain, making reconciliation counter-intuitive.  Traditional methods of dispute resolution do not require forgiveness.  The gladiator goes into the courtroom to do battle, and he takes no prisoners.  This is incompatible with the Biblical principle of restorative justice.  On the other hand, avoiding a dispute and pretending that everything is “fine” is not healthy, either.

Reconciliation, in a Christian sense, is not just a matter of saying “I’m sorry” and pretending that nothing ever happened.  Reconciliation involves acknowledging that something went wrong and then extending and accepting forgiveness and grace, for both parties.  (This is the idea behind Restorative Justice, discussed in my secular blog posts HERE and HERE, but which has strong scriptural support as well.)

For the party who has been wronged, the act of extending forgiveness comes as the result of God’s grace.   We receive the grace to forgive.  For the party who has done the wrong and who receives forgiveness, acceptance of that forgiveness is also a matter of receiving grace.  In forgiving and in receiving forgiveness, we put into action our words in the Lord’s prayer, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive us our debtors.”

True repentance and forgiveness is not always easy.  The process of giving and receiving forgiveness will involve prayerful self examination, acknowledgment of and acceptance of responsibility for wrongful thoughts or actions, a commitment to genuine change, as well as acceptance of the grace that forgiveness brings.

Galatians 6:1-2 gives a relatively clear admonition concerning this restoration of right relationship with another Christian, a grace we impart to another even when we feel we have been wronged:  “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. . . .  Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

What does “restoring gently” mean?  Martin Luther interpreted thusly:

“If you see a brother despondent over a sin he has committed, run up to him, reach out your hand to him, comfort him with the Gospel and embrace him like a mother.   When . . .  [a person] has been overtaken by a sin and is sorry . . . [h]e must be dealt with in the spirit of meekness and not in the spirit of severity.  A repentant sinner is not to be given gall and vinegar to drink.

Luther also writes:

“The Law of Christ is the Law of love. Christ gave us no other law than this law of mutual love: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another.” To love means to bear another’s burdens. Christians must have strong shoulders to bear the burdens of their fellow Christians. . . . [W]e ought to overlook the shortcomings of others in accordance with the words, “Bear ye one another’s burdens.”  Those who fail to do so expose their lack of understanding of the law of Christ.  Love, according to Paul, “believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13)”

In Matthew 5, Peter asks Jesus to place a measure on just how much is enough.  How much one is really required to forgive?   Peter asks, “Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?  Until seven times?”  In answer, Jesus replied, “I say not unto thee, until seven times; but, until seventy times seven.”

This willingness to look beyond the fact of being wronged is the beginning in the path toward Christian reconciliation.

If you are serious about Christian reconciliation with your Brother or Sister in Christ, consider adopting the following as guiding principles:

• Be honest: Therefore, each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor (Eph. 4:25).
• Do what is just and merciful: And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God (Mic. 6:8).
• Accept responsibility for your actions and admit your wrongs: First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother’s eye (Matt. 7:5).
• Keep your word: Simply let your “yes” be “yes,” and your “no” be “no” (Matt. 5:37).
• Be concerned about the interests of others:Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others (Phil. 2:4).
• Listen carefully to what others say: He who answers before listening, that is his folly and his shame (Prov. 18:13).
• Overlook minor offenses: A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense (Prov. 19:11).
• Confront others constructively: Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen (Eph. 4:29).
• Be open to forgiveness and reconciliation: Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you (Eph. 4:32).
• Change harmful attitudes and behavior: He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy (Prov. 28:13).
• Make restitution for any damage you have caused: If a man uncovers a pit or digs one and fails to cover it and an ox or a donkey falls into it, the owner of the pit must pay for the loss (Ex. 21:33-34).

Fundamentally, a person who seeks to do follow principles of Christian reconciliation will seek to follow the Golden rule:  ” So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 7:12).

If you are interested in pursuing Christian mediation with a Brother or Sister, please mention this when you speak with me, and I will give you more resources to help you prepare and either resolve the dispute among yourselves or with help.  Additional characteristics that distinguish Christian mediation from secular mediation are discussed HERE.

I can be reached at 803-414-0185, and I welcome your questions on this topic.

Churches throughout the United States will spend either part or all of their prayer time during their Sunday worship services on Feburary 7th to focus on criminal justice reform. Specifically they will lift up the need for a fair criminal justice system based on restorative principles that do not sentence people to unjustly long sentences or target certain racial groups, so that the families of the incarcerated can be strengthened and local communicates safely restored.

They will pray for the empowerment of churches to serve those directly affected by the criminal justice system, by caring for victims of crime, providing necessary programs for ex-offenders seeking to reenter society, supporting families affected by crime, and advocating for reform of the criminal justice system.

And, they will pray for the moral leadership and accountability of elected leaders to support legislation that reflects the values of restorative justice and will care for victims of crime, eliminate unjust and unsafe treatment in the criminal justice system, and provide for in-prison, reentry and prevention programs to avert future crimes.

Facts to consider and share with your congregation:

• With 5% of the world’s population, the United States hold’s 25% of the world’s incarcerated
• In the U.S., 1 in every 100 people is incarcerated and 2/3 of those in prison are black or Latino
• Black men serving sentences account for 4,618 per 100,000; Hispanic males were 1,747, and Anglo males were 773.  This means that Black males were 6 times more likely, and Hispanic males twice as likely as Anglos to be held in custody.
• There are more than 8,000 reported incidents of sexual assault in prisons each year.  The number of unreported incidents cannot be estimated.
• In 2007, 82.7% of crack cocaine defendants were African American despite the fact that only 18% of crack cocaine users in the U.S. are African Americans.
• Every year across the U.S., 200,000 youth are tried, sentenced or incarcerated as adults and on any given day, nearly 7,500 youth are locked up in adult jails, and 2,600 are locked up in adult prisons.

These are just some of the reasons why we know the current system is broken.

Therefore, we must pray for reform of the criminal justice system, for empowerment of faith communities to advocate for reforms, and for moral and accountable leadership by our elected leaders to bring about just and humane reform. Please email Bill Mefford and let him know if your church is participating and the city and state where you are located.

The United Methodist Church’s position on the criminal justice system is:

“In the love of Christ, who came to save those who are lost and vulnerable, we urge the creation of an entirely new system for the care and restoration of victims, offenders, criminal justice officials, and the community as a whole. Restorative justice grows out of biblical authority, which emphasizes a right relationship with God, self and community. When such relationships are violated or broken through crime, opportunities are created to make things right.” (Social Principles, ¶164H)

The initial conversation featured a panel about restorative justice and how it can lead to more productive lives for ex-offenders featuring Bishop Kenneth Carder of Duke University Divinity School and Jim Winkler of the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society.

Be sure to check out the videos below:

Bishop Kenneth Carder

Jim Winkler, General Secretary of the General Board of Church and Society

Professor Lederach is interviewed in the December 15, 2009, edition of Christian Century about his ongoing peacemaking work around the world, and about his teaching on the subject.  Professor Lederach also was honored this year as the recepient of the annual Reinhold Niebuhr Award at Notre Dame.

During the award ceremony on May 19th, Notre Dame provost Tom Burish said of Lederach,

“As a practitioner of peace, he accompanies the poor, the refugees, and the victims of war — eliciting from them alternatives to violence. His wide-ranging experiences, profound analyses, and deep moral imagination have formed the basis for a corpus of writing that has enlightened peace studies scholars and peacebuilders around the globe.  He is, in the words of St. Francis of Assisi, ‘an instrument of peace.’”

You can read about his award here:  Lederach Honored for Social Justice

Watch this video about Professor Lederach and Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies:

In 1957, Albert Camus began a lecture by describing a wise man who regularly asked the divinity “to be so kind as to spare him from living in an interesting era.”  Camus comments, “As we are not wise, the divinity has not spared us and we are living in an interesting era” (249).  In 2003, we too are living in an interesting era.  Our nation is grappling with vulnerability in a classic though unfortunate way.  We deny the real depth of our vulnerability and the ways in which our behaviors worsen it.  We focus on the threats that are visible and localized instead of those that are invisible and diffuse.  We simplify complexity, draw a distinct line between good and evil, and dehumanize the enemy.  We illustrate Reinhold Niebuhr’s assessment of the human condition as framed by anxiety and the vain attempts to overcome it.  We have become Niebuhr’s man who climbs the mast of a ship during a storm at sea, unable to do otherwise yet terrified of the growing chasm beneath him (185).  Interesting times, to put it mildly.

And, in the midst of this, many people of faith feel called to be peacemakers.  But what does peacemaking look like in this context?  Should we carry Reinhold Niebuhr into this paragraph as well and say that peace requires a certain amount of coercion, given political reality?  Or do we hold firm to the conviction that means and ends are organically related, such that one cannot achieve peace through violence?  If we believe God to be the creator and sustainer of life, then we know that the destruction of any life alienates us from God.  If we believe God to be the one creator of all life, then we cannot assume that some lives have more value than others.  And, if we believe that Jesus Christ reveals God’s will to us, then we must take his words with utmost seriousness.  “You have heard it said, ‘An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth.’  But I say to you: ‘Resist not the evil doer.’”  Forgive.  Love.  Be charitable and kind.  And so, the Social Principles of our own denomination declare war to be “incompatible with the teachings and example of Christ” and “reject war as a usual instrument of national foreign policy.”

These teachings seem so clear.  For a minute I feel as certain as Leo Tolstoy who insisted without wavering that one cannot be a Christian and support the use of violence.  We may envision all kinds of scenarios in which this teaching is impractical, Tolstoy said.  And we may devise more agreeable interpretations of Jesus’ hard sayings.  But we cannot deny that the law of nonresistance stands.  In Tolstoy’s words, “As a man cannot lift a mountain, and as a kindly man cannot kill an infant, so a man living the Christian life cannot take part in deeds of violence” (178).

Tolstoy felt the conflict between the law of God and the law of man so keenly that he believed that the Christian must withdraw from participation in society in order to live according to the teachings of Christ.  But he was not unique in his assessment or conclusion.  I moved to southern California from Lancaster County, PA.  I lived there for three years, surrounded by Amish and old order Brethren and Mennonite communities.  Like Tolstoy, my neighbors in Lancaster County believe that they are called to “come out from among them and be separate.”

Judging from your dress and from your presence here, I am assuming that most of you do not feel called to be separate.  Rather, I am guessing that in your ministry and in your personal lives, you have tried to live with God in the center of the village, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer called us to do over fifty years ago now.  But I also assume that you have felt a pull between what God asks and what society requires.  I know that I have.  Let me give a recent example.

If we believe that God is the creator of all life, then we cannot assume that some lives have more value than others.  We cannot therefore assert with honesty that God has more love for some people than for others or that God would support violence against some members of creation in order to protect others.  And so, we might say with Nurse Edith Cavell, “Standing as I do in view of God and eternity, I realize that patriotism is not enough.” (Gomes 23). In a conversation with friends over the weekend, I used this point as a way to criticize President Bush’s instrumental use of theology.  In my view, he is using talk of God to support a plan that has been truly devised with political, military, and economic considerations rather than theological ones.  One of my conversation partners this weekend is a college friend who is now a major in the U.S. Army.  In his response to my comments, he said that the role of the government is to ensure the survival of the nation and the safety of its people.  I see that, and being honest, I must say that I am glad someone is protecting us.  And yet, I am also keenly aware of these incompatible views.  As a person of faith, I believe that all people are inherently valuable and equal in God’s sight.  As a citizen of this country, as the wife of someone who worked next door to the World Trade Center, as someone with attachments to friends and family within these borders, I am glad that someone is trying to protect us from more violence.  And, as a citizen of the world who wants to ease the pain of the suffering and oppressed, I struggle to identify means for doing so without inflicting pain on the oppressors.

And so, I find myself torn between my convictions and my circumstance.  Let me be clear: I do not support the war in Iraq.  I am not that torn.  But I do see a world that is so broken that innocent people are in constant jeopardy.  And I wonder if we can responsibly participate in this world without turning again to Niebuhr who urged us to acknowledge the need for some violence in order to prevent our entire project from “issuing in complete disaster” (Moral 22).  What does it mean to be a peacemaker in this interesting era?  How can we be responsible to a faith tradition that calls us to this vocation and responsible to a world that is so fraught with violence that violence seems necessary?

Those of us who feel called to be peacemakers tend to enter the conversation on the war, much as I did last weekend, by describing the rules, principles, and laws that bind us to an authority beyond the state.  We cite Jesus’ text on nonresistance or we cite the Just War tradition.  Either way, our focus is on rules derived from a faith tradition and applied to this particular moment in history.  While I do not mean to jettison these guiding principles of the faith, I do want to suggest a different path this morning.  Instead of applying faith-based rules to this historical situation, can we think about infusing our personal activities with a religious sensibility?  Can we begin to see our every action as a habit that cultivates a certain disposition?  And can we try to identify and practice those habits that cultivate the disposition of peacemaker?

Let’s see what this might look like.  First, we need to deal with the word, peacemaker.

Peacemaking has a negative connotation for many people. Making peace sounds like a shallow and superficial effort to “make nice” or “keep the peace.”  The idea is that peacemaking involves shoving conflict under the rug or setting aside points of disagreement or even subduing calls for justice.  We are reminded of the words of the prophet Jeremiah, “You have healed the wounds of my people lightly, saying ‘Peace, peace’ when there is no peace.”  This kind of superficial calm is what we call “negative peace.”  It is the absence of conflict rather than the presence of justice.  The underlying causes of conflict remain unaddressed.  Surely, our call to labor for peace involves more than keeping the peace while injustice rages beneath the surface.

Peacemaking truly involves laboring for positive peace.  Johann Galtung, one of the grandfathers of peace and conflict studies, helped us with this definition.  He understood violence to be much more than physical abuse.  He described violence as anything that impedes one’s ability to flourish.  Violence is the cause of the difference between the potential and the actual – anything that prevents you from being who/what you could be.  Positive peace is a similarly rich concept.  Here, the underlying causes of violence and the persistent forms of injustice are addressed.  It is a just peace, to put it in language that is probably more familiar to you.

I do believe that the call to peacemaking is the call to this deeper, substantive effort.  But I think that the negative connotations are weighty enough to prevent those who hear it from envisioning the practice in this more athletic way.  So, I want to suggest that we substitute the word, peacebuilding.  I think that peacebuilding gets us away from the negative connotations of making peace as making nice.  There is nothing superficial about the task of building peace – we need to think about the foundation, which means that we must unearth all of those things that make the project unstable.  We have to deal with the hidden tensions, expose conflicts and address their causes.  I also like the word peacebuilding because it emphasizes the ongoing and cooperative nature of this process.    Peacebuilding requires the ethic of the cathedral builders, that Bill Shore described in his book, The Cathedral Within.  Here, we see people who are committed to labor for something that they know they will not realize.  Building peace is like that.  We build with and on the labor of others, contributing to a vision without the illusion of seeing it to completion.

Peacebuilding as a virtue

Now, what does it mean to speak of peacebuilding as a virtue?  First of all, let me be clear that I am not – at this point – quarreling with the tradition to have peacebuilding added to the list of Christian virtues.  Rather, what I am suggesting is that virtue-language will help us to better understanding the call to peacebuilding.

A virtue is a habit by which one acts well, according to a suitable end.  We owe this definition to Aristotle although it was woven into the Christian tradition by St. Thomas Aquinas.  Aristotle and Aquinas disagreed about the ultimate end (or highest good) of human action.  By highest good, we mean that end desired for its own sake and not as a means to something else.  Aristotle understood this to be eudaimonia, translated imperfectly as happiness but really meaning well-being and well-doing.  The highest good of all human action and effort, as Aristotle understood it, is a sort of functional excellence, whereby the human being perfectly performs the function of being human.  Aquinas, however, was more influenced by Augustine than Aristotle on this point and thus understood the highest good of all human action to be something more than functional excellence.  The highest good for Aquinas and for the Christian faith more widely is union with God.  Aquinas acknowledged the natural happiness that Aristotle described, but he also taught that human beings have another end, supernatural happiness of union with God.  Thanks to the synthetic work of Aquinas, Christian virtues are understood to be habits by which one acts well toward neighbor and habits by which one is oriented toward God.  The virtues that orient us toward God are the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love.  Aquinas understood these virtues to be infused in us by God rather than learned through study (like intellectual virtues) or cultivated through practice alone (like moral virtues).  While I have no doubt that faith, hope, and love are intimately linked to the habit of peacebuilding, I am not bold enough to add peacebuilding to the triad of theological virtues!  But I do think we can speak of peacebuilding as a moral virtue with some integrity.

Theological virtues are infused in us by God.  Intellectual virtues depend on experience and time.  But moral virtues are, according to Aristotle and Aquinas, “formed by habit.” We are, by nature, “equipped with the ability to receive” the moral virtues, writes Aristotle, but “habit brings this ability to completion and fulfillment.” Therefore, he continues, “we become just by the practice of just actions, self-controlled by exercising self-control, and courageous by performing acts of courage” (2.1).  The opposite holds true also.  We acquire bad, unjust, fearful, indulgent habits by performing those kinds of actions.  In sum, “the actions determine what kind of characteristics are developed” (2.2.1103b.3).  This means that moral virtues are not acquired by performing any kind of action, but only by performing those actions which a virtuous person would perform.  Thus, learning the moral virtues involves a deliberative activity.  One must choose the virtuous act and thus cultivate the disposition to do so.

So, where are we?  We began with the experience of feeling called to and daunted by the task of peacebuilding in this interesting era.  What does this vocation entail exactly?  What does the calling require of us today?  How can we respond to it faithfully and still participate responsibly in the world?  My suggestion is that we respond to this call by practicing peace.  That is, we think of peacebuilding as a virtue in the classical sense, a habit that is reinforced through practice.  We become peacebuilders by doing those things a peacebuilder would do.

Examples of peacemaking practices

Let me name a few examples briefly and then elaborate on one in particular. (And I invite you to think about other ways in which you practice peace.)  My colleague, Kathleen Greider, reminds us that violence takes place not only out there in the world, but also in our personal lives, in our work relationships, and in our daily comings and goings.  For her peacebuilding practices include, among other things, attention to the damage we do to one another, the conflicts in our personal lives that go unaddressed, and the needs we have for repairing breaches at home as well as abroad.  Another one of my colleagues is Elizabeth Conde-Frazier.  Elizabeth frequently works with congregations located in neighborhoods with changing demographics.  Members of the congregation fear the changes in their neighborhood and are sometimes ill equipped to interact comfortably in their new multicultural environment.  Elizabeth helps the church people to see the other as neighbor by practicing hospitality, compassion, and shalom-building.  Carol Lakey Hess just joined the Claremont faculty with me in August.  One of her main concerns is creating spaces for just discourse.  She suggests that “an important part of justice and peacemaking involves creating communities where a diverse gathering of people can grapple deeply and critically with the traditions to which they belong.”  Carol practices peace by establishing classroom and other settings where this kind of conversation can take place.  When I hear her describe her work, I am reminded of an interfaith group that was started after September 11, 2001.  The purpose was to enable Christian and Muslim students to talk openly with one another, to connect on a personal level, and to dismantle the barriers that our world seemed to construct between them so quickly.

This brings me to another example that I would like to elaborate on more fully.  Thich Nhat Hanh is a Buddhist monk who was exiled from his home country of Vietnam because he refused to side with either the communist or the anti-communist efforts.  He is most known for his teachings on engaged Buddhism, a set of meditative practices that prepare one to engage the world more fully.  One of Thich Nhat Hanh’s principal concerns is dualism – the way we all tend to divide the world between us and them, good and bad, right and wrong, friend and enemy.  So, many of his meditation exercises aim for non-duality, meaning an understanding of the other and an awareness of the relationship rather than the distance between us.  This kind of non-duality practice helps us to address conflict in our personal lives and to take an essential step toward reconciliation between peoples and nations more generally.  He explains:

“The situation of the world is still like this.  People completely identify with one side, one ideology.  To understand the suffering and the fear of a citizen of the Soviet Union, we have to become one with him or her.  To do so is dangerous – we will be suspected by both sides.  But if we don’t do it, if we align ourselves with one side or the other, we will lose our chance to work for peace.  Reconciliation is to understand both sides, to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side, and then to go to the other side and describe the suffering being endured by the first side” (70).

In order to overcome duality, Thich Nhat Hanh calls us to practice imagining ourselves as the other.  This does not mean that I will agree with everything the other person has done.  But it does mean that I will see the humanity in that person and the connection between us.  Indeed, for Thich Nhat Hanh, there is no such thing as an individual.  My identity, my being, is thoroughly wrapped up with yours.  In his language, “we inter-are.”  Meditation makes us mindful of these connections.  It aims to teach us to see the other as related to ourselves; indeed to see ourselves as the other.  I understand this meditative exercise to be a peacebuilding practice because we are so prone to perceive duality.  And this perception is only exacerbated in an interesting era.  Today, we see conflict not only on the global scale, but also within communities and churches torn by the question of war.  How can we strive for peace in the world when we cannot achieve peace in our own congregation and community?  We need practices that force us to do “internal work” as well as social work – to realize that even our peacebuilding efforts may intensify a gap between ourselves and others.  Such meditative practices force us to see the connections between ourselves and the other, to recognize our own capacity for harm, and to perhaps see ourselves from the others’ perspective as well.  The basic assumption behind this approach is stated nicely by Thich Nhat Hanh: “one affects world peace first and foremost by the way one lives” (14).

Conclusion

This proposal for practicing peace does not address all of the concerns I raised in my introductory comments.  I still have moments when I struggle with the demands of conscience and society, faith and context.  And I still feel daunted by the call to peacebuilding in these interesting times.  But a focus on practices does a couple of helpful things for me.  Primarily, this emphasis on practice is empowering.  That is important because I have been feeling particularly powerless these days.  Last fall, I listened to members of congress explain that, although they opposed the idea of war, they needed to give the President the necessary authority to threaten war.  And now, I hear my friends and others say that if we do not follow up on these threats of military action, we will set an even more dangerous precedent for the future.  Congress voted for war because we needed the threat.  Now, we allow the war because we made the threat?!  Although I understand the pragmatic points here, I am stunned by the ways in which we make such a grave decision as this.  And I feel powerless to stop that line of thinking.  Is it possible to be a peacebuilder in a world that so easily convinces us of the necessity for violence?  Of course it is.  We become peacebuilders by practicing peace.  These are practices that I can do even as I sort out the larger questions of foreign policy and alternatives to violence in this age of terrorism.

The emphasis on practices is also helpful, I think, because it reminds us that the problems are not out there, apart from ourselves.  Peacebuilding practices are more than social activism.  These are exercises that prompt us to reflect on our own contribution to the violence and to find small steps in our private lives to minimize that violence and create space for peace.

Most fundamentally, the emphasis on practices reminds me that I become what I do.  Character is formed, not implanted.  This is surely an idea that is familiar to us in the Methodist tradition.  As my Anabaptist friends in Lancaster County like to remind me, John Wesley was profoundly impressed by the pietism of the Moravians he met while crossing the ocean for Georgia.  We abide by the teachings of Christ, as best we can, not because we have to – but because we see this life as a striving toward Christ-like behavior.  And we practice these disciplines because we feel called toward a certain vision of ourselves and the world – we labor on behalf of the basileia vision, a time when no one will hurt or destroy in all God’s holy mountain.  As Gandhi so succinctly taught us, we must be the change we want to see.

I want to close with some thoughts from Marian Wright Edelman.  She ended an address this way in the summer of 2000, but I find the words to be apt and comforting today as well.  She has been speaking about the challenges facing those who work to make this world safe for children.  And she closes first by thanking those in attendance for their work and concern and then by offering a prayer.  I want to echo her words of thanks for your attendance and your lives of ministry and service to God’s people.  And I want to share her prayer of dedication to a struggle that is both necessary and oh so difficult.

“So let me just end with a prayer that I say a lot this year, to reaffirm what each of you knows, that we can remake this world, we must remake this world for our children.  And I’m so grateful for all of your presence, because so many people are waiting for Gandhi to come back, or Dr. King to come back.  They’re not.  We’re it!  And we have the capacity and the power to build a different world in a new era.  Your presence here is a very important witness of that fact.

“But I feel inadequate most hours and days, and say: Lord, I can’t preach like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or Jesse Jackson or turn a poetic phrase like Maya Angelou, but I care, and I’m willing to serve, and to use what talents I have to build a world of peace.  I don’t have Fred Shuttlesworth’s and Harriet Tubman’s courage or Andy Young’s political skills, but I care, and I’m willing to serve.  I can’t sing like Fannie Lou Hamer or organize like Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, or John Dear, but I care, and I’m willing to serve.  I’m not holy like Archbishop Tutu, forgiving like Mandela, or disciplined like Gandhi, but I care and I’m willing to serve and to fight in a nonviolent manner.  I’m not brilliant like Dr. Du Bois or Elizabeth Cady Stanton or as eloquent as Sojourner Truth and Booker T. Washington, but I care, and I’m willing to serve.  I don’t have Mother Teresa’s saintliness, Dorothy Day’s love or Cesar Chavez’s gentle, taught spirit, but I care and I’m willing to serve.  God it’s not as easy as the Sixties to frame an issue and forge a solution, but I care, and I’m willing to serve.  My mind and body are not as swift as in youth, and my energy comes in spurts but I care, and I’m willing to serve.  I’m so young nobody will listen, I’m not sure what to say or do, but I care and am willing to serve.  I can’t see or hear well, speak good English, stutter sometimes, and get real scared, and I really hate risking criticism, but I care, and I’m willing to serve.  Use me as Thou wilt to save Thy children today and tomorrow, and to build a nation and a world where no child is left behind, and every child is loved, and every child is safe.”  (Fellowship Jan/Feb 2001)

She concludes by saying, “Thank you for caring.”  And I conclude by saying, “Thank you for your lives of ministry to God’s people.”

Works Cited

Aristotle.  Nicomachean Ethics.  Translated by Martin Ostwald.  Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1962.

Aquinas, Thomas.  Treatise on the Virtues.  Translated by John A. Oesterle.  Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame Press, 1966.

Camus, Albert.  Resistance, Rebellion, and Death. New York: Vintage, 1988.

Edelman, Marian Wright.  “Caring Enough to Build a World of Peace,” Fellowship. Jan-Feb. 2001: 4-5.

Galtung, Johann.  “Violence and Peace.” A Reader in Peace Studies. Eds. Paul Smoker, Ruth Davies, Barbara Munske.  Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1990. (pp. 9-14)

Gomes, Peter J. “‘Patriotism is Not Enough’: Christian conscience in time of war,” Sojourners. Jan-Feb. 2003: 20-25.

Hanh, Thich Nhat.  Being Peace. Berkeley: Parallax, 1987.

Niebuhr, Reinhold.  Moral Man, Immoral Society.  New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960.

Niebuhr, Reinhold.  Nature and Destiny of Man: Volume I: Human Nature. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1964.

Tolstoy, Leo. “Letter to Ernest Howard Crosby.” Approaches to Peace: A Reader in Peace Studies. Ed. David Barash. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Ellen Ott Marshall is Associate Professor of Christian Ethics and Conflict Transformation at Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, GA.   Dr. Marshall focuses on contemporary Christian ethics. She is particularly interested in issues of violence and peacemaking, ethical questions in literature and film, and the dynamic relationship between faith, history, and ethics. She is the author of “Liberation from the Welfare Trap?” included in Welfare Policy: Feminist Critiques (Pilgrim Press 1999) and “Though the Fig Tree Does Not Blossom” (Abingdon Press, 2006) which addresses the virtue of hope in the Christian Tradition.  Dr. Marshall has also worked with the refugee resettlement programs of Church World Service and the United Methodist Committee on Relief.

10 ways to live restoratively

1. Take relationships seriously, envisioning yourself in an interconnected web of people, institutions and the environment.
2. Try to be aware of the impact – potential as well as actual – of your actions on others and the environment.
3. When your actions negatively impact others, take responsibility by acknowledging and seeking to repair the harm – even when you could probably get away with avoiding or denying it.  (To craft a letter of apology, see the Apology Letter website developed by Loreen Walker and Ben Furman.)
4. Treat everyone respectfully, even those you don’t expect to encounter again, even those you feel don’t deserve it, even those who have harmed or offended you or others.
5. Involve those affected by a decision, as much as possible, in the decision-making process.
6. View the conflicts and harms in your life as opportunities.
7. Listen, deeply and compassionately, to others, seeking to understand even if you don’t agree with them. (Think about who you want to be in the latter situation rather than just being right.)
8. Engage in dialogue with others, even when what is being said is difficult, remaining open to learning from them and the encounter.
9. Be cautious about imposing your “truths” and views on other people and situations.
10. Sensitively confront everyday injustices including sexism, racism and classism.

I would welcome additional suggestions as well as comments on these ten.

The chart below explores some implications of five key restorative justice principles for criminal justice and for restorative living.

Restorative Justice Principles adapted by Catherine Bargen (2008) from Susan Sharpe, Restorative Justice: A Vision for Healing and Change. Thanks to Catherine for her suggestions on the above as well.