This week, while listening to the wisdom of Irish peacemaker Pádraig Ó Tuama, I am faced with another realization, which is that “peace often looks like the escalation of creative conflict.” If all we’re doing in the face of conflict is trying to avoid that conflict in order to get to a point where we all agree, that is just a temporary, false sense of peace. Choosing to enter into conflict intentionally and with creativity is an act of love and a practice of peacemaking. As we do this, we must seek the truth about the other—through stories, by releasing our own assumptions and judgments about the other, and by choosing to see the humanity of the other. Reconciliation can only happen where there is truth.

Peacemaker Denise Bradley from the Corrymeela Community suggests that we ask the question “what is happening?” rather than “what is wrong with you?” for this allows us to listen with our hearts. It highlights our interconnectedness and the reality that we are experiencing the conflict in different ways. It paves a way for our stories to be told, and our stories to be heard.

This is a lot. It is one thing to listen to the wisdom of leaders and discuss it with this cohort of peacemakers who have become dear friends. What does this look like in “real life,” though? What does this look like in my own church where our congregation is divided, hurting, and where the Covid-19 pandemic is literally separating us from one another? How do we experience the vulnerability of community when we can’t even see each other? How do we experience the vulnerability of community when we choose not to see each other? How do we hear the story of the other when we refuse to listen to the other? When we fail to see the other as a bearer of the image of God? As beloved?

Rather than rush to find the answers, I am choosing to slow down, to breathe, and to not fear the discomfort of tension. Perhaps this is where restoration is to be found.

Image Source: https://lorenzoquinn.com/portfolio-items/tension/