this artist life

conflict

One of the things I’ve become pretty good at in my life is avoiding conflict. I think this is an example of what I like to call “learning in the wrong direction”.

Avoiding conflict, being passive, is ultimately being unfriendly. It doesn’t reall build community, or grow the possibility of new relationships. In fact I think it tears these things down.

I think it also tends to mean sacrificing one’s self-respect. It is difficult to take a person seriously when they are in a constant state of avoidance. On the the other hand, it’s also difficult to approach a person who is always in a state of confrontation.

As peacemakers, which is what adherents to the Christian faith are called to, how do we ethically pursue conflict? It might first mean changing our perceptions of conflict away from negative connotations (I know for me the first word that comes to mind when I hear conflict is “war”).

Conflict doesen’t mean expressing negative force or emotion to fix a problem (if this were the case arguments would only ever be won by the person with the angriest or loudest voice). It means seeking to admit that there is an issue, then attempting to repair the issue. Solving a conflict isn’t about winning the argument.

Conflict, then, has to become the act of waging peace. It is seeking to build relationships, whether the deeply personal (friendships, marriages) to the casual (meeting strangers in the city for whatever reason). Then there are the more complex relational conflicts (relationship with one’s country, the relationship one’s country has to the rest of the world).

On a deeper level, choosing to approach conflict instead of avoiding is seeking redeem conflict. I don’t know anything about war, just that it is waste. If there is a better way to expend our resources, even if this means years of difficult and exhausting political reconciliation, finding that way is a necessity for the sustainability our humanity.

I hope you’ll forgive all the words ending in Y.

theadamroper@gmail.com