Yesterday, we reflected upon relationship conflict and the difficult conversations that sometimes need to happen to bring forgiveness and reconciliation. However, these difficult conversations may not always have the desired effect.
Stubbornness can get in the way of reconciliation. Sometimes, we just don’t want to hear about what we have done wrong. We refuse to acknowledge that our words or actions have caused harm to another. We prefer to shift the blame or ignore the difficulties in front of us.
Jesus offers an interesting
remedy to this stubbornness - involve others in the conversation. Our relationships do not exist in a vacuum. We are all connected in a complex web of relations. What happens between person A and person B also affects person C and person D.
A third or fourth party can bring new insights into the conversation and help us see aspects that we are not able or unwilling
to see. They have a perspective that we do not have, they are ‘outside’ of the conflict itself. Often, this can help to break our stubbornness and enable a pathway to acknowledgement, forgiveness and reconciliation.
Reflect on times when you were too stubborn to acknowledge the wrong you had done to others. What helped to break that stubbornness? Can you think of
relationships facing difficulties at the moment which may require the intervention of someone outside the conflict, a mediator, perhaps?
Reflections by Sean van Staden
SJ
