Conflict Resolution
When Things Aren't Going to Our Liking: "I Wanna to Complain"
When we strive to hold ourselves accountable before God, we’re better able to understand what may be happening in others’ lives. It’s like when Our Lord instructed, “Remove the plank from your own eye… that you may see the splinter in another’s.” We’re often far-too-eager to hold others “accountable” for their actions!
Resolving conflicts… expressing concerns… reporting mistreatment… it’s never easy to do and it’s nothing new! Lots of times, we may just not like the way something’s done... not “our style.” A mature person would be able to discern this circumstance and can keep things easily “in perspective. I don’t like the music at Mass… maybe the music’s “more to your liking” at another Mass, there’s even a Mass with no music, it’s still the Mass, though! The parking lot’s too full… good problem to have, don’t you think?! Often in these situations, a little humor and an attempt to see alternative ideas can avoid any ugliness.
Our Lord Himself had three observations for handling just such matters among His followers.
1) Go to your neighbor in private to express your concerns... if he listens, you will have won him over. This is the step that usually gets jumped over or ignored… and it’s the most important one! All to often, when we’re upset, the last thing we want to do is to go directly to the person who may have upset us… maybe because we’re fearful of confrontation, we don’t want things to escalate or get out of hand, or because we’re not able to control ourselves. This is why waiting a day or two to pray and to think things over before approaching the individual is important. Quite possibly, we might realize it wasn’t such a big deal after all and decide to let matters drop… or we may come to understand that another person was under strain, or overreacted to something, or may be unaware of how they can be taken.
If we skip this all-important step, “fly off the handle” and start trashing someone behind their back or by filing a complaint, writing a letter, telling all the world about our troubles, starting a petition or whatever other violent means of expressing outrage we can think of… we easily lose charity, and in all likelihood, we’ve lost whatever chance there may have been to truly resolve conflict and promote harmony. This is also how “gossip” often gets started, prejudices are formed, reputations are damaged. Far worse, our own motivations of seeking vengeance as opposed to seeking justice are now exposed, and even those in authority will find it difficult to respect us.
As difficult as it may be, far important to attempt to carefully prayerfully and PRIVATELY resolve conflict with someone before any other measure… and this includes keeping still and silent about such a person! For reasonable people, just about any conflict can be easily resolved by observing this wise counsel of Our Lord’s!
2) If your neighbor will not listen to you… approach him again with another witness… In other words, if it’s possible, we bring along someone else with us who may have witnessed the situation or who can help us to be reasonable or who may have some insight or may be adept at “mediating.” We DON’T bring along somebody who will simply “take our side” no matter what! This step is in the interest of fairness all around.
3) If at this point, your neighbor will not cooperate… then take the matter to [the Church] persons in authority. This is where we’re often tempted to go immediately when conflict arises… let authority step in and settle matters… pass responsibility off to someone else. And then when things are not settled to our liking… what then? When authority sees that we’ve attempted to resolve conflicts on our own, the person in authority is in a better position to offer resolution and correction as may be needed.
By following Our Lord’s “formula,” we keep ourselves accountable before God and are better able to see “accountability” as a genuine service for the building up of the community of Christ!