Month: July 2017

It strikes me how much tension is in the world. It’s hard to contain sometimes. If you sit with two people in conflict, sometimes you feel like you’re going to burst. It’s all you can do to stand up to it. We all have people in our lives who are in conflict with one another. (Lately it has seemed like our whole country has been in conflict!) The easiest thing to do when you are in the middle is side with one against the other: “They are wrong and we are right!” If you love them both, however, that is not a choice you get to make. You mostly just want to see them stop fighting and be nice to each other. Unless you want to be drawn into conflict, too, the only thing you can do is absorb it. That means you hold the tension. You become a conduit – not a fun thing to do. It’s painful. It seems to take all the strength you have sometimes. You want the people you love to be at peace with one another. Read More