Tag: war

Mend Differences through Dialogue

Egyptian Stela, Middle Kingdom, about 1870-1770 BCE

Interpretations of ancient Egyptian art are fascinating. According to the hieroglyphs on the above stela (a commemorative monument), scholars find that a son and his mother (Amenemhat and Yatu) are depicted with objects they might use in the afterlife. Along with clothing and food supplies (bread and beer), there is a cosmetic container under Yatu’s chair (a red and white container of “ointment”). One scholar refers to a blue jar under Amenemhat’s chair as eye paint (kohl); a second opinion labels this a “beer jar with a drinking straw.” Take your pick.   

Four horizontal lines of hieroglyph text offer a prayer: “A royal offering of Osiris, Lord of ‘Life of the Two Lands.’ May he give a mortuary offering of bread and beer, oxen and geese, linen, clothing, every good and pure thing whereon [the god] lives, for the ka [soul] of the guardsman Amenemhat, deceased, born of Yatu, deceased, and for the ka [soul] of his mother, his beloved, Yatu, deceased, born of Tita, deceased.”

Ever curious, I offer questions: Why is guardsman Amenemhat depicted with his mother, Yatu? What did he guard? Why is no father named in the stela story? Did the mother/son duo die at the same time? Was there a plague or war? Or was this gravestone initiated when a mother was dying and the two family members shared a final dialogue?

The definition of “dialogue” is a conversation between two or more individuals where discussion leads to resolving an issue or problem.

Too many families do not dialogue about important stuff. As psychiatrist Murray Bowen points out, “The person who runs away from his family of origin is as emotionally dependent as the one who never leaves home. They both need emotional closeness, but they are allergic to it.”

Too many countries do not dialogue about their differences and subsequently devolve into war. Are people allergic to problem-solving dialogues? Or do they lack the training to have dialogues?

It takes compassion to have a dialogue. I wrote about this in Transforming Retirement: Rewire and Grow Your Legacy: “Relating well with compassion for others takes the consciousness of the fittest. The most useful compassion description I have found is from Austrian Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. He differentiated I-Thou relating, or accepting the other person as sacred, from I-It relating where people treat others more as objects useful for one’s benefit. In I-Thou relationships there is a genuine dialogue where you discuss issues with another with your whole being. Such conscious relating can remove arbitrary boundaries between individuals. If both partners in a relationship believe in I-Thou dialoguing, they stop themselves from projecting their own painful stories onto the other.”

We might use Buber’s dialogue messaging to mend differences and negotiate an end to stuff — like barbaric wars.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz 

317. When have you dialogued successfully to resolve some tricky issue?

318. When in your life has dialogue broken down so that it seemed impossible to have individuals listen to one another?                      

Christmas Pearls

Christmas Eve 100+ years ago (2014) found German, British, Belgian and French soldiers celebrating the holiday by singing together in the midst of World War I. Territorial battlelines were crossed. Language borders were crossed. Soldier orders were crossed. The newly installed Catholic Pope, Benedict XV, had asked for a Christmas truce, but his earnest request did not receive any blessing from officers.

Reports from soldiers over the years have blurred war memories, but certain survivors remember a fragile peace on a moonlit night: “First the Germans would sing one of their carols and then we would sing one of ours until we started ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful,’ the Germans immediately joined in singing the same hymn to the Latin words Adeste Fideles, and I thought, well, this is really a most extraordinary thing…nations singing the same carol in the middle of a war.” Other versions of that extraordinary night focus on the singing of Silent Night, Holy Night. No one seems to know exactly where the first singers emerged.

I am reminded of words attributed to anthropologist Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” It can take a long time to change the world, but never doubt that any small change has depth. This 100-year-old Christmas story provides a legacy blessing for our times.

On Christmas Day in 1914 some German soldiers ditched the precarious protection of their trenches and held up signs: “You no shoot, we no shoot.” Some soldiers traded gifts of cigarettes, food, buttons, and hats. The Christmas truce even delivered the ability to bury opposing fallen soldiers who were frozen in place, struck down in territory between trenches. Stories vary, but Adolf Hitler, a Corporal of the 16th Bavarians, reportedly reprimanded German soldiers: “Such a thing should not happen in wartime. Have you no German sense of honor?”

If you look up the word honor, the noun means “adherence to what is right or to a conventional standard of conduct.” As a verb, honor means “to regard or treat (someone) with admiration and respect.” An argument must be made that war defies what is “right” – killing, looting, and other horrors do not treat others with respect. Yet, Hitler found followers to tear down decency.    

Many people on our precious planet commit to peaceful problem solving where we build up one another in times of disaster. It is a possibility that more folks will become thoughtful citizens and change agents in the new year. Might we begin with school children on the playground? Before recess can kids create personal posters with their version of “You don’t shove, I don’t shove?”

A pearl can take from 6 months to 4 years for mature development. Surely, people are capable of maturity. It is our birthright.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

249. How do you define what is honorable?

250. What peaceful problem solving will you engage in today?