CONFLICT

198 – Friday, July 17, 2009

We invested our dinner hour discussing what happens when people, specifically family, get caught up in talking or, in our case-in-point, posting on the internet, about other family members in derogatory fashion. Thankfully, we were not talking about our immediate family – but that is not to say it cannot happen. Why do people, who should be mature, engage in such potentially damaging behaviors? Lots of reasons, not the least of which is we all have feelings and when they are abraded we tend to lash out in the fashion of a cornered animal. How do we diffuse such harmful misunderstandings? If left without address, this kind of a wound can rapidly and fester into a gangrenous cancer that can invade a family and even bleed over into other relationships, causing the cord of family unity to unravel and sever. With cool heads prevailing, the more mature of individuals must reach out to the wounded soul and offer honesty mingled with compassion and rationale. There are never guarantees that if one does the right thing and makes the proper approach that the results will always come out the way one has hoped, however, the likelihood is that all will turn out much better than the result of doing nothing, thus allowing the confusion, anger and bitterness to propagate themselves. The goal of personally involving ones self into such a scenario must be to restore harmony within the family. You may be called names for mixing in the process, but the risk is worth the reward, besides, there are certain advantages of being called names - The Bible says it this way, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” Matthew 5:9

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