Dawning possibility

Three chapters in to Cynthia Bourgeault's new book, The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three: Discovering the Radical Truth at the Heart of Christianity, she directly addresses the possibility I raised in my blog yesterday: "One can only imagine how greatly the political and religious culture wars of our era could be eased by this simple courtesy of the Law of Three: (1) the enemy is never the problem but the opportunity; (2) the problem will never be solved through eliminating or silencing the opposition but only through creating a new field of possibility large enough to hold the tension of the opposites and launch them in a new direction."

Imagine a world that was not about winners and losers, but about possibility!  What if every conflict were seen, not as a problem to be solved or a compromise to be grudgingly reached but as an opportunity to bring some new possibility to life?  Imagine what kind of world we could usher into being if we were to raise our children to welcome rather than fear disagreement, to see  differences of opinion as a launch to creative solutions rather than as a signal to gird your loins and fight! But of course, that could only be possible if we humans could get better at stepping outside our me-centered universes...

I think this is the sort of thinking that impelled me to go back to school, not so long ago: I was hoping to get training I might use to help businesses use their internal conflicts as instruments for change.  But, sadly, it only served to make me aware of how easily overwhelmed I can become in conflict situations.  So while, on the one hand, reading this excites me, fires me up, awakens the Pollyanna within and encourages me to imagine a whole new life as a "creative resolution specialist" or some similarly imaginative title, experience has taught me that my personal creativity tends to go into hiding at the least sign of conflict.  Even thinking about the possibility, I can feel anxiety shimmering around the edges.

It doesn't mean this kind of new age isn't possible.  But it probably means I won't be one of the ones ushering it in: I talk a good game, my heart's in the right place, but I don't believe I have the confidence to pull it off; I'm too easily overwhelmed. Hopefully I can at least channel that desire for creative resolution into my art somehow; perhaps I could at least inspire that sort of thinking, even if I can't seem to pull it off outside my own family...