Don’t attack, don’t defend, don’t withdraw

Most of you know that I grew up Mennonite. 

When I worked in the Mennonite context, I used to propose non-pacifist viewpoints, for the sake of variety if nothing else. Now that I work in the broader American context, I feel compelled to promote the pacifist view, not just for the sake of variety, but because it is so widely seen as not viable — disconnected from the “real world” — and the pacifist view is more viable that you might think.

Robert Yutzy, in a recent issue of Mennonite Weekly, gave three guidelines for peacemaking and conflict resolution in everyday interactions:

1. Don’t attack
2. Don’t react
3. Don’t withdraw

It’s easy to do the first two. Just withdraw, and you’re OK. Well, Yutzy says, two out of three is still not success, and there are several problems:

1. You're still angry
2. You didn’t resolve the issue at hand
3. Your relationship has probably been damaged

Yutzy’s daughter advises her dad to take a deep breath before he indulges himself in the corny humor that he enjoys at home. Perhaps that would help us all be better peacemakers and more effective co-workers, spouses, friends, etc.

So take a deep breath, and then,

1. Don’t attack
2. Don’t react
3. Don’t withdraw

Getting side-tracked can be a good thing

I started out this morning with grand plans to re-design my choir newsletter along the lines of some I brought home from a conference in January.
But then I opened my e-mail and there was a very nice note from “little Sarah,” grand-daughter of my friend, Sarah, writing about John Rutter and asking for more information from me.
I dug into my assignment and found some information about Rutter, and a photo. I converted one of our Magnificat tracks to mp3 and put it online for her. I found a Latin-English translation of the Magnificat and put the words of the track into the e-mail for her. I told her about watching him conduct in Wichita, KS, of all places.
Then there were some other distractions, such as looking for, and attempting to use, non-Quicken software. (It didn’t work.)
So here we are, having a “dee-dah day.”

* * *

I like John Ortberg’s book, The Life You’ve Always Wanted, rather muchly. He has a novel idea of spiritual disciplines. Spiritual disiciplines are, for example:

• not just something I do for 40 days, but for life
  
• not just doing something or not doing something, but becoming the image of God in me.
  
• not boring things, but exciting things, like not wearing a watch for a whole day.
  

I had hoped to read more of Ortberg this morning, but it didn’t work out.

Growing in grace is a good thing, and isn’t always a hard thing.

Don’t beat yourself up so much (advice I'm trying to take myself).