The Healing of the Nations

Good conversation brings out the best in everyone. A good conversation monitors its own temperature. There is a tacit understanding that those involved do not want the conversation to overheat and thereby degenerate into an argument, because arguments are ultimately about one person or party vanquishing the other.  We learn and grow from good conversation. Arguments diminish  and sometimes destroy whoever ‘loses’ them. Winning arguments and being ‘right’ confers power, and power, if it is to be maintained, demands more verbal or physical violence,  thereby destroying, or distorting beyond recognition, any shared objective which might have existed to begin with.  Events in the Middle East over the past 2 years speak for themselves in this respect.

Good conversation constitutes dialogue. It does not presume agreement but it is, nevertheless, a shared forward movement towards a shared objective. People who engage in good conversation stand a chance of making new and important discoveries about each other and, if they are willing, of learning from them and so arrive at a new and better shared objective. The new objective will be the result of having discovered, at some point along the conversational journey, a shared will to live and to go on creating together. To expect answers, or any kind of easy finality, is to miss the point of dialogue. Instead, dialogue aims to keep journeying, to keep the engine of hope moving all parties involved in a forward direction. Once the engine stalls, or is allowed to stop, we have a potentially static and life denying situation. In other words, we have death.

Although such a static situation may not lead to direct conflict, it creates a vacuum which is easily filled by violence. Violence is the result of not wanting to hear or understand what makes another person ‘tick’. A dialogue which aims at this deeper understanding requires a certain kind of ‘heart’ intelligence, one which is shaped by a desire for peace and for the healing which comes with it. This is what informs intelligent speech and leads to good conversation.

Consider for a moment the death at work in some of the current global conflict situations, such as  Syria and its appalling humanitarian consequences about which the key players seem to care so little. Consider also the dangerous brinkmanship games being played out in the context of Russia and the Ukraine. Then there are the political parties nearer home, as they start to square up to one another in national elections or referenda which will affect the long term future of us all. Perhaps what is needed is a different perspective, one which is orientated on the love of God.

The three Abrahamic faith communities can give the lead here. But first we must learn to speak and understand each other’s truth language and to make the fruits of this understanding public, within our communities and in the context of society. What key aspects of our shared monotheistic faith, as it stems from that of Abraham, could help us define a new and better shared objective and start the engine of hope moving in a forward direction? As a Christian, I believe that all of us are entrusted by God with the responsibility for entering into his re-creative salvific purpose for the world, and for its healing.  We shall all be held to account in some measure for the part we have played, or failed to play, in the healing of the nations.

Towards the end of the book of Revelation, in the New Testament, mention is made of a tree of life whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. The imagery resonates with that of Genesis, the first book of the bible. The tree metaphor in the Garden of Eden story points, among other things, to a total breakdown of trust between the creator God and his people. The tree in the book of Revelation is a metaphor for the Cross, the tree of life given back to humanity. It is a living tree and we are part of its life. We share the responsibility with our Muslim and Jewish brothers and sisters for the fulfilment of God’s purpose for his world, for dialogue and good conversation between peoples and nations. Together, we are responsible for turning the arenas of modern conflict into places of hope where the engine of God’s saving love can begin its work in and through us all. As Christians, we have faith in the means we have been given to do this work, the grace which comes with knowing Jesus Christ as the one who transforms our lives and our world. It is work in progress .