YES, instead of
being afraid, irritated and stressed out
whenever we have differences and conflicts with others,
let’s be
welcoming to them and take advantage of them. A lot of
good can
actually be derived from them, even if we are not
exempted from being
pained and mortified by them.
Our differences
and conflicts, which by the way are
unavoidable in our life, can actually occasion genuine
love and many
other virtues to develop and grow. They can purify us,
smoothing out
the rough edges of our personality, and fine-tuning our
views,
opinions and preferences.
They can give
rise to the development of patience and
compassion, and the pursuit for the truth and justice is
guaranteed to
be more authentic even if it is also arduous.
They can
actually expand our world of knowledge and
understanding, and trigger the dynamics of a more
meaningful unity
among ourselves, not in spite of but rather because of
our differences
and conflicts. The unity we are speaking of here is not
uniformity,
but one that is richly nuanced and capable of
accommodating everyone.
Most
importantly, they can give a tremendous growth in our
spiritual life, freeing us from being at the mercy of our
personal,
earthly and temporal conditions. They contribute greatly
in our effort
to make ourselves more and more like Christ who is the
pattern of our
humanity and the savior of our damaged humanity.
Our differences
and conflicts are a fact of life. They can
spring from all kinds of sources—temperament, culture,
socio-economic
and political status. There are racial and religious
differences, etc.
These
differences and conflicts must be part of our human
condition and are an integral element in the providence
of God over
all of us. As such, they are part of our life. We just
have to learn
to live with them and try our best to use them according
to God’s
providence. The general pattern of how to live and make
use of them is
given to us by Christ himself who had to go through the
most extreme
kind of difficulty and conflict.
There is no use
attempting to quash them altogether. We
may sort them out to simplify things a bit, but we should
never think
that there will come a time when there will be no
differences and
conflicts among ourselves. Instead, what we have to do is
to refer
them to Christ to have an idea of how to handle them.
This does not
mean, of course, that there are no good and
bad things, no right and wrong, no fair and unfair
situations. This
does not mean that within these categories, there are no
varying
degrees of good and bad, right and wrong. This does not
mean that we
should just be indifferent to these differences and
conflicts if only
to achieve a semblance of unity and harmony.
We have to
proclaim, in season and out of season, what is
true, good and beautiful as defined for us by our faith,
by Christ
himself, but we should not respond with anger, hatred,
violence to
anything that may differ or contradict what our faith
teaches, what
Christ has shown us. And so, like Christ, we have to
expect to suffer
and even die for what our faith tells us about how to
handle our
differences and conflicts.
Let us remember
what the Letter to the Hebrews tells: “For
this world is not our permanent home. We are looking
forward to a home
yet to come.” (13,14) We should not be afraid to appear
defeated and
to have lost in this world as long as we gain the
permanent and
eternal home meant for us in heaven. (cfr. Mk 8,36)
We have to
acknowledge the reality of these differences
and conflicts all the way to their most extreme degrees.
But they
should not make us think that it would be better that
there be no such
differences and conflicts.
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