Apr 27, 2023
President Russell M. Nelson's recent LDS General Conference
talk, "Peacemakers Needed," focuses on the strong need for
Latter-day Saints, and basically everyone else, to more actively
strive for peace in our interactions in the world at large, and
especially with each other personally. Noting the hostility and
name-calling and dismissiveness of others dominating public
discourse (as well as too often our own family lives), he made a
clear call for all of us to treat each other better. Yet, he and we
all know that attaining the qualities of a peacemaker is not a
simple thing. It requires a great deal of desire, inner reflection,
and practicing if we are to meet each other in spirit and in the
way we must if we are to ever heal our relationships--and, indeed,
the world. His is a call for genuine transformation of our
hearts.
But, do we know how to be peacemakers? It is one thing to
set it forth as worthy work, but it is another to actually know
how we might actually begin to embody the spirit of a
peacemaker. That's where this discussion begins.
With the wonderful Selina Miller Forsyth,
this Latter-day Faith Podcast looks at several of the "skills" that
peacemakers require. It primarily looks at things we all need to
work on in general but notes as well the places where Latter-day
Saints might have extra difficulty. One of these is learning
to differentiate between "healthy conflict" and "contention." The
Book of Mormon phrase about the "spirit of contention" being of the
devil (3 Nephi 11:19) is so well engrained in the LDS tradition
that many of us are startled and react with fear whenever any sort
of disagreement arises in church settings, and even within our own
families. Often we don't really know how to discern between
important conversations that involve disagreement, putting forth
different positions, passion, and intensity with
"contention."
Another skill of a peacemaker is "emotional regulation." We must
learn to be good with ourselves, centered in a sense of security
and safety as well as confidence if we are to ever be able to
practice genuine peacemaking that does not dismiss or demonize
persons who bring something into our world that we don't agree with
or have been taught is wrong but that we haven't really wrestled
with ourselves. If we allow our emotions to flood our
consciousness, blocking out everything but our current discomfort,
it's impossible to interact in healthy ways, impossible to be a
peacemaker in such situations.
Peacemakers must also learn the skill of "listening." So many of us
simply do not know how to truly listen to each other, to put aside
our own ego, our own agendas, and to actually encounter them and
what they are saying in an interested, calm, centered way. What
does "listening" actually mean? Are there ways we can learn to
listen in the way peacemakers can?
This is a terrific conversation. It doesn't come close to offering
even a tenth of what there is to be said about each of these areas,
and both Selina and LDF host,
Dan, are well aware of that--yet it is a start.
And it's a conversation we invite you to join in! Let's create more
shows to share even more ideas about this really big but
oh-so-personal topic, and especially how we might gain the skills
to genuinely become persons of peace.
Join us!