Family Mediation Center

As a conflict mediator who is also a trained spiritual director, I try to make the most of every opportunity to teach my clients that conflict is not necessarily bad or destructive. Even when conflict is caused by sin and causes a great deal of stress, God can use it for good (see Rom. 8:28-29). As the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1, conflict actually provides three significant opportunities. By God's grace, you can use conflict to: 1. Glorify God (by trusting..., obeying, and imitating him) 2. Serve other people (by helping to bear their burdens or by confronting them in love) 3. Grow to be like Christ (by confessing sin and turning from attitudes that promote conflict). These concepts are totally overlooked in most conflicts because people naturally focus on escaping from the situation or overcoming their opponent. Therefore, it is wise to periodically step back from a conflict and ask yourself whether you are doing all that you can to take advantage of these special opportunities.

TWO MODELS OF SPIRITUALITY In our Western "familiar" spirituality, we initiate and God rewards. Grace is understood as the treasury of merit stored up in heaven and earned by good deeds. The focus is on reward for self now, or in heaven after death in response to our good deeds. This is the traditional religious approach so many of us were brought up with. However, the Scriptural model for healthy spirituality is where God initiates and we respond. Grace is transformation of ...the total person into the likeness of Christ (known as "theosis" in the Eastern Catholic Tradition) by the freely given gift of the Holy Spirit. The focus then, is on the love of God and others NOW, as well as on our internal attitudes and conditional awareness of the Spirit's movements. -Fr. Richard J. Hauser, SJ in excellent book on evangelical spirituality called "In His Spirit" (1982)