mercy

When tensions rise, thoughts of the golden rule and loving the neighbor fly away until we learn the arts to which this chapter is devoted:

Religious talk of divine goodness sounds naive and abstract until we participate in goodness by joining these practices. They are not for the timid or the impatient, but for those who crave the adventure of goodness.

Growing up with a gentle temperament and socialized to be nice, I was taught to "turn the other cheek" and "return good for evil." As a boy I learned not to return evil for evil, but instead I would return nothing for evil. I became skilled in seeing the good in others, but only suffering taught me to add balance to my perspective. Christians and their critics have stumbled over these teachings. How many believers are paralyzed by Jesus' teaching, "Judge not," forgetting that in a moment he adds, "Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine"? When Jesus combined these teachings in the Sermon on the Mount he invited thoughtful listeners to draw a distinction between judging the worth of souls (none of our business) and estimating the danger posed by some of the characters in our neighborhood (one of our responsibilities). We are not simply to take the log of prideful criticism out of our own eye, but we are then able to go on and take the next step, to take the speck out of our brother's eye.[i]

Difficult relationships and organizations in crisis require special psychological, moral, and spiritual work. A marriage dissolving, a church where members are taking sides, a study group breaking up because they can't handle a disruptive new member, hostility breaking out between nations and ethnic groups--cooperation fails and hurts get worse. When higher perspectives are lacking, a culture of offense arises. Anger is regarded as healthy, insolence passes for honesty, criticism dominates interaction. That culture destroys itself.

Knowing how naturally we irritate and offend each other, a pastor advised a couple being married, "Forgive each other from the bottom of your heart every day." Learn to respond constructively to others' imperfections, and you have acquired one of life's greatest lessons. Facing so many occasions for righteous indignation, we need to learn how constructively to express intolerance for the intolerable. Students are learning to practice conflict resolution in schools, and scholars are beginning international teamwork in the study of forgiveness.[ii] The seeds of a better day are already sprouting.

Early in life we learn that we can't always have things our own way. We want to be in control, but we learn that most things get done by teamwork. The first reason for compromise is that, from family and school to work and politics, social coordination is essential to accomplishing things. In a lasting friendship or marriage, people adjust to each other. An older couple, smiling and walking arm in arm, show the peace and happiness of people who have gone through much together and learned a love that knows how to work through difficulties. Think of social adjustments you have made and the benefits you gained as a result. So much of life involves compromise that the person who fits graciously into a group is especially welcome.

Another reason to compromise is that we have many duties. We cannot satisfy every obligation at once, and a choice must be made. We learn the art of composing our moral life so that we accomplish over time what needs doing. Sometimes idealistic goals have to yield to what is immediately necessary. This is not to say that we violate basic duties, only that we pursue our higher goals in a way that is balanced and wise.[iii]

Compromise is also necessary because growth--your growth and others' growth--takes time. Many people suffer from being too idealistic and overconscientious. What you can reasonably expect of yourself and others is limited by being a material creature in a chaotic age. You have moments of experiencing what it to live at your best, and your ideals soar. Frustrations comes when you cannot sustain that wonderful level. Your ideals grow fast, but your ability to live up to them grows at a modest pace. Thus, the gap increases between your life and your ideals. But even the will of God can ask nothing more than what is really possible for you. Here is a chance for a move of philosophic reflection. If you aren't thrilled with your present level of attainment, you can be thrilled with the process of growth. It is amazing how delight in the process eclipses dissatisfaction with our present level!

There are times when there is no chance for progressive compromise. Normal techniques of working things out have failed. Then to compromise means to sell-out, to betray your soul's standards, to compromise with evil. There are times when it is time for a showdown between truth and error, beauty and ugliness, good and evil. Heroes emerge when the most radical devotion is required, no matter what the cost to one's personal welfare. The path of duty does at times lead through the gates of sacrifice.

How do you know when the time has come to take a stand, to encounter the opposition boldly, rather than to use tact and avoid conflict? I will return to this issue at the end of the chapter, but let me here discuss one guideline. Ask a simple question: Does the issue stand directly on the path of my main responsibility? This criterion helps me analyze the case of an engineer who was pressured by company superiors to falsify test results on a brake they were manufacturing for Air Force planes. Pilots could die if the brakes didn't work, but the company was in economic distress and the engineer had a family and a mortgage, so after protesting through proper channels unsuccessfully, the engineer finally complied and wrote the deceptive report. Soon enough the company was testifying before Congress, and the engineer had a new career as an ethics writer. Reviewing the case, I felt such compassion for this junior-level employee. The guideline, however, spoke clearly: The engineer was in the truth business, and falsifying test results directly violates his prime responsibility (not to mention his supervisors). All of us in the truth business must be ready to sacrifice for the truth that is our responsibility.

Our general preference for avoiding conflict should not be driven by fear. The daily practice of energetic, morally active living is the best preparation for shifting into a more aggressive posture if the time comes. The person who expresses from the outset the positive values for which she lives and for which she is prepared to be fired or die is the person who will have the courage and calm to discern when the time for confrontation has come. Furthermore, well-balanced living avoids excessive altruism, though you can give a degree of priority to others without inhibiting your own flourishing as a creature in the universe.

The best time for conflict is when it will have the greatest leverage for change, the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people in the future.[iv] Those benefits, however, are uncertain for the actor--hence the drama of it all.[v]

A research project looked into the survival rate of people who had experienced heart attacks and found the following. "The survival rate for those who considered their unresolved angers and anxieties and worked on forgiveness was three times higher than those who did not work on forgiveness."[vi]

There are three processes of mercy, and the first of them is prayer. Those who regard God as a psychological projection may adapt this process as an exercise in creative imagination and visualization.

Mercy binds together several levels of awareness in the unity of a mature act of faith. Mercy requires philosophic consciousness--coordinating consciousness of fact with consciousness of value.

Suppose I am thinking of a person who has wronged me. (For the purpose of the example, I am assuming that the person is, on the whole, a progressing person of faith.)

My first awareness of the act may be the psychological pain of injury. I may feel anger or sadness or contempt. I am conscious of the fact of wrongdoing.

In prayer, I regain my perspective on my brother, recalling that he is indwelt by a fragment of divinity, and that his personality has been created by our common Father. I dwell in the beauty of that thought, and my love for him regains strength. I have reached a spiritual stage of consciousness of the value of my brother.

Now I go a further step. I recall the ugly shadow of the evil done to me. It is jarring to juxtapose that shadow beside the beautiful, indwelt creation that has just been more brightly revealed to me. I think a bit more: there is a reason why that evil act occurred. Some compulsion of material causes, some immaturity of creature will has manifested. This action is part of the evolutionary growth of this brother, part of an early chapter of his success story. His error exposes part of the subterranean geography that needs adjustment, settling, harmonization. I can apply my prayer for my brother at that exposed spot. I have confidence in the eventual triumph of my brother--and God--regarding this weakness.

By this time, my image of my brother has changed. About the nucleus of the indwelt and divinely created personality, I see the slowly evolving self. I identify with his evolutionary progress. I think how glad I will be one day, when we are all so much more loveable, to have begun to know and love this brother in the mortal life. Now my awareness is complex. I see this person neither as a monster nor as a being of light, but as growing around a nucleus of God-given perfection. I do not see the person only in terms of their best moments or only in terms of their worst. I notice the pattern of the individual's behavior. To be able to balance--creatively and progressively--the multiple phases of my brother's reality in my awareness of him exercises a new muscle. Mercy uses philosophic consciousness to hold fact and value in proper balance.

Sometimes you need to do more than pray for the other person. You need to interact, and prayer purifies your motive and brings guidance for the next process of mercy.

An article on the work of the World Forgiveness Institute included the following report.

In a study done in Baltimore Maryland, 300 young men who were criminal offenders serving time volunteered to participate in a program to meet their victims face-to-face and ask for forgiveness. The victims also had to volunteer willingly for the program. The offenders received no reductions in their sentences or any other incentives to participate in the program other than their desire to redeem their lives. In this particular study, of the 300 men who came forward seeking forgiveness and meeting their victims, only one was arrested a second time after his release.[vii]

Realizing the benefits of reconciliation makes you want to receive them and extend them to others.

Mercy has a simplicity component--an overarching attitude of forgiveness--and a thoroughness component--a process of interaction. The simple attitude covers the countless occasions of irritation and offense that do not rise to a level that calls for any process to deal with them. No serious, deliberate wrongdoing has occurred. When you are goodheartedly and vigorously striding through life, you hardly notice a host of minor injuries of this sort. The simple attitude of forgiveness also motivates the process when the time comes to take steps for reconciliation. A process is needed, since trying to just "forgive and forget" when serious wrongdoing has occurred does no justice to the situation or to its marvelous potentials for rehabilitating relationships.

The mercy process is twofold. There is a personal process of interaction and also a group process if needed. We will look first at the personal process first.

1. The first step is to be just. This requires you to clarify what violation has occurred. Trying to avoid dealing with it and rise above it is neither psychologically honest nor morally helpful. You must be unafraid to recognize and examine the misdeed, and you need to go to the other person to work out a shared understanding. To simplify the discussion, I assume that we have a case in which the other person has clearly acted in a deliberately harmful way and that your own conduct is just fine. Often things are less clear, and you find in conversation that your sense of wrongdoing was based on a misunderstanding.

The other person may block the process by persistently refusing to acknowledge wrongdoing or to change. When this happens, you may go to the group process discussed later--but unresolved issues remain, and you must not pretend otherwise. But you can look forward in faith to an ultimate resolution, even if it takes more than a lifetime.

2. As you come to recognize the factors that led to the misdeed, you move into step two and be fair. External pressures or personal limitations may have influenced the person's conduct. The act may not have been fully free. Most of all, it helps to understand the person's motives. We are often weak, but we are rarely wicked. Moreover, in order for the relationship to grow into mutual appreciation, there must be sharing from both sides. You relate to other as family, not as an opponent in court.

3. The mercy process aims to rehabilitate the other person and your relationship, and this takes time. You need to be patient for lessons to sink in, for new growth to manifest, and the toughest personal growth issues take years, even a lifetime and more. There is a difficult issue here for wisdom: on the one hand, you do not want to hold unreasonable expectations; on the other hand, it is remarkable what breakthroughs occur when a person is fully honest about a growth need and fully committed to spiritual cooperation.

4. Seeing the other person grow inspires you to be kind in a new way. It's not that you were cold before, but a new quality of joy and closeness emerges. Trusting the mercy process and seeing it move forward, you don't have to fake unity prematurely.

5. The ultimate step is to actually show mercy. This may be done in a variety of ways. It involves more than "letting bygones be bygones." Do something that expresses trust. You may restore the other person to the full level of trust that you previously placed in him or her. But mercy does not excuse people from having to face the consequences of their acts. In some cases, however, the misdeed shows that too great a responsibility had been placed on the person's shoulders, that the previous level of trust was premature. Trust is not a simple affair. You may trust someone's basic motivation wholeheartedly, while you recognize that they have not yet learned to handle certain types of situation reliably. In the happy case, the two of you experience a marvelous harmony as the culmination of the process.[viii]

If both persons involved are in a group together, then you have the opportunity for procedure that is powerful and challenging, since it combines heartening mercy with a realistic toughness that protects the group from being disrupted by someone who engages in persistent and severely disruptive behavior. The hope is to bring the offending person back into the circuits of loving community. Only if that goal is repeatedly frustrated does the group take other action.

When Jesus taught this procedure, he sandwiched it between two parables, the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the unforgiving steward. The first parable tells of a shepherd who goes forth in search of a sheep that has wandered off and gotten lost. He finds the sheep and rejoices greatly as he brings it back to the flock. This parable indicates that the primary goal of the process is to restore the wrongdoer to the circuits of loving community. The process shows to what lengths divine love is willing to go to reach out to someone who has strayed.

The second parable tells of a steward who owed a huge debt to the king, who was about to throw him into prison. When he begged the king to be patient and give him time to repay the debt, the king was moved with compassion and forgave the debt entirely. Afterward, however, the steward demanded the payment of a small sum from a man who owed him money. The man begged for patience in the same way, but the steward threw him into prison. When the king heard of this episode, he was outraged and threw the steward into prison. This parable reminds the hearers, who are imagining themselves sitting in judgment on someone else, how much they have already been forgiven by God to be welcomed into the universal family. It reminds them not to be harsh with those who repent.

I find lip service in favor of the process when no issue is at stake and resistance to working with the procedure when difficulties become severe. I have not yet seen a culture of mercy that makes a practice of helping those who err to return to community.

Groups whose members are unprepared or unwilling to be part of a full group process are especially vulnerable to difficult times. Groups need to set and maintain reasonable standards. If they set standards too high, they will have no members. If they set standards too low, they will have no community.

I thought I had labored with this process unsuccessfully for months with a group in crisis. However, years later I heard one member of the group refer to the series of discussions we went through as "the best thing the community ever did." The crisis focused on how to respond to a respected and beloved employee who had been accused of sexually abusing children. Though legal proceedings achieved a certain resolution, they did not solve our community problem. We held three community meetings with about twenty people present. Each session dealt with one stage of the grievance process. The community had not committed to this process before the crisis hit, and we could achieve no more than to talk about the steps. Apparently, however, it proved helpful for people to come together and just talk about these questions. To moderate the discussions, we had a trained facilitator, a mental health professional, who had no personal links to any of the participants and no bias on the issues. Participants were asked not to share the substance of our conversations with those not attending.

During the first session the primary goal was to explore when the grievance procedure is appropriate. We discussed the following questions:

· Should you only use this procedure if you are certain that the other person has sinned?

· How can we facilitate the procedure if someone approaches us with a complaint about something we have done?

· Under what circumstances should the procedure be used in place of the courts?

A few comments on stage one. One problem is the first condition--sin. How do you know if someone is sinning? If sin means deliberately violating God's will, then it might hard to justify taking step one. How do you know the other person's motive?[ix] But this procedure was given to be followed, so there must be an interpretation that makes practical sense. My own view is that deliberate and seriously disruptive action justifies beginning the procedure.[x]

Most of all, this mercy process moves you beyond useless simmering gets you into action. I recall getting extremely frustrated with the behavior of a co-worker. After much inner tension and prayer, I went to him and said, "I need you to help me love you. It makes me feel horrible when you . . . ." After explaining myself for a minute, I stopped. After a brief pause, to my amazement, he asked me to tell him how to behave better, and he expressed great appreciation for the way I had approached him.

The first step short-circuits gossip.[xi] Careless talk about people behind their back corrodes community like acid. How easy to get in the habit of reinforcing our world-view, defending ourselves, and engaging in one-upmanship by letting our private conversations drift into recitals of others' evils! We forget the mystery of the personality of our target, and we betray the presence of the Creator whose child we malign. There are degrees of sin here, from discussions where the topic is justified but where the purpose is not pure and innuendos or isolated comments dropped to a receptive audience to libelous publication.

Step one has the value of helping us process anger instead of acting out. Anger reacts to the perception that someone has injured me or someone or something I identify with. Anger contains the desire to harm, even to eliminate, the offending person. Anger shows intolerance and insecurity. Often, however, anger is mixed with righteous indignation, one of the purest divine sentiments, which burns, like a purifying fire, against deliberate evildoing and sin. When we are angry, we can learn to refine the emotion, to distill the soulful indignation, to become a living prophet and help others to do the same.

If the offending person rebuffs the stage one appeal, stage two comes into play. You go for another meeting with two or three people who know you both. It is amazing how powerful this step is and how rarely it is ever used. During our meeting to discuss this phase we looked at these questions.

· What kind of preparation is appropriate for someone who wants to use these steps?

If resistance continues, the third stage of the process brings the offending person before the whole group, and, if need be, expelled.

When congregations apply this procedure with cruel narrow-mindedness, it causes needless sorrow. When people forget the merciful purpose of the process, the benevolent attitude toward the wrongdoer, and how much we all already depend on forgiveness, then the edge of the judicial attitude hardens. The Sermon on the Mount teaches that, before attempting to remove the speck from another's eye, you should remove the log from your own eye. In the case of pride, the log, the distortion of perspective, is too subtle to remove by oneself, since success in removing one layer of pride can engender another layer. While self-critique may sometimes help, only grace can cure human pride.

In any human attempt at ministry the danger of pride and condescension is present, but that danger cannot be avoided by refusing to undertake the mercy process. On the contrary, the discoveries and growth to which the process leads are an antidote for pride. Who of us has not needed, does not now need, and will not continue to need to receive mercy? It takes humility and faith and an appetite for spiritual adventure to receive mercy. Those who enter fully into partnership with the forces of goodness find their actions wondrously supplemented. One's own role, however, remains that of a junior partner on a team. As the prophet Micah said, "What does the Lord require of you, but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."[xii]

Some circumstances require changes in the guidelines. For example, you may be an employee concerned about retaliation, or you may live thousands of miles from the offending person. What changes are needed where the people involved are part of a complex organization and separated by great distances?

When an entire group is thrashing in distress, they become unable to carry out orderly proceedings successfully. Then they need what I have only read about in F. Scott Peck's book, A Different Drummer. He speaks of four stages of community in his book. In the first stage, people think they have community; they seem to be in accord, smiling and hugging. In the second stage, some problem rips through the group; they fall into bitter conflict, and the previous, superficial sense of community is gone. The third stage may be facilitated in a weekend encounter session by a therapist who mostly waits with the people until they accomplish what needs to be done: the individuals involved each let go of whatever they were holding onto that made community impossible. This third stage of letting go, as I interpret it, does not require individuals to reject cherished beliefs, but it does imply using those beliefs in a loving way. A rule in Israel is to leave weapons outside the synagogue or mosque or church. An analogous principle of community is not to use beliefs as weapons. The fourth step is genuine community, and it dramatically transforms the individuals in the group. Peck recalls having sat with many groups through a non-stop weekend of a lot of waiting and silence culminating in a powerful and beautiful breakthrough. The way he describes the breakthrough sounds like the coming of the Spirit of Truth at Pentecost--and the experience happens with non-religious groups as well as religious groups!

It brings a smile to think of all the ways there are to go wrong when conflict arises. We can underestimate or overestimate the issue. We can err in deciding whether or not to get involved. If we decide to get involved, we may pick the wrong side, or perhaps both sides have major problems. Even if we pick the right side, we may go about it the wrong way. Conflict tends to bring out the worst in human nature, but there is a better way. Two years of soul struggle and study went into making the list of the nine points that follow.

To ask from a religious standpoint where conflict ultimately originates leads one to the Creator. As harmonious as relations may be on the level of Deity, some tensions are part of the plan. Created tensions are creative tensions. They offer great beauty and vitality. Creative tensions include differences between personalities and differences between matter, mind, and spirit. It is the creature's task to harmonize these created differences and tensions.[xiii] The goal is not to obliterate difference and eliminate tension but to adjust difference and tension into dynamic harmony.

In the absence of conflict how much would we grow? Without the stimulus of competition and conflict, we would get complacent with mediocre attainments. To make the most of conflict situations, in addition to the mercy processes just mentioned, consider the following principles. They are roughly organized in a sequence so that later principles come into play as the conflict becomes more severe.

1. Trust in the friendly universe. This principle makes sense to those who trust the goodness of God and the eventual triumph of divine purpose, to those who understand more of the laws of nature and the ways of human evolution, and to those who have seen frightful situations eventually get woven into a fabric of greater goodness. For such persons, evil is a vanishing phenomenon. Though they are not blinded to the fact of hostility in the world, they have acquired the high assurance that the universe is profoundly friendly.

2. Take the time needed to process inner conflict. Life presents us unexpectedly with such a mix of good and evil that it takes time to know how to respond. Many people feel the tensions, but few are willing to break with convention enough to make time for the meditation and prayer required to keep your soul up to date, to maintain inner harmony.

3. Cultivate positive methods for discussion. When in conversation with someone, emphasize areas of agreement. Build on the positive rather than attack the negative. If you have something to teach, add your truth into the stream of what the other person already recognizes, and trust truth to grow. This method is not appropriate for every situation, but it deserves to be practiced more than it is. Do not overteach. Be selective about what you say to whom. During times of discussion, learn to debate and differ so as to sustain the bonds of humanity.

4. Return good for evil. This idea is easy to misunderstand: it does not mean returning nothing for evil. It does not mean making yourself a doormat, passive in the face of abuse. It takes self-mastery, courage, and imagination to respond positively, especially in a situation where the other person has a power advantage. Creative aggressiveness is the virtue here.

5. Avoid unnecessary conflict. Sometimes you can work quietly behind the scenes. Sometimes getting the people involve to step back from the situation, to take a few days of vacation from the issue, can do wonders to restore perspective. Sometimes you can prudently withdraw, delay, moderate, or undertake a strategic retreat when your initiative is met by hostility. The point is not to repress the recognition of problems but rather to bypass unhelpful entanglements. Do not let yourself be drawn into side issues that are separate from your mission and which can only polarize your intended audience if you try to mediate or take sides. Instead, promote sympathy, cooperation, and tolerance. Do not let opponents dictate the time for the showdown. Speak out indirectly, concealing your meaning from those who would take revenge if you were explicit. Sometimes cartoons have been the only permitted forms of dissent. Parables get a message across without giving enemies hard evidence to bring charges.

6. Do not defend yourself. This is a spiritual ideal, and each person must decide whether or not to adopt it. Nothing is more natural than to defend oneself when attacked, but there is great leverage in refusing to do so.

8. Do not fear open warfare. You may have to bite your tongue and bide your time until the hour of confrontation. But when the time comes, you may pre-empt an imminent attack. After repeated appeals that have gone unheeded, you may make a blistering public denunciation. Even a direct attack, however, can use ethically elegant means. My favorite example of ethical elegance in revolutionary action is Jesus' cleansing of the temple. At the end of his public career, the time had come for him to face the religious leaders who were set in murderous opposition to him and his message. As he overturned the tables of the money changers and drove the animals out of their pens, no money was stolen, no person was beaten, and no property was destroyed. Instead, the unfair commercializing and the bloody sacrificial system was simply disorganized. Although open conflict may seem to sacrifice the value of brotherhood, when the time is right for it, not only are there long term benefits for the human family, but the conflict also gives opponents their best chance to wake up and choose a different course.[xiv]

9. Seek to attain and maintain spiritual unity. Long hours of prayer for the persons involved makes a huge difference in the way we react. Spiritual unity does not require intellectual uniformity. It does not entail homogenizing personality differences, but it does demand active contact to sustain community as differences escalate into tensions.

This has been a chapter of lists. I will not restate them here. We have moved through a sequence of responses to difficult situations in one-to-one relationships and groups.

· The need for compromise arises because we are all imperfect, evolving beings who need to cooperate and get along. Our duties are many; our growth is slow.

· As situations arise that require focused attention, we can turn to a creative process of visualizing or prayer.

· Since trying to "forgive and forget" resolves nothing when serious wrongdoing has occurred, mercy should be understood as involving a series of steps. Pursuing them on a personal level rehabilitates relationships.

· If the offending person blocks the process, a social procedure helps to bring the person back into the circuits of loving community and protects the community as well.

Those who favor science-centered, humanistic, and religious philosophies can all profit from drawing on the energies, personal resources, and spiritual inspiration for transformation. A life dominated by goodness promotes the practical realization of the kinship of humankind. We act, intending a course of action as an agent of the universal family. Religiously speaking, the joy of participating in the work of divine goodness sometimes submerges and postpones joy. Nevertheless, the joy deepens for those who persevere through difficulties. The promise is that those who walk in righteousness will be like a watered garden.

[i] See Matthew 5-7, especially 7.1-6, and verse 15.

[ii] I am thinking of the International Forgiveness Institute in Madison, Wisconsin (see http://forgiveness-institute.org/).

[iii] Immanuel Kant in Perpetual Peace sets forth the evolutionary wisdom of distinguishing some principles that must be strictly followed (nations should not be acquired by marriage, as happened in Europe centuries ago) and others that represent goals to be sought over time (disarmament). To try to move too fast toward lofty ideals turns out to hinder their realization. He also used the term "despotic" to characterize the moral absolutist who does not know how to compromise.

[iv] I could add mention of other living things and beings whose suffering should be taken into account.

[v] Here, from my book, The Golden Rule (NY: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 96-98, is the beginning of a heartening story of a man who found himself in a situation where he could not compromise with integrity.

Arthur Nash (1870-1927) was born in a log cabin in Indiana, the eldest of nine children of strict Seventh‑Day Adventist parents. He refered to his parents as having a "stern, rigid, uncompromising" faith and "great and sterling character." He was educated through seminary in Adventist schools and was sent to Detroit as an instructor in a school for Adventist ministers and missionaries. His refusal to conform to denominational boundaries led to conflict and the first of his two breaks with Christianity. He returned to Detroit and was touched by the plight of the unemployed there, and with the help of others was able to open a laundry in which he was able to provide many jobs for poor people. Church people began to send him their business, and he met the Christian woman who would be his wife and the mother of his three children, and who convinced him that his objections to Christianity were not to the religion of Jesus but to the very lack of it. Inspired again, he re‑entered the ministry with the Disciples of Christ. But when in a funeral service he eulogized a man of considerable character who had no professed religion, he was asked to resign his ministry. He then found work to support his family selling clothing--and did very well at it. In 1909 he moved to Columbus, Ohio, started manufacturing men's clothing, began to prosper, but lost nearly everything in the flood of 1913. He then moved to Cincinnati and was able by 1916 to organize the A. Nash Company with $60,000 in capital, making suits to the measure of individual clients. A short while after the Armistice was concluded, he acquired ownership of the small shop that had been making his garments under contract.

Then came the breakthrough, the pivot of this narrative. Nash took over the limping business of a man who had leased floor space in the building of the A. Nash Company. The tenant had run a sweat‑shop in the same depressed clothing manufacturing industry of Cincinnati. When pay‑roll time for his new employees came around, Nash realized that some fine and vulnerable people were only earning $4.00 per week. He had recently become impressed with the kind of world that could result if people would only practice the golden rule, and he had been giving speeches to that effect. He thought of raising wages substantially, but his son, freshly disillusioned from having participated in the war in Europe, resisted the idea. They had lost $4000 during the previous fiscal year, but Nash decided he would close up shop rather than exploit people to stay in the clothing business. The stock‑holders agreed to close the company, and Nash agreed to make up their losses, but he decided to pay a living wage until they would go out of business; he would put whatever capital remained as a down payment on a farm where he would at least have the satisfaction of honest earnings. He went in to announce the decision to the small group of workers. The speech is worth quoting in full:

"Friends, you have heard no doubt that we have bought this shop, and I have come in to get acquainted with you. No doubt, too, you have heard a great deal about the talks that I have been giving during the War about Brotherhood and the Golden Rule, while pleading the cause of Christianity and its affiliation to my conception of true Democracy. Now I am going to do a bit of talking to you. First, I want you to know that Brotherhood is a reality with me. You are all my brothers and sisters, children of the same great Father that I am, and entitled to all the justice and fair treatment that I want for myself. And so long as we run this shop [which to me meant three or four months longer], God being my helper, I am going to treat you as my brothers and sisters, and the Golden Rule is going to be our only governing law. Which means, that whatever I would like to have you do to me, were I in your place, I am going to do to you. Now," I went on, "Not knowing any of you personally, I would like you to raise your hands as I call your names."

I read the first name. Under it was written: Sewing on buttons‑‑$4.00 per week. I looked straight before me at the little group, but saw no hand. Then I looked to my right, and there saw the old lady I have referred to holding up her trembling hand. At first I could not speak, because, almost instantly, the face of my own mother came between that old lady and myself. I thought of my mother being in such a situation, and of what, in the circumstances, I would want someone to do for her. I hardly knew what to say, because I was aware that when I went into the shop, that after agreeing to stand all of the loss entailed by the liquidation of the company, I could not go too far in raising wages. It seemed to be my obvious duty to salvage something for the boys who were coming home from military service, and for the daughter just entering the university. But as I looked at that old lady, and saw only my mother, I finally blurted out: "I don't know what it's worth to sew on buttons; I never sewed a button on. But your wages, to begin with, will be $12.00 a week."

Nash continued through the list, giving equal 300% raises for those earning the least, and raising the highest wages from $18.00 to $27.00. It was not a move made out of ecstasy, but in blunt lucidity about what it would subtract from the money he would have to invest afterward in a farm. For months thereafter he gave little attention to the clothing business, but when he needed to see how it was doing financially, he was surprised: their little business was putting out three times the quantity it had done the previous year. He then learned that after his little speech the Italian presser had concluded that if he were the boss and had just spoken like that to his employees and raised their wages, he would want his employees to "work like hell." And that is exactly what they did. Soon the shop had more orders than it could handle. Encouraged, Nash turned his business into a laboratory for the application of the golden rule, and the business prospered greatly.

[vi] The information comes from the website of the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church, taken on September 8, 2000, at http://gbgm-umc.org/mission/news/br990122.html.

[vii] The information comes from the site just mentioned.

[viii] The process is proposed in The Urantia Book, p. 315; cf. 1762.

[ix] It is common today to cite the etymology of the Greek word translated as sin. Hamartia means missing the mark. Missing the mark is an utterly commonplace event for every imperfect and ignorant mortal. Deliberate disobedience to God, however, has serious consequences for the soul. Persistent, hardened rejection of the divine way may lead to eternal death. Therefore it is crucial to human happiness to draw a distinction between unintended evil--you are trying to hit the mark but miss--and deliberate refusal to aim at it.

[x] This condition of course does not imply that you are never to speak to someone who accidentally causes serious harm or who does serious harm to a third person. It takes creative thought to apply the paradigm in other kinds of situation. A legalistic interpretation of step one might suggest that you should never get involved unless you ourselves are directly affected; but sometimes you should intervene to stop a fight.

[xi] The process requires communication with the other person, but how shall we do it? In The Effective Executive, Peter Drucker (New York: Harper & Row, 1967) strongly warns against giving criticism except in person, face to face. Some things you can put in a letter; some things you can say on the phone. But some things you must say in person. He has in mind a situation where it is easy to get together and where criticism comes from higher up on the power ladder.

Talking about another's faults is sometimes required. Administrators need to know and evaluate the performance of subordinates. Workers also need to understand and evaluate the performance of their supervisors; workers may need to warn a newcomer of a dangerous person. And how can democracy function if political leaders must personally hear every protest? Clearly the procedure does not cover every type of criticism. Nevertheless, criticism usually ripens best through personal contact and small group interaction.

Many companies have grievance procedures that have much in common with this procedure. The attempt to resolve the problem goes through a sequence of three stages, involving different levels of corporate response. The sequence is designed to protect the privacy and rights of the person against whom the grievance is lodged, while the group retains the power to act decisively if necessary. Company grievance procedures also provide for indirect channels, such as the union steward) and teamwork (perhaps a representative of the union to go into see the boss along with the employee) in presenting a grievance, in case the employee has to deal with intimidation or possible reprisal. Colleagues generally suspect the motives of whistleblowers, though the courts increasingly protect whistleblowers. The pendulum is swinging away from the notion of loyalty in the 1950s where the overriding principle, in most situations, was not to embarrass the company. A look at company policies turns up some interesting ideas. Begin the first step within a three days of the offending incident; write up an account of the grievance (at least by stage two); do not drag out the time for the sequence of steps. It is widely (though sometimes reluctantly) agreed that employees have duties of loyalty not only to their employers, but also to the larger community.

[xii] Micah 6:6-8.

[xiii] While I have no clear idea about types of personality, I picture them in a circle. Sometimes you meet someone of your type, and you immediately feel as though you have known them your whole life. Sometimes you meet a person from the opposite side of the circle, and the complementarity works wonderfully. Most of the time, however, there is a degree of obliqueness in relationships. When difficulties arise, it is easier to separate; but if you persist and work through things, a very special strength and beauty emerges in the relationship.

[xiv] The latter beatitudes give assurance to those who get involved. Those who mourn, who are sensitive to human suffering and evil, will be comforted. Those who are merciful will receive mercy. The peacemakers will be called the sons and daughters of God. Those who are persecuted have a great reward in heaven (Matthew 5.3-12).

Condition	If your brother sins against you,
Stage one	Go to him and with tact and patience show him his fault.
Goal	If he will listen to you, then you have won your brother.
If the condition persists, go to stage two.	But if your brother will not hear you, go again taking one or two mutual friends
Function of witnesses	to confirm your testimony and establish the fact that you have dealt justly and mercifully with your offending brother.
If the condition persists, you may move to stage three	Now if he refuses to hear you, you may tell the whole story to the congregation.
Possible consequence	They may cast out the unruly member.
Limitation	You cannot pretend to take a divine role in forgiving sins or in determining the eternal life of a soul.
Charge	You have a responsibility to maintain order.
Promise	If the group agree--and if their decision is not inconsistent with the divine way--you will have support from on high.

[ Up ]

Compromise, mercy, and conflict