Here’s something for all of us, regardless of political persuasion, to think about as America debates the big issues:
…when any government measure, no matter how carefully crafted or beneficial, is subject to scorn; when any efforts to help people in need are attacked as un-American; when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom, and we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter – that at that point we don’t merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges. We lose something essential about ourselves.
From Obama’s September 8, 2009, speech on health care.
This is easily one of the best, all-time great quotes about mediation:
When we begin our mediation training and practice, we often hear (and speak) of the magic of mediation. When it works, it truly is wondrous. It’s easy to see why a mediator feels like a wizard with supernatural powers, enabling lambs to lie down with lions. Based on my experience in the realms of magic and mediation, here is my hope.
Once upon a time, if you could take a cup of water, put it in a box, push a button, and make that water boil — without raising the temperature inside the box — you’d have a miracle on your hands. Ditto for talking to someone, or even seeing them in real time, on the other side of the planet — or even in outer space! How magical is that! And yet, thanks to technology, even the youngest child is jaded by these daily experiences.
My fondest wish is that our social evolution keeps pace with our technological progress, so that the peaceful resolution of disputes will similarly become as commonplace as microwaves and mobile devices. Then it will no longer seem that mystical forces -or card tricks, or magic pennies — are needed to bring together the bitterest of enemies for a common purpose.
From Jerry Lazar, a mediator by day and magician by night, who explores the magic of mediation at his delightfully titled blog, Fight Nicely.
(With thanks to Vickie Pynchon who makes magic of her own at Settle It Now Negotiation Blog.)
Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict.
~ Saul Alinsky
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