the contest
Abraham Lincoln on the Civil War:
"The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be--and one must be--wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party--and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect his purpose.
"I am almost ready to say this is probably true: that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By His mere quiet power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds."
I am learning something new this week. Sometimes it's about the contest. Sometimes the best way to work out a situation is to work it out.
In the recent years of my life I've tried to avoid conflict. But now I think it's not helping anything. The conflict gets internalized and battles its way inside my head, until I'm frustrated with the whole thing. What is this fear I have? Of letting people down. Of upsetting people. Of hurting people. Yet it can still all happen. You can't avoid this.
It's best to be honest. To be direct. If I'm going to let people down, then let them down by being myself. Upset them when they understand my true intent. Hurt as part of the contest that must exist. I can't keep hurting myself, putting my dreams and desires in the back to avoid the pain others might feel. That's part of their contest as well.
Comments
I'm going through this very struggle as you write. I've got this friend who teaches English in Thailand. We were really close for many years. Then, for some reason, he dropped out of the picture and would barely respond to an email, if he responded. I went through a particularly bad hell in my life, and he knew about it because our parents stay in touch. I never heard from him. For a few years, actually. And then, without warning, he calls me from a payphone at a Chicago museum. He wants to have dinner. I turned him down. I wasn't really mean about it, but I was forthright with how I felt. Shortly after that, he emailed me with an explanation and an apology. I accepted it, I apologized as well, and we had a couple of emails back and forth. Another three years went by before I heard from him again. You've got to understand that, our email correspondence was always, always started by me. After the incident, I was just done trying to connect with this guy. Now, he claims he really wants to have a friendship. And I don't really know if I do. This is a first for me. I'm having a very difficult time knowing how to respond to his email without either being dishonest and claiming everything is great, or by being honest and potentially losing someone who was once a treasured friend.
What say you? What would you do?
It may be that you can get the closeness back, but maybe that time has come and gone. And if you can't have that, do you still want to have something else? It's an interesting phrase, "losing someone who was once a treasured friend." Sometimes we keep the friend even after the "treasured" part is gone. If I was going to do that, I'd be sure that in my own heart I was clear with that and that I had accepted the new parameters as well.
What kind of friendship would you like to have? What kind of friendship do you believe you can have? What kind of friendship does he want to have? And what are your boundaries?
I guess I'd be honest and tell him that we'd have to take it slow while I figure all that out.