George Fox
Epistle 146, 1657
To Friends in Ireland,
Friends - Feel all of you the power of the Lord God
in yourselves to guide your minds up to God, and to give you dominion over all weakness,
and to strengthen and to heal you. And look not out, but everyone feel the power of God in
your own Particulars, and let all your faith stand in that; then will ye have unity, and
in that ye will have dominion and victory, and it will keep you in order. In which ye will
have fellowship and comfort. And be low and still in the life and power, and not hasty nor
rash; that ye may in the life and power answer that of God in every one, that crieth for
peace and rest. So dwell in the love of God, this I warn and charge everyone of you; your
faith standing in this and in the power of God, then ye will feel the presence of the Lord
God among you. - GF
Conflict Resolution
The first skill [of conflict resolution] is naming: being
clear and honest about the problem as I see it, stating what I see and how I feel about
it. What is important about these statements is that I own them: "I see,"
"I feel."…
The second skill is the skill of listening : Listening not
just to the words, but to the feelings and needs behind the words…; being truly open
to what we’re hearing (even if it hurts); being open to the possibility that we might
ourselves be changed by what we hear.
The third skill is the skill of letting go: I don’t mean
that in the sense of giving up, lying down and inviting people to walk all over us, but
acknowledging the possibility that there may be other solutions to this conflict than the
ones we’ve thought of yet; letting the imagination in—making room for the
Spirit. We need to let go of our own will—not so as to surrender to another’s,
but so as to look together for God’s solution. If we are to do any of these things
well—naming, listening, letting go—we need to have learned to trust that of God
in ourselves and that of God in those trapped on all sides of the conflict with us.
Mary Lou Leavitt, 1986
Conflict Resolution
Plain Living Whitmire
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