Make Love Not War

First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany

"Make Love Not War"

Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore, February 9, 2003

 

Call to Celebration 

 

The ultimate weakness of violence
            is that it is a descending spiral,
            begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.

Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you murder the hater,
            but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate …
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
            adding deeper darkness to a night
                        already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness;
            only light can do that.

 

Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear,
            only love can do that.
Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it.

Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.

Hatred darkens life; love illumines it.

 

--by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

 

Spoken Meditation

 

Fear, a more or less reflexive response that we share with other species, drives each of us, as an individual, to save him or herself in the face of danger.  Fear cannot distinguish between a fire in one’s own house and a nuclear holocaust—between one’s own death and the end of the world—and is therefore useless even to begin to suggest to us the meaning of the nuclear peril.  Its meaning can be grasped only to the extent that we feel the precise opposite of fear, which is a sense of responsibility, or devotion, or love, for other people, including those who have not yet been born.  In Germany, the Peace movement has inverted the traditional Biblical admonition, “Fear not” to say “You must fear.”  But the original version was the right one, for nuclear matters as well as others.  Fear isolates.  Love connects.  Only insofar as the latter is strong in us are we likely to find the resolve to prevent our extinction.

 

--by Jonathan Schell

 

 

Sermon

 

While I should have been preparing for this sermon, I read and studied Colin Powell's presentation before the UN security counsel and the response of the world community.  Powell made a compelling case that Iraq is not living up to resolution 1441 in spirit or in fact.  If Powell's evidence is credible, and we have every reason to believe it is, Iraq's defiance of the world community will accelerate the likelihood of war. 


The French, Germans, Chinese, and Russians still resist war.  They continue to argue for more inspections.  This measured approach reminds me what a good negotiator does when two parties are in conflict.  The negotiator doesn't give each side a pistol and take them outside to settle their score at ten paces.  The negotiator doesn’t try to ease the tensions, either.  The skillful negotiator uses the escalating anxiety of the conflict to move both parties toward resolution.   International relations is not for the faint of heart.


Whether in international relations or in interpersonal relations it is often simpler to fight or to hide than to negotiate.  Nations and couples in conflict can easily begin to attack each other with criticism and contempt, avoiding the underlying issues that are creating their conflict.  It is so much easier to make war and not face those underlying concerns rather than struggle toward peaceful resolution that can lead to making love.  As Valentine’s Day is this coming week, I'd like to talk about how to do that for couples and maybe we'll find some wisdom for our international situation.


Rather than starting with unhealthy relationships and looking at how to fix them, I'd like to work the other direction.  I'd like to begin with healthy relationships and how to support them in times of conflict.  This approach doesn't look at conflict as something to be avoided.  It looks at conflict as a necessary part of human relationships.  Looking at how people in healthy relationships deal with conflict can give us some guidance for those in less healthy or unhealthy relationships.


Dr. John Gottman, or Dr. Love as he is called, has been studying healthy relationships for the last 30 years.  His conclusions, so far, suggest that conflict in a marriage isn't a predictor of the health of that relationship.  People in healthy, robust relationships still fight with each other, sometimes frequently.  What best predicts whether a relationship will succeed is whether the partners are friends.  It is the strength of the friendship that matters most, not so much compatibility or even similarity.  People who can honestly say that their partner is their best friend have a good chance at having a long lasting and satisfying relationship.


What qualities of a friendship are important in a healthy relationship?  Qualities like being willing to understand, honor and respect each other.  Willingness to maintain positive regard for your partner, even when in conflict.  And when in conflict, friends argue over issues, not personal failings and flaws.  They respect each other’s boundaries.


And then they get married.


One of the biggest problems in marriages is expectation.  Both partners bring expectations of what marriage means absorbed from family, friends and books, music, and movies that cannot even begin to be articulated before the wedding day.  Some of those expectations neither partner may be aware of until they are uncovered months, even years later.


One of the most harmful expectations is that the one's partner will fulfill every need, satisfy every desire, and meet all one's intimacy needs.  Ever felt that way?  I think the hormone intoxication of falling in love sets up those expectations.  If I like to bicycle, or play tennis, or ski, or sail, or watch football, so will my spouse.  If I love to dance, have long conversations, and watch old movies on TV, so will my partner.  If they don’t hang up their clothes or leave the bathroom mirror open, they'll want to change because he or she loves me.  Right?


I'm afraid not.  This may seem obvious, but examine carefully your own feelings.  Most people have a very strong desire to have their partners be just like them or at least different in an acceptable, attractive way.  Relationships begin to fail when one partner accepts that projection of desire and begins to submerge their differences to satisfy the needs of the other person to feel loved.


Take the example of a fictional husband, I'll call him George, who dominates his wife, I'll call her Carol.  George makes a great deal of money and has a prestigious job.  He is well known and respected in the community.  Carol works part-time for a non-profit social service agency.  Their social life revolves around his friends and associates.  He makes most of the significant decisions in the family with minimal consultation.  He decides where they will live and how to invest their money.  He decides where they will vacation.  She goes along because she doesn't feel like she has much of a choice.  George is, of course, very generous to Carol buying her beautiful things, but doesn't give her what she secretly wants--recognition and respect.


On the outside they don't look like they are failing.  George and Carol look like an affluent, successful couple.  George is getting what he wants and he's happy. Carol, however, gradually starts shutting down emotionally because her humanity is being diminished in the relationship.  She may even feel guilty that she can't be more compliant.  But her needs for recognition and respect don't go away.  And over time her unmet needs can become toxins in the relationship.


Let's look at another fictional couple, Jim and Cindy.  Cindy is an architect with a medium-sized firm, earning the larger salary.  Jim is a freelance software developer working out of a home office.  The couple married out of college and decided to move to the town where one of them got the best salary offer--which turned out to be Cindy.  They decided together to live in an inexpensive, cramped apartment to save money so Cindy could fulfill her dream of designing and building their home.  Jim loves to sail, but Cindy doesn't like to get wet.  They chose to live near a large lake so Jim could sail even though that meant Cindy would have to commute farther.  The land they have bought is right on the edge of the lake.  Both Jim and Cindy have their own circle of friends as well as couples they like to spend time with.  They enjoy spending time together as well as apart and have their own interests.  Jim is designing his own boat and Cindy enjoys playing bridge.  What they really enjoy doing together is contra dancing.


The partners in a healthy marriage like Cindy and Jim’s do not dissolve all boundaries and merge into one blob of protoplasm.  They remain distinct people with unique wants and needs throughout their lives.  Both Cindy and Jim accept each other's different interests--even celebrate them. 


In healthy marriages, the partners differentiate from each other.  They do not internalize the likes and dislikes of their partner as their own.  Cindy doesn't have to like sailing because Jim does.  They may want to respond to the likes or dislikes of their partner, but will also not be confused about what they are doing.  Cindy may go for a sail on a calmer day, but not a windy one.  They recognize and respect, rather than hide, the many ways they are different from their partner, even in disagreement with their partner.


The downside of recognizing differences in relationships is that it creates anxiety.  If Carol decides to assert herself and suggest to George that they not go to Florida this winter, but rather go to Arizona to visit her relatives (who George dislikes), there is likely to be conflict.  If Cindy insists that Jim be her bridge partner even though he doesn't like to play as much as she does, trouble's a-brewing.  If Jim spends all his time on his boat and doesn't play some bridge with Cindy on occasion with their friends, resentment will build.


Partners in healthy relationships recognize and expect that differences will create tension and conflict.  They expect this as a natural part of the relationship.  In the healthiest relationships there is a willingness to negotiate those differences so each partner can find either satisfaction or acceptance.  In every healthy relationship one partner will sacrifice a little, sometimes a lot, of their desires to satisfy their partner.  Jim might be Cindy's partner for a weekend of duplicate bridge once a year.  In personal sacrifice, some kind of balance remains because each is operating out of free choice--not compulsion.  A great sacrifice for one's partner is very meaningful if it is a freely given gift of love.


The balancing act of those differences will change over a lifetime.  Cindy may lose interest in bridge or Jim in sailing.  Jim may grow to dislike living away from a city and want to return to where the action is.  Cindy may find her interest in designing human systems sends her back to school for a MBA.  And as each person changes, the relationship must make adjustments.


This is one of the great struggles for mature relationships.  Both partners negotiate a stable relationship that seems to satisfy both partners.  Then one partner wants to make a change. The longer that agreement lasts, the harder it is when one partner wants to upset the apple cart by renegotiating it.  I can imagine George yelling at Carol as she begins to assert her desires, "We've had such a wonderful relationship so far, why must you change it?  Why are you being selfish?  Why can't you just remain the same person you were?"


She can’t. Life isn't like that.  If there is one constant in life, it is change, the law of impermanence.  Sadly, changes in relationships usually lag changes in each partner.  It is unrealistic to expect relationships to remain the same, even if the partners try to keep them the same.  Even if the couple wants the relationship to stay the same, their children will disturb things because they are constantly growing and changing too.


So healthy relationships exhibit skillful adaptation to change rather than achieving and remaining in some perfected, idyllic state.  One of the most harmful myths perpetuated by Hollywood is the idea of a “soul mate.”  There is some ideal person out there who will fit perfectly into one's life, like a perfectly matched handbag or pair of shoes with an outfit.  Relationship guru Harville Hendrix talks about this magical person as one's 'imago,' an internally constructed fantasy of one's perfect partner.  Unfortunately, even if one could find that perfect match, that person will eventually grow and change and begin to deviate from one’s imago.  Or worse, you might grow and change and your imago may change away from that person.


Healthy relationships, then, are not made in heaven; they are hammered out on earth through ongoing negotiation and compromise.  This is what real love looks like.  It is an intense commitment to hang in together through thick and thin.  Sometimes things will go my way.  Sometimes they won't.  Sometimes I'll feel closer.  Sometimes I'll feel more distant.  But over time, real love grows and intensifies.  That commitment translates into a deepening trust in the other partner that allows freely chosen sacrifices for the good of the other partner, for the good of the relationship.  Building a healthy relationship is hard work that never ends.  It takes ongoing investment and negotiation till the day we die.  The result is worth every hurt feeling and misunderstanding that happens along the way.


I feel privileged to have watched that kind of relationship worked out by my parents.  My parents were married in 1955.  My mother studied home economics in college to prepare her to be a wife.  I watched my mother transformed by the feminist movement to differentiate from my father, go to school to become a librarian, and establish her own identity as a woman.  I saw my father changed as he became our chef.  They struggled together but never stopped loving each other.


I bring the example of my parents to my relationship with Philomena and also to my relationship with this congregation.  I am not trying to mold this congregation into some idealized vision of what I think a congregation should be.  I've studied, honor and respect the heritage that has defined this religious body.  Just as in marriage, I expect conflict.  When we are in conflict, I maintain a positive regard for this institution and for the people who comprise it.  I strive to help us always keep focused on the issues and principles at stake rather than on personalities.  I maintain a strong commitment to navigate the changes in our congregational life and identity in ways that continue to strengthen rather than weaken us.


I think the French and Germans may understand how to do this better than we Americans do.  They've had many more years of intense political struggle with their neighbors than we have had.  They know the costs of war fought on their own soil.  The European Union is a testament to the value of building relationships rather than destroying them.  The French and Germans believe the objectives we seek can be better gained through negotiations rather than with bombs.  They are using the increasing tension of our military buildup as part of their strategy to resolve the conflict. 


Will the French and German approach work?  We'll see.  Does a healthy couple negotiate every conflict successfully? Not always.  There are challenges such as the death of a child or a betrayal of trust that can end even the strongest marriages.  There is a tragic element to existence that cannot be removed.  There but by the grace of good fortune go I.  Diplomacy and negotiation may not be able to bring a resolution to the crisis in Iraq.  But we must exhaust every option we have first.


While we cannot absolutely control life to protect ourselves and our loved ones from harm, we can greatly improve the odds on love.  Learning from the research on healthy relationships can help us create the kind of satisfying and fulfilling relationships we want.  It isn't up to our partner to do this work.  It is up to each one of us to become the kind of partner we want to have.


 

Benediction

 

People who attempt to act and do things for others or for the world without deepening their own self-understanding, freedom, integrity and capacity to love, will not have anything to give others.  They will communicate to them nothing but the contagion of their own obsessions, their aggressiveness, their ego-centered ambitions, their delusions about ends and means, their doctrinaire prejudices and ideas.

 

--by Thomas Merton


 

Go forth from this place with greater self-understanding
An enlarged sense of the freedom of the will

 to choose a new direction,
An appreciation of the value of integrity,

 honoring our unique individuality
And, a renewed dedication to learn to love each other better

So we may be effective peacemakers in our troubled world.

 

 


 

The material on healthy relationships drawn from:

 

The Couple’s Survival Handbook: What YOU Can Do to Reconnect with Your Partner and Make Your Marriage Work.  by David Olsen and Douglas Stephens.  New Harbinger Publications  www.newharbinger.com  ISBN 1-57244-254-X

 

 

 


Copyright © 2002 by the Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore. All rights reserved.