I was having a conversation recently in which a familiar image was used to describe the process of transforming conflict. I’ve used it numerous times. If you have have not used it yourself, you’ve probably at least heard it.
The image is clear, to opposing cliffs. Each one facing the other. The gap between is irreconcilable. Those cliffs have been carved by rivers, or by tectonic shifts. They are not going to miraculously scoot close to each other and shake hands. So we build a bridge to make a connection possible.
In this image of a conflict, each side must compromise, meet in the middle. Or, perhaps one side will seek to overcome the divide by prevailing with kindness, logic, or propaganda, to get the opposing party to cross over the to the “correct” side.
This is not transformational conflict.
There’s a better way to frame the conflict than as a bridge between two opposing parties, at odds with each other in a face-off, meeting on a common place - the bridge. You see, the bridge doesn’t go anywhere. You have to traverse it. The bridge exists not as a meeting place. It is a thing to cross on a journey.
This summer we were at Drift Creek Falls Trail near Lincoln City, Oregon. We crossed this bridge. It’s an amazing creation in the depths of an old growth Pacific Northwest rainforest.
There’s no meeting in the middle. The divide is not between your side and my side. The chasm is between where we are and where we want to be. As long as we see the bridge as a compromise on which our opposing views will meet, we don’t have to look at ourselves. We don’t have to interrogate our own systems. We don’t have to change.
And this is where the real hard part is.
We have to cross the bridge together, with our counterparts in the conflict. The challenge is: how do we get ourselves to the other ridge together?
We may have to walk single file - giving space to one another’s pace and bravery.
We may have to walk gently - too much bouncing, agitation, swaying, is not good the bridge nor it’s travelers.
We may have to watch our step - it is easy to slip, take each movement with consideration and discernment.
We may have to encourage the continuing journey - one foot in front of the other, together.
When we actually do the systems work, there emerges a sense that we cannot go back. Who’d want to? On the destination side of the bridge is an unknown that is being chosen to face together. The point of origin, was someplace that gave rise to animosity and separation.
So, I’m thinking that we do not so much “bridge the divide.” Rather, we journey with the divided ones over the bridge.