May I recognize friction and strife as aspects of healthy relationships rather than signs that something is wrong.
There’s truth and paradox and problem here. It is a prayer that I have never prayed. Let tensions cease, let resolution come, make me an instrument of your peace; these are words I have flung up to heaven or groaned in my soul. Nothing like the arrangement McRoberts and Erickson offer.
Meaning and understanding are shaped by lived experience. In my family of origin, friction was discouraged, strife was a clear sign of spiritual failing or simple stubbornness. Emotions in general were held suspect with preference given to thought and reason. Big emotions like fear, distress, anger, and sadness must be reigned in, confessed and surrendered, and if persistent, punished.
This punishment could look like a literal spanking. Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about. Or, the sudden withdrawal of the warm coat of connection. Stripped of approval and affection, the emotional weather of the house plunged into a deep chill. The thaw was a long time coming.
The messages I deciphered were: Something is wrong. That something is me. The warm coat can be taken away at any moment because friction and love cannot coexist.
These beliefs left me emotionally illiterate. Confused by my own humanity and alienated from my primary caregivers in times of friction and strife, I felt ashamed of my capacity to weep, sing for joy, be stunned by confusion, or flare in anger.
I didn’t like or trust myself. I wondered if it would be better to smother my need for connection and avoid abandonment in a frigid emotional tundra. Just disconnect from my messy emotions. Perhaps a lobotomy? Then I would neither cause nor experience friction or strife.
All of this to say: Based on my backstory, friction and strife do not resonate as aspects of healthy relationships.
So I ponder this foreign notion, the unimagined and uncomfortable request of today’s prayer. I still myself, breathe, and sit with the discomfort.
Being present with discomfort is a skill I’ve learned from therapy, journaling, and other people. Cultivated slowly, this practice is hard! I can’t always do it. Especially when my survival strategy may be to fight back, run away, or dissociate.
In this place of discomfort, let’s return to the prayer.
Words matter. Depending on your experience, this prayer could sting or shame. Are the writers asking those who experience verbal, emotional, or physical violence to give offenders a pass and accept strife? Are they saying that friction and strife are desirable characteristics of healthy relationships? I don’t think so.
Let’s find a generous reading for this prayer. Words matter and so does the order in which they are presented. This combination can create simplicity, or nuance and complexity. With this in mind, let’s rearrange and amplify the text.
May I recognize that healthy relationships allow space for our full humanity—including big emotions, and occasional friction and strife. Healthy relationships also cultivate and practice mending connection and (re)building respect and trust when friction or strife occurs.
Now the subject of the sentence is healthy relationships. With this alternate arrangement we normalize our full (and emotional) humanity and the occurrence of difficulty and tension in relationships. We also name the need for healing conflict as a signifier of healthy.
Leaving the word strife in place almost didn’t happen. It is a harsh word that can mean “bitter and sometimes violent conflict, ongoing antagonism, or active struggle for superiority.” We will not normalize these sorts of strife as healthy.
However, strife may also mean “a striving or effort to do one’s best; earnest attempt or endeavor.” Ardent striving, singular focus, and steady endeavor may be a source of friction or conflict when members of a community or in a relationship don’t share the same tenacity or desire. And so the word remains.
Deconstructing the offered prayer and rewriting a more generous option is possible for me now because of several overlapping and ongoing processes:
1) Co-creating relationships that are more nuanced than my early understanding. Love is not a coat of favor but a solid foundation upon which a range of emotions can play out.
2) Developing a vocabulary of emotions and acknowledging the paradox of two feelings being true at the same time, ie: I love you AND can be pissed-off with you all at once.
3) Trusting myself. I recognize and respect my emotions and my humanity. Both are gifts from God.
Once, the only relationships I knew were uncertain, like a coat of connection that could be whisked away in a moment.
Today, I gratefully co-create healthy relationships. These are spaces where each of us feels seen and safe. I know them to be healthy because I can show up as my very human self: confused, joyful, grief-stricken, buoyant, relaxed, chagrined, impatient, humorous. Each person in the relationship strives (however imperfectly) to sit with discomfort, lean into the hard work of holding each other in times of friction, and learning the tough and tender work of mending from strife.
Healthy relationships can survive seasons of friction because of a solid and steady foundation of love that remains unphased when disputes, misunderstandings, and clashes of will play out on it. In fact, when friction or strife occur, true mending makes the foundation stronger and the relationships deeper.
Rebecca Waring-Crane is a working artist who likes to make, teach, and write. Current joys include teaching Aquamotion classes, living with Ken Crane, and being alive on this amazing planet.