Rule 31 Listed Mediator

I am proud to announce that the Tennessee Supreme Court's Alternative Dispute Resolution Commission has reviewed my qualifications and training and has approved me as a listed mediator. I invested in the training and experience because I believe we need to learn an alternative way to reach agreements. People need to learn a model for talking to each other, face-to-face, even when and especially when there is a disagreement on the table.

I live in Memphis where people are shot, stabbed and attacked every day in various ways that destroy life. We do not know how to communicate our feelings and needs so we have given up on decent human exchanges. Our school systems educate us for years without ever mentioning to us that it will be necessary for us to recognize and connect with our own needs and feelings in order to succeed in the mature world. Because we have lost touch with ourselves we have lost compassion for others. In our current alienated state of existence we ride around from home to work in fast-paced moving metal boxes, guarding ourselves from anything resembling face-to-face human connections.

Memphis has a church or a place of worship on almost every corner. Rather than model how to reach out and connect with those who have a different perspective on things, the Church models for all of us the way to isolate, blame, humiliate and condemn those who ask questions or think differently. I don't think that's what Jesus had in mind when he called us to "Abide in my love." How will we ever obey his command to "love your enemies," when we can hardly tolerate being in the same room with people from a denomination other than our own? There is a better way to live together and I trust that the Church can learn something new.

While churches host one more pointless debate about whether or not a pregnant woman has the right to abort an unwanted pregnancy, hundreds of unsupervised and poorly parented children are joining gangs and carrying guns to school. They want to belong; they long to feel powerful in the eyes of someone. They wish somebody powerful would reach out and give them some protection and boundaries that will help them feel safe in a world gone crazy. The institutional Church has hardened its heart, closed its pocket-book and turned its back. Maybe the new president will do what needs to be done.

While churches meet and host costly gatherings around the world where well dressed clergy continue a debate on whether or not to ordain women, gay and lesbian people, most of the world is starving for a loaf of bread and a sip of clean water. Our leaders would do well to simply back up and look closely at Maslow's hierarchy of needs as a place to begin in the Church's reorganization of priorities.

The Church has lost its way as all of us have lost our way since we stopped respectfully passing the talking stick and listening to the voice of the other. We have forgotten how to treat one another with respect. We have kicked the Golden Rule to the side of the road and we think the story of the Good Samaritan is a fairy tale intended for people who live in a galaxy far, far away.

Emergent church leader Brian McLaren wonders when it was that the U.S. was a Christian nation. Was it when Americans wantonly killed native peoples, taking their lands and breaking promises to them? Was it during the era of slavery or segregation, which were justified on biblical grounds? Was it when the U.S. dropped the first nuclear bombs on civilian populations? Or was it when the nation plundered the environment and turned a blind eye to torture? "Was it earlier this week when I turned on the tv or radio and heard people scapegoating immigrants and gay people and Muslims?" (Washington Post "On Faith " blog, April 16/ The Christian Century, "Century Marks," May 19, 2009, p. 8)

I am no longer young but I can still learn new things. The Church also can be taught to reconsider and to adopt a new set of priorities. We can begin a new thing and enter into a more excellent way by sitting down at a table together, sharing a meal and then allowing our conversation to be mediated by a skilled person who longs to give love a chance in our face-to-face offerings.

Conflict is not bad; it is a signal that something needs to change. Mediation provides the opportunity for self determination. The mediated conversation is not about the past; it is not about being right or wrong. Mediation provides the opportunity for parties to see their own full humanity and to have the full humanity of the other respectfully reflected back across the table.

On the last night that Jesus lived among us as one of us, he sat down at a table and he broke bread. He blessed it and he gave it to his disciples, knowing that one of them had already taken action that would condemn Jesus to an unjustified public execution. "Do this every time you get together," he directed, "and remember me." We can put his broken body back together by speaking and listening respectfully at the same table. It's one loaf of bread and we all share it. We have seen the model and worshipped it. Now it is time to trust in the model we've been given.

A group calling themselves Memphis City Churches has adopted the strategy of distorting the definition of sexual orientation to malign attempts to pass a Shelby County Non-Discrimination Ordinance. People have organized themselves in the name of the Church to prevent other human beings from being protected by civil rights laws. We can do better than this.

Our differences are not justification for our alienation from one another. I would be honored to mediate the conversation and help us to move into the Kingdom of God on this earth. I will be doing what I can to offer my help. My life has been centered around the Church. It's really all I know. And I know it can be transformed and healed by a series of loving conversations with good food in front of us. I hope I get the chance to prove I am right about that.

Call me. I am ready to go to work.