If you want peace, you need to be familiar with conflict

Conflicts are inevitable in any human relationship. They are omnipresent and part of everyday life. We live in a society where the temptation to conflict and the desire for peace are closely related. Since conflict is natural and there is hardly any such thing as a life without conflict, it is crucial to be conscious of conflict in everyday life.

Conflicts: challenges and opportunities for prophetic witness

Who among us hasn’t experienced conflict in our communities? We are far from a paradisiacal state of absolute peace. From my experience, the theme of conflict easily provokes a feeling of malaise. It brings us back to the day-to-day realities that we experience. Ignoring conflicts, not wanting to see them, not talking about them, ignoring them or rushing back to a state of apparent tranquillity without managing them constructively are attitudes and habits that we observe, particularly in our religious circles.

Mission and conflict: daily choices to make

The expression ‘si vis pacem para bellum’ (If you want peace, prepare for war) comes to my mind whenever I think about ‘peaceful resolution of conflicts’. In fact, living is itself a fight and existing implies will, freedom, and choices. These three essentials battle constantly in a human in existence, being in conflict with himself and his social milieu.

A “wake-up call”

Peace is the desire of every member of any community or society. Regrettably, conflict is part of social dynamics, part of any progress and of any human development. Conflict brings crisis. Crisis is a “wake-up call” to tend to neglected issues which are essential for a healthy life together.