What am I failing to see?

How I’m learning to see the impact of conflict

Missed Things

I’ve failed to see a lot of things in life. Sometimes the most important things.

Looking back on my years in the social change sector, conversations usually focused on interventions that a funder or external partner could make:  training, leadership development, infrastructure, or capacity. I often found myself in these conversations deeply curious about the context underneath these other conversations. How did these circumstances come to be? What’s the history (the story) behind the present circumstances? What’s the story of the people in the room? I often found myself asking these questions and I was more often than not surprised by how difficult my conversation partners found them to answer. Yet with the passing years, my sense that these contextual issues and stories were the most important elements grew.

It can be difficult to tell a story. Stories are rarely linear or neat. They are often chaotic, and they always involve conflict. They can churn and swirl and you don’t always know where they are headed.

This painting by Amanda Gatlin, Abstract Ocean, captures for me the sense of chaotic swirl that is often present in the telling of our stories.

I often found myself stepping away from these muddier, more difficult questions for the easier work of focusing on the immediate issues at hand:  the granting processes that would allow a clearly defined project or program to move forward. Such conversations were simpler, far easier to control, and less likely to evoke emotion. 

But the deeper stories never stopped pulling at me. They bubbled up, usually in fleeting ways: the subtle shift in a conversation partner’s eyes or body language that says far more than their spoken words. The multi-faceted meaning of a pause in group conversation. A sudden shift of tone laden with meaning. I’ve learned (and am learning) to embrace and follow these fleeting moments of potential for deeper engagement. 

Deeper engagement with story isn’t always easy, but it is almost always necessary if real change is to be possible. 

Missing Conflict 

For many years, I missed the the story of conflict. I was not aware enough of how conflict and its traumatic effects shape people, change makers especially. This conflict could take many forms, ranging from long-term organizational or family conflict to the impact of civil wars and genocides. 

Looking back on years of conversations, I see how conflict often bubbled up in conversations, usually in fleeting moments. It was almost as if something was arising for a moment, asking to be seen and pursued. Some of the most transformative conversations I recall are those where I chose to pursue these fleeting opportunities. 

I think of a trip to West Africa about a decade ago. I was spending a couple of days on the campus of a Christian seminary. I’d known this place for many years and this was my second visit. 

It was a stiflingly hot and humid day and the leader of the seminary and I had spent an hour or so looking at a partially-constructed building. The foundation I worked for had funded the building project in part. The project had seen many delays. Materials and workers were unavailable. Some key work on the foundation hadn’t been done correctly. A period of severe civil unrest a year earlier had disrupted plans. The site was now silent, tropical plants growing up and dark spots appearing on the cement walls. After walking the construction site, we moved to the seminary’s chapel, a simple yet beautiful building that had open windows on the sides. Lush, old trees shaded the building. The space was empty, plastic chairs stacked at the back of the room. We each took a chair and sat in the middle of the room. 

I could see my friend’s discomfort. I recognized that familiar look of shame that non-profit leaders have with a funder when a project doesn’t go to plan. It was hard to see how the project could be redeemed. There was so much complexity and elements beyond anyone’s control. I think my friend expected me to quiz him further on what went wrong and how we might make it right. But I couldn’t do that. Instead, I found myself asking him questions about why he did the work he did. He told of his work as a pastor in a neighboring country, of walking with his own community and others through civil war. He grew animated and almost joyful at points, subdued and heavy at others. 

I remember one key point. His eyes flashed and he seemed to look over his shoulder to see if anyone was listening before wondering aloud if the big project we’d just seen had been the right thing to do, or if there were other more important things to do in light of the traumatic experiences of conflict and war he and every member of the community had faced. 

The project and all of its problems seemed somehow dissonant with the broader story he was telling. Unlike the enormous trees shaded the chapel, these project plans were oddly rootless. 

I remember sitting on an airplane the next day thinking about that conversation and holding its dissonance. It was clear that a lot of the planning, granting, and values of the project traced their roots to places far from this peaceful chapel. But more than that, it struck me that my approach to projects like these was woefully unaware of the impact of conflict. In my last few years of grantmaking, I began to pay more attention to conflict.

I’m not saying that this institution didn’t need a building or areas that have experience conflict only need trauma care. I am pointing to the need to surface a deeper story, a story often deeply touched by conflict. This takes time and patience and a willingness to set aside what might seem most pressing. 

The Power of Presence 

I keep circling back to the power of being present. Noticing. Looking for a narrative that doesn’t easily rise to the top. Seeking out the voice that might be a bit harder to hear. Being aware of things that evoke fear and discomfort, not to avoid them, but to hold them in the way they deserve to be held. 

My encounter in that African chapel reminded me that I need to know the story underneath, regardless of how complex, conflicted, or messy it is. If we pay attention, such complex stories will show themselves. When they do, they deserve our time and our attention.

I’m still learning. But I show up in the world today with the fundamental assumption that the people I’m engaging with have been shaped by and will be shaped by conflict. The one thing I know for sure is that they need and will need human connection and care. However imperfectly, I try to ask good questions that surface true stories, listen well, and allow myself to be changed by what I hear.

Questions to Consider

1. How have conflicts and the effects of conflict shaped you? 

2. Have you experienced “fleeting moments” in your interactions where it felt like something was bubbling up, desiring to be discussed? If you grasped the opportunity, how did it change things? 

2. Is the work you do adequately aware of the effects of conflict and its traumatic effects? Even if you’re not working in a post-war conflict, what other conflicts have shaped and are shaping those you work with and care about?