I’ve been writing this essay all morning now, and I think I’ve only just figured out where I want to begin. You see, I’ve been struggling with the coldness of the “Pool Cue” metaphor. When it comes up in session, I can say it with a smile, but like a lot of useful tools, this one comes across a little cold on the page, a bit mechanistic and, so seems at first glance, sort of lacking in heart. And the last thing I want is to sound mechanistic. Around here, my clients and I think and solve problems, but there’s no shortage of feeling things.
Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me
– Jill Jackson
So let’s start three and a half decades ago, on a Sunday morning, sitting beside my grandma and grandpa Bartell at what used to be called Unity Church, in Nanaimo. I’m only 11 at the time, and there aren’t many kids around, so it feels like everyone around me is very old. Very, very old. So far the service pretty much it seems to 11 year old me to be mostly like the other church services I’d attended.
And then we sing a song that finds a little niche in my soul. It’s called “Let There Be Peace On Earth” and they sing it every week at Unity Church (or at least they did, I haven’t been in decades.)
I can still hear this song it in my head. And though “Let There Be Peace On Earth” reads a little flakey, a little hippy-dippy, I can’t help but confess that it also sounds capital “T” True.
Here’s the first stanza
Let there be peace on Earth
and let it begin with me;
let there be peace on earth,
the peace that was meant to be.
– Jill Jackson, 1955
What is it about that line that resonates with me? It’s not grand and it’s not particularly poetic, and those facts almost serve its message, its potency. It’s so simple and so harmless that the brain doesn’t really need to fight it off. Like Steve, my terrier, sleeping at my feet. And then once it’s in there, this song does two things that human beings frequently forget to do:
- “Let There Be Peace On Earth” acknowledges that, ultimately, the singer wants peace. I am singing because I want peace. I want to feel peace and I want the children I know to feel peace and I want the adults around me to feel peace. Unlike the attack ads we see on tv, I do not want revenge or to make anyone look bad, I want peace.
- This song reminds us that, if I am to feel peace, that peace would have to begin with me. I can’t make you put down the burning coal you carry, but I can put down the burning coal I carry.
Now my mom’s parents had ego’s just like everyone else, and my grandma Lorraine might well have cheated occasionally at games of Go Fish, but thinking on it now, it strikes me that they did a great job of instilling in me this idea that I could contribute to the peacefulness of my world.
Let it begin with me, and let me pass it on to my own child.
…
The Pool Cue of Cause and Effect
But where does “Beginning” begin? This is where we stop singing folk songs and start reflecting.
Whether it’s with ourselves, our personal relationships, or anywhere where there is tension or animosity rather than peace, it can save us a lot of trouble if we ask: At what point did I start participating in this negative situation? When did I first pick up a cue? What balls have I set in motion? When did I sink the 8 ball?
And: What can I learn from this? What very good reasons do I have for my choices? What choices will I make differently moving forward?
React or Respond; Judge or Discern
A huge part of my job is helping people find causes in events WITHOUT blaming themselves or others. Together we figure out how and when to take responsibility with discernment but without judgement and where to apportion responsibility, again, without blame or judgement. My clients and I do this because it is fruitful and frees us up from a lot of needless sorrow, hopelessness, and rage. It leads to understanding and, where fruitful, productive action (or when action will be harmful, self-restraint).
When we judge rather than discern, we generally cause a lot more damage to ourselves and the people around us, as judgement leads to blame and blame leads to shame and shame leads to feeling worthless and feeling worthless never created any worthy thing or relationship. Discernment, on the other hand, leads to responsiveness which leads to either fruitful action or self-restraint, which leads to either making things better or at least not making them worse.
Let’s look at two very made up examples. In one, I take the blame route and make my son responsible for my behaviour as well as his own. In the second I do the parenting thing and behave in a fashion that is Bigger, Stronger, Wiser, and Kind – as the Circle of Security people so wisely put it – I take responsibility for how I help him make sense of his actions and decide what to do next.
Here goes:
My kid breaks a toy. He drives a remote control car through a puddle. I judge him and yell at him for being careless. He cries. My wife gets mad at me. I feel misunderstood and like a bad dad. I try to justify my lack of wisdom by saying “He’ll never learn unless there are punishments.”
(Not a true story.)
Or:
My kid breaks a toy. He drives a remote control car through a puddle. I try to figure out why this happened (he didn’t know remote control cars aren’t waterproof, and the puddle looked more shallow than it was, etc.). I discern that this is a reasonable mistake.* I help him see if we can dry it out (“Does rice work for cars as well as phones? Let’s find out.”) My wife has no idea that anything has gone wrong because no one is screaming when she gets home from work. So, there’s no reason for me to feel defensive because I haven’t done anything to invite criticism. Sure, I might feel a little dumb for wasting all that rice (Because the answer is, sadly, that no, rice only works for eating). However, my kid and I are happy rather than hurt and we’ve each learned some stuff.
(Also not a true story.)
In the first example, fictional me went the blame route and made it so that it was my son who “held the pool cue” so to speak, and, thus, it was all his fault. “He made me get mad” can’t really be true. Or even if our children “make us” feel certain things, they certainly don’t “make us” behave in certain ways. Children do things that we will have feelings about, but they can’t possibly have the same moral and ethical responsibility for their parents as their parents have for them.
In the second example, I held my pool cue and my son held his. He broke the toy due to an honest miscalculation of, you know, puddles. I tried to make it better, and owned my own miscalculations of, you know, rice. The outcome was a better understanding of our selves and the world around us, and my kid felt loved, which is (marginally, perhaps) more important than remote control cars. And in the second scenario I also haven’t annoyed my wife or made her day worse (until she finds out about the rice, that is.)
So when stuck in a tricky situation (perhaps even worse than a remote control car in a puddle), I encourage you to remember that all you control are three things;
- When do I engage?
- Where do I engage
- How do I engage?
And once the balls start rolling, to ask yourself:
What have I set in motion with my pool cue?
What moves have I set up for the people I’m playing with? What moves have I made impossible?
What is the best thing for me to do next, if I really want peace to begin with me?