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Surrounded
in the Wisdom on Shalom, we who travel together as the Wilderness
Way Community commit ourselves to a common practice of love,
repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation, and peacemaking
with one another.
Love:
Remembering Jesus' command to "love one another as I have
loved you," (John 15:12) and understanding that love is an
intention that is manifest in concrete skills and actions, we
practice:
- Seeing
others in their uniqueness, not how we want or assume them to
be, and allowing ourselves to be seen,
- Hearing
what others are truly saying, not what we wish they were
saying, as well as speaking our truth,
- Honoring
others' feelings and ideas, recognizing others' right to think
and feel as they do, as well as our own,
- Choosing
to have good will
for others and self, regardless of differences or
difficulties, and
- Responding
to needs and
"being there" for others, within the limits of our
value systems, when those needs are made known; as well as
taking the responsibility to make our needs known.
Repentance:
Recognizing that even those seeking to love one another will
unintentionally hurt one another in careless word or deed, we seek
to recognize our own errors and restore relationships for the sake
of the community as Jesus commanded (Matthew 5:23-24). Therefore,
we will:
- Recognize,
name and seek to understand the feelings and circumstances
that brought about our hurtful words or actions,
- Pray
for healing, release, and the courage and grace to apologize,
and
- Go
directly to the person we believe to have harmed and
apologize, asking their forgiveness.
Forgiveness:
Knowing that conflict and challenge are part of life in community,
we practice forgiveness of one another as we are instructed in the
Prayer of Jesus (Luke 11:4). We practice forgiveness first and
frequently in our relationships with one another (Matthew
18:21-22). When we perceive that someone has harmed us, or when
someone apologizes for harmful behavior, we will:
- Recognize
and name the feelings of anger, shame, fear, etc. that we are
experiencing,
- Seek
to understand the process that brought about the harmful words
or actions, including our own words and actions, and
- Pray
for healing, release, and the courage and grace to forgive.
Reconciliation:
When forgiveness requires participation of the one who harmed us,
and that person has not already apologized, we move to
reconciliation as a means of facilitating forgiveness. We use the
pattern taught by Jesus (Matthew 18:15-17) by:
- Going
directly to the one who has harmed us and, speaking the truth
in love, pointing out the harm done, then seeking together a
common solution to the problem.
- If
reconciliation does not occur, the two shall together seek out
a trusted third party to help mediate and resolve the problem.
- If
reconciliation still does not occur, the two shall bring their
problem to a recognized leader in the community.
Peacemaking:
If the conflict remains unresolved, or spreads to include others
in the community, we move to peacemaking (Matthew S:9) as a means
of seeking forgiveness by:
- Recognizing
our common commitment to Shalom as expressed in our vision,
- Seeking
mediation by a neutral third party from outside the community,
and
- Relying
on resources from our faith tradition and the greater
community rather than courts of law.
Sources:
Scripture, Shalom Mountain Retreat and
Study
Center
("love'), Central and St. Timothy Lutheran (
Portland
,
OR
) Shalom Covenants
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