Peacemakers among them

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Priesthood Session of the April 2011 Conference.

I loved Elder Eyring's talk, "Learning in the Priesthood." I always feel like advice for serving righteously with the priesthood is so pertinent for serving righteously in motherhood as well. His advice for quorums seems perfectly suited for families:

Wherever I have seen remarkable learning in the priesthood, there are those bonds of love. Again I have seen it as both a cause and an effect of learning gospel truths. Love invites the Holy Ghost to be present to confirm truth. And the joy of learning divine truths creates love in the hearts of people who shared the experience of learning.

The reverse is true as well. Discord or jealousy inhibits the ability of the Holy Ghost to teach us and inhibits our ability to receive light and truth. And the feelings of disappointment that invariably follow are the seeds of greater discord and faultfinding among those who expected a learning experience that did not come.

So much of our family life is about learning—or at least trying to learn—together. And I DO find it so hampered by discord or contention! I wish I could find a way to get the children to feel the need for those "bonds of love" like I do!

I was also thinking about the idea of unity—specifically in relation to the Quorum of the Twelve, as we were reading instructions to those priesthood quorums in the Come Follow Me lesson this week—but also in families. I have written before about unity and how daunting I find it (there are few other ideals I feel like our world is further from right now) so this insight of Elder Eyring's actually felt astonishing to me:

The priesthood holders who learn well together always seem to me to have great peacemakers among them. You see peacemaking in priesthood classes and in councils. It is the gift to help people find common ground when others are seeing differences. It is the peacemaker’s gift to help people see that what someone else said was a contribution rather than a correction.

With enough of the pure love of Christ and a desire to be peacemakers, unity is possible in priesthood councils and in classes. It takes patience and humility, but I have seen it happen even when issues are difficult and the people in councils or classes come from vastly different backgrounds.

I think I had never thought before that a few peacemakers sprinkled in among all of us flawed mortals could actually create unity by heading off contention or misunderstanding right when it starts. I have always envisioned the Twelve talking about issues so carefully and lovingly and never really even wanting to be dis-unified, making it easy for them to reach consensus. And for all I know that IS how it is for them. BUT, in a regular old ward council or presidency meeting or Relief Society, there are always awkward moments of disagreement and even annoyance. You can definitely feel the Spirit leave the room during those times, but it didn't occur to me that someone from the class could step in and bring the Spirit back by helping foster understanding. I love what he says about "the peacemaker's gift" of helping people see each others' contributions and appreciate them as such, rather than getting defensive and uncomfortable the moment differences of opinion become apparent. 

Now that I think about it, I have actually had experience doing this among certain of my children, and it can be quite exhausting, frankly—quickly jumping in to head off argument or soften careless words before anyone gets too offended. But it does lead to more peaceful interactions, if you can keep up. I like the idea of becoming a more expert and accomplished peacemaker—just as President Nelson has urged us to—and then going around defusing tense situations like an army of bomb defusers. I love the idea of not just hoping unity will happen spontaneously (it doesn't, in my experience) but fostering it, nurturing it, creating it. Of helping, by our very presence, to bring the light and love of Christ to any situation in which we find ourselves. Doesn't that seem like exactly the kind of army our world needs right at this moment?