{"id":20461,"date":"2019-10-30T17:31:16","date_gmt":"2019-10-31T00:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=20461"},"modified":"2019-10-30T17:31:24","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T00:31:24","slug":"dont-confront-alexa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/dont-confront-alexa\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Confront Alexa!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Rev. Paul Graves<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Dear Katie, Claire, and Andy,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How is your day going, kids? Did you confront anyone? Maybe you were confronted by someone? Either way, how did that go for you? I hope it went better than Jeremy\u2019s mom fared in the 10\/20\/2019 Zits comic<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeremy\u2019s attention was fixed on his mom\u2019s speaking loudly to someone: \u201cWell, that\u2019s ridiculous!\u201d \u201cWhy are you even saying that?\u201d That\u2019s not what I asked you!\u201d \u201cNo! No! No! You\u2019re not listening to me!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Jeremy edge closer to the sound of his mom\u2019s frustration, he pulled out his phone to record her. \u201cOkay, we\u2019ll try this one more time\u2026\u201d, and we see her holding a device in her hands. \u201cWhat\u2019s tomorrow\u2019s weather going to be?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dad turns to Jeremy with this advice: \u201cDon\u2019t take video of your mom arguing with Alexa.\u201d To which Jeremy pleads: \u201cBut it always gets a ton of likes.\u201d Mom hasn\u2019t learned that she can\u2019t confront Alexa and win!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Rev. Paul Graves<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Katie, I\u2019m pleased you\u2019re learning so much in your conflict resolution class at Portland State. The skills and attitudes involved in conflict resolution are so important. But we seldom embrace and use them in our daily lives. Healthy resolution always begins with \u201cconfrontation\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of us hate confrontation, others enjoy it. But I suspect most of us don\u2019t realize that confrontation can be very healthy at times, and very unhealthy at other times. I\u2019m glad one of your class texts, Katie, is \u201cGetting to Yes.\u201d It was a helpful text for me also in my mediator classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing I continue to learn is that confrontation can be healthy if it focuses on two truth-pieces: 1) when confrontation is your only step, not a first step, you\u2019re arguing with Alexa, a machine; and 2) confronting an issue, not a person, can lead to collaboration on the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s do a little virtual experiment. Think of a recent confrontation with someone. How did it go? Why do you think it went that way? How prepared were you for that encounter? So let’s begin with your own preparation. First, two word meanings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The French root meaning of \u201cConfront\u201d is simply \u201cface to face\u201d. We\u2019re the ones who put anger, love or whatever on one of those faces. The Latin root meaning of \u201cCollaboration\u201d means to \u201cwork together, labor together\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ColLABORation can be easy work or hard work, depending on how you confront \u2013 not the person or her\/his position \u2014 but the issue or the common interest you have in that issue. So how do you prepare to confront another person\u2019s issue or interest?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First you must confront someone else before you do that. Who? Yourself! Go face-to-face with your ego, kids, with your own need to control the situation (or another person). Go honestly, gently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second: How can you confront your ego and control-impulse so you can collaborate with that ego, that control-impulse?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s one way to think about that: Halloween is coming. What\u2019s your costume going to be? Consider your ego, your control-impulse, as your costume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some spiritual traditions call our ego a \u201cfalse self.\u201d So where do we find our \u201ctrue self\u201d? That\u2019s where collaboration comes in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we have the God-given courage to strip off our ego-costume \u2014 even one thread at a time \u2014 we discover a true self waiting for us. That\u2019s the self that reminds you, reminds me, that \u201cI am a child of God, even when I can\u2019t believe it\u2019s true!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kids, we can\u2019t confront another person, or collaborate with him\/her in love and respect, until we can do the same within ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Confronted by Love,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grampa<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

The Rev. Paul Graves<\/strong> serves as the chair for the Council on Older Adult Ministries for the Pacific Northwest Conference of The United Methodist Church.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rev. Paul Graves has an occasional practice of sharing a letter to his three grandchildren in his column for The Spokesman Review.
\nIn his most recent, he explores confrontation as a practical and spiritual matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":20463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,502,142],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20461","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-conversation","8":"category-nurturing-elders","9":"category-older-adult-ministries"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/alexa.jpg?fit=1200%2C627&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-5k1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20461"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20465,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20461\/revisions\/20465"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}