Chapter 6: Pastoral Care & Conflict

By David McMillan and Janet Tuck

More than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Romans 5:11

Hopefully you won’t walk into a conflict when you make a pastoral call. But you might. Remember Ned in chapter four? He wasn’t planning to mediate a family quarrel when he went to visit Carl and Mac, but he did. This is another chapter about issues that you will deal with personally in your life, like guilt and grief, but as a pastoral caregiver delivering food for the church, you would probably pass on trying to be the only go-to person for the people you visit who are in the midst of a conflict. Having said this, however, we want you to be exposed to the tools that one might use to help manage conflict. The primary tool we will describe in this chapter is called the Third Position. It was first formulated by David’s friend and mentor, J.R. Newbrough, Ph.D.

The third position is a particular way of reframing conflict. In the fourth chapter Ned reframed the conflict between Carl and Mac in terms of a family diaspora. When Carl and Mac saw they were participating in a normal human family event that was not unique to them, they were able to stop personalizing this pain and see it in the context of grieving for their mother. This reframe helped stop the blaming and opened them to compassion for one another and for their shared loss.

In the movie Lars and the Real Girl there is a scene with Gus and Karen in Dagmar’s (the doctor’s) office. They are at an impasse. Gus wants to send Lars away to a mental institution. Karen wants to keep him at home thinking that there was something that she and Gus might do. Dagmar offered a third position, keeping Lars at home in the community, knowing there is nothing they can do, that they could embrace the embarrassment and ridicule that would come to them and Lars as they pretended that Bianca was a real girl. Dagmar suggested that they could not really do anything to help Lars. Nor would a mental institution help Lars. Only Lars could really do this work. And if they chose, they could support him to do that work at his pace, whatever pace that was. Her idea was a third position of sorts and it unlocked the impasse.

Consider this story:

Dan was Vic’s best friend. They had been friends for years. Vic was terminally ill in the CCU of Vanderbilt Hospital.

Dan went to visit Vic and pay respects to his family in hospital. When he walked into the critical care waiting area he saw Helen, Vic’s sister, and Alice, Vic’s daughter angrily talking as he entered the room.

“Dan,” Helen shouted when she saw him, “Oh I am so glad you are here.”

Dan walked over to greet Alice and Helen.

“Oh Dan,” Alice said. “You don’t think we should pull the plug, do you?”

Dan couldn’t speak after hearing this questioned. Once the stunned expression left his face he said, “I’m not sure that my opinion is important here. This is a family decision.”

“Yes, but,” Helen said. “You are his best friend in the world. Vic and Tonya are divorced. We are the only family Vic has and you might as well be family.”

“I’m just not comfortable having a vote in this,” Dan said. “This is something that the two of you must hash out. Perhaps you should talk with the pastor.”

“No,” Helen said. “I don’t want to hear from a wet behind the ears twenty-eight year old about this. Dan, you have a strong faith. I would rather you help us.”

“Me too,” Alice said. “Dad is not dead. It would be euthanasia to pull the plug. It’s a commandment Thou Shall Not Kill. We can’t do this. It would be morally wrong. I don’t believe in abortion and I don’t believe in not giving my father every conceivable opportunity to live. He is in a coma. The doctors say he has some brain function left. He just needs a machine to breathe for him. They say if we turn off the machine, he will probably die.

“Dad and I were estranged from the divorce. In the last few years we have reconciled. I’m not ready for him to go. I need a father. My children need a grandfather.”

“But you don’t have any children Alice,” Helen said. “You just married last year.”

“I know,” Alice said, “and my husband John doesn’t even know my father well. They were going hunting before my father got cancer. They say they can radiate his brain tumor.”

“But he is nearly dead,” Helen said, “What about his quality of life? The doctors say if he becomes dependent on the machine to breathe for him that he won’t be able to breathe without it. He will be stuck in this bed, unable to communicate with a tube down his throat for the rest of his life. I can’t stand to see him suffer like this. It’s not right for anyone to suffer like this. It’s evil.”

“Wow,” Dan said. “Are either of you sure that you are speaking for God. Alice you are saying how Aunt Helen is immoral and Helen you are on the verge of calling your niece, Alice, evil. Is that what you want to do, descend into name calling because that’s where you are headed?”

“No, I don’t want that,” Helen said.

“Me either,” Alice agreed.

Now we will leave this story to return later after the Third Position is introduced and explained.

Defining the Third Position

Reframing the Problem

In Chapter four Ned used the metaphor “family diaspora” as a reframe in a positive way. People often use stories and metaphors in a destructive reframe. A metaphor can insult or demean others. The story we tell about our partners and our relationship can frame us as the suffering hero/victim and our partner as the mean, insensitive perpetrator/villain. In such stories we are always the innocent victim and our partners are the guilty responsible perpetrator. If you are like us, you like these stories.

Stories that reframe others as the villain and us as their innocent victims are disempowering and basically not true.

We are suggesting a way to reframe any conflict so that a deadlocked acrimonious shouting match can be peacefully and creatively resolved. A helpful reframe should accomplish three things: 1. It should shift the focus from the personal to the system; 2. It should identify and label the roles played in the system by opposing parties; and 3. It should assign values to the roles that the opposing parties are playing for the system. For example, in a financial argument one party may have the role of family accountant. The other party may have the role of family shopper. The family accountant may argue for the value of financial security and promote balanced budgets. The family shopper may argue for the value of nurture and promote quality living for the family.

These are systems’ arguments. Blame is almost irrelevant to a system’s argument. Every system has such arguments. We are serving our family system when we adopt a role and promote values represented by that role. In this example the family needs for us to debate quality of life versus financial security. This is how the family balances finances with needs. It is a noble sacrifice for each partner to contribute their anxiety and anguish to the value that they represent and to carry its banner into the fray. God knows it is not fun.

When pastoral caregivers reframe the argument in terms of a system, its roles and its values, they raise the emotional tone and they help civilize the debate. When they reframe the conversation in this way, they give honor and respect to both parties. As a pastoral caregiver begins to reframe the conflict in system’s terms, it becomes easy to add a third value position.

A Third Position Reframe

A third position reframe does the three things that most constructive reframes do. In addition to those three things (1. Taking the conflict out of the personal and into the system, 2. Identifying roles played by adversaries and 3. Identify values served by the roles played) the third position humbles both parties, honors both parties as worthy opponents and invites creative play into problem solving. It humbles both parties by asking them to acknowledge that there are things they don’t know or understand and that there is possibly a better solution than the one that they advocate. It asks both parties to appreciate that they may need opposition and that this conflict offers both of them a chance to give the problem their best considered judgment; that their adversary means well and their opposition will help the refine their opinions. Both parties are respected as worthy opponents. All ideas and thoughts should be offered as a solution, no matter how silly they might seem.

The third position as an intervention assumes two people are deadlocked in a conflict. Often two people have difficulty making decisions together. The desires of each can block the other from acting. Hopefully, parties in a relationship respect their partners enough so that they won’t act for the relationship without the blessing of the other partner. In families issues from sex, money, parenting, in-laws, and religion can quickly become painful, insoluble problems.

In business partnerships the partnership agreement often anticipates such statements and the written agreement provides for a non-partner, such as an accountant or attorney, to act as a third vote so the tie can be broken, decisions made, and business can proceed.

In intimate relationships there is rarely a third party to cast a tie-breaking vote. The third position is the answer that we suggest to help couples peacefully resolve disputes.

Notice that, in any discussion about the merits of a decision, one party will stake out a position and the other will oppose them. In any conflict of ideas a proposition will attract its opposite. The idea that the earth was flat attracted an opposing idea that the world was round. Now, as the twenty-first century begins, intellectuals are again talking about a flat world because of how quickly information travels.

Three levels of conflict

The most primitive form of social conflict is a battle of the “I wants.” Let’s call this a level one conflict. It pits what I want against what you want. I want a new car versus you want to use the money for a vacation. A level one conflict is a crass power struggle. The most powerful wins. In a relationship, the idea that we need to buy a new car is often met with the question, “can we afford it?” In every disagreement you will notice that you represent an important human value about life, love and relationships. What you might not notice is that your partner also represents an equally important value about life, love and relationships.

Usually, in loving relationships we rationalize our wants by appealing to some transcendent social value. The car advocate might say, “We should get a new car because the old one is not safe for the family.” This is an appeal to the value of family safety and security. The vacation advocate might say, “We should take a family vacation because we have been promising this to us and our children for years. It’s been a tough year on all of us. Our family needs some good memories together.” This is an appeal to the value of family quality of life. Let’s call this a level two conflict.

In a level two conflict there is potential to take the conflict out of the personal and to frame it as a systems struggle, natural to all systems. Here the parties are playing their roles assigned to them unconsciously by the system. Each party is serving the relationship by advocating for an important value. In a level two contest we can see that both parties are worthy opponents who deserve respect. What is absent in a level two conflict is creativity to help open what appears to be a deadlock. It is easy to imagine a level two conflict falling back into a level one crass power struggle and another win/lose moment. If these moments continue to pile one on top of the other, one partner will tend to be the winner. This creates a dangerous imbalance and sets up the framework for passive aggressive guerilla warfare in the relationship.

In a scene in Gone with the Wind, Scarlett was arguing with Ashley. She wanted them to run away together. She appealed to the value of true love. Ashley refused to go. He appealed to the value of duty. They seemed deadlocked until Ashley nominated a third value, that of Tara and love of the land.

Suddenly the impasse was opened. When three values are used in this way, we have a level three conflict. A level three conflict uses the third position

A level three conflict has all the elements of a level two conflict. The conflict can be framed inside a system and away from the personal. Instead of being blame and failure oriented, the conflict can be seen as a natural and healthy consequence of being together. What the third level has that the other two levels do not have is a third value. The third value forces both parties to reevaluate their positions in light of an additional third value position. This consideration of three valid value postures creates a third vote. It adds creativity and imagination to problem solving. It validates the other two value positions and, at the same time, challenges the parties to think beyond their entrenched postures.

Professional mediators often say the key to a win/win solution is to enlarge the pie. When the issue is clear and the contest is joined, it seems counter-intuitive to add complexity to the debate. That is exactly what the third position proposes. It is a paradoxical truth that adding an agreed upon third value will reduce chaos and bring order to the discussion. The third position breaks up the entrenched postures. It civilizes the debate and creates options neither party ever imagined.

Visualizing a Third Position Through Geometry

Imagine a line connecting the two opposing points of view. In a level two conflict, whatever decision that is reached will represent a point on that line somewhere between the two opposing points. Now imagine a third point above that line. Three points make a triangle. Now we have a geometric plane. There exists in the plane an exponentially greater number of points than the points that are on the line between the two opposing points of view. Any point that we can agree on inside the plane can become a potential plan of action. The third position forces us to expand our options. Our creativity can be engaged. We are no longer frozen in place. Every time we develop a third position, it forces us to move out of our one dimensional value system. The conversation is no longer pro versus con. It is exploring options to find an answer that serves all three values.

Third Position is not compromise or synthesis

The third position may be confused with the dialectic of Karl Marx. Some might suggest that the third position is the synthesis or the compromise between two polar opposites. This is not how the originators of the third position think about it. A compromise or a synthesis is a mixture of the two opposing polar positions. The third position allows us to rise above the two positions and find a creative solution that is not a compromise and not a synthesis of two positions but a point above the line, a mixture of three value positions that becomes something much different than a compromise or a synthesis of two values. When the deadlocked parties serve a higher value, no one loses or compromises. Both parties are able to do the right thing.  Though nobody has to lose, everybody must be respectful and creative to get to a third position.

Neurology of the Third Position

As we know, when anger or fear become mixed into the discussion, our brains contract. Our neurological threat system is turned on. Our brains reduce our options so that we can act quickly and our actions are not held up by deliberation or careful consideration. An emergency requires that we act now, not take time to think a problem through.

Both anger and fear cut off the brain’s access to the deliberating, creative, thoughtful part of the brain, the neocortex. This part of the brain makes up two thirds of our gray matter. This part of the brain is often called the human brain. Anger or fear reduces the active part of the brain to only the mammalian brain or the part of our brain that we share with mammals. This is about the size of our fist. It is mature by the age of five.

When we are afraid or angry, we think simply, like a child. We use two-category thinking. We see things as good or bad. We see people as enemies or allies, as for us or against us. We think in all or nothing terms. Everything is win/lose. All games appear to be zero-sum games.

This kind of thinking is often what we are stuck in when we are fighting with our mate. It is them or us. We are right and they are wrong. We are good and they are bad. We are smart and they are stupid.

The mammalian brain can only consider two options. To consider a third, the neo-cortex must be engaged. Adding a third position forces us to engage our neo-cortex. When we choose a third value to serve, we are now thinking creatively instead of reacting defensively. We have just added two times more gray matter to our problem solving.

An example of the Third Position

Let’s return to the buy-a-new-car or go-on-a-vacation argument. The two opposing values are family safety (remember the car is old and malfunctioning, hence not as safe as a new car would be) and family quality of life (the creation of a collection of family stories, pictures and memories that will become an important record of the love this family has shared).

Now let’s choose a third value. It can be any value that the partners choose. Let’s choose two far-fetched almost irrelevant values to make the point that the third position can be any value. For example, it can be the ecological health of the planet or it can be housing for the homeless.

Assume we choose ecology as the value. The outcome of the discussion might mean that the 365 horsepower Escalade is not the car we buy; instead it is a hybrid minivan. The vacation we take is not to Hawaii; but it is to Blowing Rock, North Carolina, a place where we can drive the family in the new car. Less energy will be used. The money saved from the airfare will be used as four car payments.

But remember, we could choose any value and it would work just as well. Assume we choose housing for the homeless. The new car might be a new truck that the family uses to haul lumber and cement for Habitat for Humanity. The vacation becomes the church mission trip to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to rebuild homes destroyed by a hurricane. The family has a new vehicle and good memories for a lifetime.

The third position is not an easy discipline to follow. It requires an understanding and admission that our perspective is limited; that we may strongly believe we are right and yet, still may be wrong. This humility also requires trust in our partners. We have to believe that they will not take advantage of our self-doubt and openness. It requires trust in a process that we contribute to but do not control. It assumes a shared belief that a respectful process is more important than getting our way. It requires faith in a transcendent principle and a willingness to serve that principle. With these ingredients we will almost always be surprised by the solution we discover using a third position.

The third position is a complex philosophical idea that came from an academic paper by J.R. Newbrough, Ph.D. It is also a simple idea of a tie-breaking value. And it is an excellent tool for relationship impasses.

Steps to a Third Position Conversation

Setting the stage for the third position

The opposing parties must have a modicum of goodwill and respect for their opponent to participate in third position resolutions. If you are in a mediator role, you can help establish this humility by reminding the parties that they do not hold the one right answer, that many answers exist to human social problems. No one can predict the future and no one is entitled to certainty. That’s God’s position.

The next thing you as mediator should do to set the stage is introduce the concept of the worthy opponent. It is our privilege to have someone who cares about the issue, as we do, to oppose us. They make us stop and consider our opinions and actions. They provide us with the opportunity to rehearse and pre-test our decisions. Their opposition gives them no pleasure. They want the same thing we do – a good outcome.

With the entitlement of certainty and being right gone and with the respect of the opponents as worthy you are prepared to proceed.

There Are Six Steps to Third Position Problem Solving

Step 1. Once you conclude that the debate has become entrenched, frame the problem as a system problem. Label the roles played by the opponents. Then identify the two values represented by the polarities in the debate. For example, a mother might say, “You are not jumping out of an airplane with my child.” The father might reply, “I will not let you take all of the excitement out of my child’s life. I will see that she faces fear and builds her courage.”

The two positions represent value positions that are important in any system. We might label the mother’s value position as “security and safety.” We might label the father’s position as “building courage and a sense of adventure.”

When seen in this way, both parties are serving the family system by representing an important value. Labeling the value positions takes the debate out of the personal and emotional and places it into system values. The parties are now taking on important and necessary family roles that someone needs to play for the family system. This step creates the concept of the respected worthy opponent and it ennobles the conversation. It elevates the problem from a personal problem to a system’s problem. Both parties in this frame are admitting that their solution is not the only good solution and that each party is limited by their perspective.

Step 2. Nominate other values that might become a third position value. This begins the process of collaboration and takes the conversation further away from the entrenched, angry, threatened, frightened positions and moves the emotional tone into imaginative, creative, cooperative problem solving. This should be a playful, fun, imaginative process.

Step 3. Choose a value together to represent the third position. It can be any value that the two currently opposing parties agree to serve. The choice of a third value begins the process of seeing areas of agreement. It creates the possibility in the minds of the opposing parties that more can be added to the discussion. It begins the commitment to opening the process to new ideas.

Step 4. Retreat. Each party withdraws from the conversation and reconsiders their position in light of the new third value position. Their goal is to reconstruct their argument so that they serve their original value as well as the new third value position and perhaps even their opponent’s value, as well. This new argument creates opportunities for consensus building.

Step 5. Present new arguments and proposals. Look for areas of agreement. Be willing to discover new ways of solving problems. Begin building an agreement by finding areas where ideas overlap. Use your imagination. Make bold, new, sometimes silly proposals. Be creative. Laugh and enjoy putting the puzzle together.

Step 6. Build a consensus solution. This is done by taking the overlaps from Step 5 and looking toward a particular solution. One should not expect a solution for any more than the issue at hand. There is no answer for all problems. But there usually is an answer for the next problem we face. Keep adding on newly discovered areas of agreement until you find a direction for the next step.

The reason we do not want to think and solve problems beyond the next step is because when we take that next step, we see things and circumstances that we never imagined before. These new circumstances may open doors that make further agreements easy or they may present more difficult challenges.

If there are more difficult challenges simply repeat the third position’s six steps for each of those.

Let’s return to the story of Dan’s visit to Vic’s family in the critical care waiting area at Vanderbilt Hospital.

“Wow,” Dan said. “Are either of you sure that you are speaking for God. Alice you are saying how Aunt Helen is immoral and Helen you are on the verge of calling your niece, Alice, evil. Is that what you want to do, descend into name calling because that’s where you are headed?”

“No,” I don’t want that,” Helen said.

“Me either,” Alice agreed.

“So I wonder if we can agree on some ground rules as we negotiate our way through the thickets of such a difficult decision. Can we?”

“I suppose,” Alice said.

“I hope so,” Helen said.

“First, let’s agree that we humans cannot speak for God about right and wrong or good or evil,” Dan said. “Can we agree on that?”

“Yes,” Helen said. “I know I don’t speak for God.”

“But the Bible does,” Alice said.

“Yes it does. But Alice, do you believe that you can be the Bible’s unbiased interpreter?”Dan asked. “You said that you needed more time with your father and that you wanted him to live to see you have children. Is that God’s will? Doesn’t this show that you may be biased when you consider right and wrong? For most of us right somehow seems to be what we want.”

“Well it is what I want,” Alice said. “And it is what I believe is right.”

“But can you truly, honestly say for sure that you can tell right from how you wish things were?” Dan asked again.

“I wish my father didn’t have cancer,” Alice said. “I wish my parents had never divorced.”

“And maybe those wishes cloud your judgment,” Helen said.

Alice was silent now as she angrily glared at Helen hoping she wouldn’t say anything to Helen that she might regret.

After a while Dan said, “Helen has a point here, Alice. This is an important moment for Vic and his family. You don’t want to make this decision alone. Alice, you need Helen’s opposition so that whatever decision that is made becomes a considered judgment that includes many points of view.

“This brings us to the second guideline. Remember the first is that you might be wrong and the second is that we need for our position to be tested by opposition so that we can develop a well thought out decision.”

“So you are saying that I should be grateful that Aunt Helen disagrees with me?” Alice asked.

“Yes,” Dan said.

“Think of me as the loyal opposition,” Helen said.

And this made Alice smile.

“Fine, I agree,” Alice said. “I can’t be sure that I have right on my side and I appreciate Helen thinking through this with me.”

“Even though I am a pain in your neck right now?” Helen said.

“The neck isn’t the place I was feeling the pain,” Alice said. “I have another place in mind.”

Helen laughed.

“Okay,” Dan said. “So now that we have opened our minds and created some doubt about our positions, let’s see if we can take this issue out of right versus wrong and validate each of your perspectives by framing your position with a value that each of you are advocating. This takes us out of the personal and raises our discussion to the transcendent values and principles that we hope we serve as this family makes it decision.

“Alice would you say that you represent the value of protecting the sanctity of life?”

“Yes, I would,” Alice said. “That is the value that I am trying to serve. It makes me proud to think I am standing for this principle. Yes, the sanctity of life. That’s what I am arguing for.”

“And,” Dan said. “Helen, are you representing the value of quality of life?”

“Yes I am,” Helen said. “I don’t think medical science should keep people alive as vegetables. I think we ought to let people die when people are comatose and can’t breathe on their own. There is no dignity in a body lying still all but dead except for some artificial machine. Yes, I am glad to represent this value, but I would add dignity in dying to quality of life. That is the value I represent, death with dignity. I am pleased to represent this value.”

“Fine,” Dan said. “Helen you represent the value of death with dignity and Alice you represent the value of sanctity of life. These values seem to be placed in direct opposition to each other. It appears that if one value is served that the other value loses or is abandoned. But in God’s eyes these spiritual values work together. Values are like colors. There are ways in which colors can be placed together that don’t serve beauty and harmony and there are ways all colors can shine and contribute to beauty.”

Helen interrupted, “So are you saying that both of these values can help us in this decision?”

“Yes I am,” Dan said. “But like a nose creates balance for the two sides of the face, we need a third value here to help us find harmony and that can help provide perspective and help us see how these, now, three values fit together.”

“So what is that third balancing value?” Helen asked.

“It can be anything,” Dan said. “It can be caring for the planet. It can be serving the church. It can be promoting literacy. It doesn’t matter what the third value is. We just need another value that you both agree to honor and consider as you develop your position.”

“I’ve been wondering what Dad would want,” Alice said. “I think he would want every chance he might have at life. But I don’t know. We haven’t ever talked about this end I have just begun to get to know him again as an adult. What do you think he would want us to do?”

“Yes I’m glad you said that, Alice,” Helen said. “I think absolutely we should be thinking about what Vic would have us do.”

“So respect for Vic’s wishes would be our third value,” Dan said.

“Yes,” they both said at the same time.

“I think I know something about what my brother would want,” Helen said. “I’m just two years younger. When I was Alice’s age I would have her position on this. But my back hurts now. I have glaucoma and I can’t see to drive at night. I have trouble hearing. My balance is not good. I can imagine a time when I don’t want to stay in this body and I would welcome death. Though I haven’t talked about this specifically with Vic, I’m almost sure he feels this way too. And he is at that place now.”

“Have you talked with him about this, Dan?” Alice asked.

Dan’s face blushed. He seemed suddenly to have no words.

“He has hasn’t he?” Alice said. “What did he say? I want to hear his exact words.”

“I’m not sure what Vic said was intended to be heard in mixed company,” Dan finally said.

“No,” Helen said, “We know Vic salted his words. This is not the time to be delicate, Dan. Please tell us what he said.”

“Well,” Dan began speaking slowly and looking down as he spoke, “he said he wanted to die when could no longer have sex or something like that. I can’t remember his exact words.”

“Or you won’t say them to us,” Helen said.

“Did he say anything else?” Alice asked.

“No,” Dan answered. “But I believe he meant that in the spirit of what Helen said that there was a time when he would welcome death.”

“Thinking of Dad now I can imagine that this is how he would feel,” Alice said.

“Okay,” Dan said. “So we have our third position. Now I want you both to rethink your argument to include this value, Vic’s wishes. But I don’t want you to abandon your original value. I suggest we take a break. I’m going to get some coffee. Can I get some for you?”

“No,” Alice said.

“I would like some tea,” Helen said.

“Fine,” Dan said. “I will be back in fifteen minutes. I don’t want you to talk to each other while I’m gone. Use that time to reconsider your thoughts.”

Dan returned in fifteen minutes as promised.

“Here is your tea Helen,” he said as he handed her a white styrofoam cup with a string hanging down the side.

“Thank you,” Helen said taking the tea.

“I’m glad you are back,” Alice said. “I’ve been thinking. The doctors say if Dad stays hooked up to that machine he will never get off. The machine may extend his life, a few days but he will die anyway and he will have suffered more time with that tube down his throat. They say there’s a chance that if we pull out the tube that his body will strengthen and he will breathe on his own and he might even get to go home. I know he would rather die at home and not in a hospital. If there is a chance of that I think we should take it.”

“I agree,” Helen said.

The doctors pulled the tube a few minutes later. Vic began to breathe on his own. The exertion of having to breathe himself seemed to wake him from his coma. Later, he was able to go home with Hospice care. He was able to talk in a limited way. He died a week later. Both Helen and Alice were very pleased with their decision.

The third position is magic. It opens doors that we never knew were there. It opens our minds and hearts to one another. We have seen it work many times and always with an unexpected result.

Three Values to Consider

Consider the three pronouns, “I”, “We,” “They.” Embedded in them are three values. These three values are always at work in any social relationship.

            “I want…” represents the value of freedom, independence, autonomy, liberty, personal choice and other words that represent the libertarian value. This value when taken to extreme becomes selfish and cruel.

            It is often balance by “We need…” This represents the value of serving the common good. It is represented by communitarian values. Words like fraternity, all-for-one - one-for-all, attachment, bonding, connectivity are words that represent this value. This value taken to its extreme can become restrictive and smothering. Often there is an assumed tension between the “I” value, the individual, and the “we” value, the collective. However, such a polarity forces us again into “either/or” thinking or “compromise,” which is what third position thinking avoids.

            This brings us to our third always-with-us value represented by the “They” pronoun and the question: “What do they think?” This value includes the concept of status and social competition and of better-than/less-than thinking. The positive value is an antidote to the social poison of hierarchy and status. The value is represented by words like justice, equality, equal access, fairness. This value creates a mythical objective “they” to look down on our relationships and behavior.

            Our relationships always exist in a social context. All of us have the urge to be in the better-than position inside our social world. This third value encourages us to level the playing field, appreciate the value of all the players and to find a role for each person to play. This value taken to the extreme can create an extreme sensitivity to insult.

            As you will note the complexity of each of these values increases as we move into them. The “I” value is simple to understand. It is the value of the individual’s right to assert one’s self. The “we” value is only slightly more complex. It is the value of conforming to the needs of our relationship or our community. The third value that emerges from the “they” pronoun is still more complex. In every relationship there is always the judgment of the “they” or the relationship’s context. We can get so wrapped up in pleasing “them” that we diminish our partner or our community and limit any individual creativity.

If we can find humility and serve that they/equality value along with the value of I independence and we the-good-of-the-community or relationship value then we can avoid either/or dichotomies and win/lose games.

In a community and in a relationship, when each of these values is considered and represented, a community is in balance. Solutions that come from a mixture of these three values or forces are satisfying, effective, creative solutions. These three positions: the self, the relationship, and the abstract sense of fairness or equality, are a natural part of the human condition. It is no wonder that those three values are motivating forces in relationships and communities.

If you are searching for values represented in conflicts, begin with these three. If you are searching for just one value to represent a third position, consider one of these.

The Holy Trinity

As we describe the Third Position, I (David) can’t help but wonder about the Holy Trinity. Here is where I’m above my pay grade. The idea of three parts in one God is a mystery. I wonder sometimes if this mystery somehow involves the magic of a third position. In the Trinity, we have the God of the Old Testament who gave Moses the Ten Commandments. This represents the law or the rules we need to live by in order to have a healthy community or the “we” value. Then there is Christ who represents the value that we are to be our authentic selves, not a perfect Jesus. Jesus died for us because we cannot be perfect. Jesus died so that we could be free to be authentically ourselves. So Christ represents the “I” value of liberty and freedom of expression. So here we have two seemingly opposing values; the value of the community versus the value of individual freedom.

This opposition begs for a third position. Dichotomies never reflect reality as it is. No value should be put in opposition to another. Duality is not reality. True spiritual values can always accommodate other spiritual values. However, when we are reduced to two major spiritual values, we tend to put them in opposition. A third value liberates us from this dichotomous thinking.

The Holy Spirit is the third part of the Trinity. What value might the Holy Spirit represent? In Bob Newbrough’s scheme, it might be equality or the “they” value. It might be expressed as the spirit that loves us equally. “All the children of the world, Red and Yellow, Black and White, they are precious in His sight.” Rich, poor, strong, weak, afraid, joyful, we all can receive the blessing of the Holy Spirit.

Maybe this is the mystery of the Holy Trinity. We need three positions to see the entirety of this spiritual reality.

Conclusion

The Third Position appeals to our higher transcendent spiritual nature. It invites all parties to move away from the false sense of certainty into the reality of ambiguity. It humbles all participants. It opens our minds and civilizes our discourse. It might be a useful tool in your work in pastoral care. Hopefully it will become a new tool for you in your own life.