We have but to open our eyes and observe the communitarian behavior of a group to immediately conclude that a large portion of the misunderstandings among members arise from lack of dialogue.
At times, dialogue is like a magic instrument: it works wonders. It is like a sacramental. How often only one hour of dialogue has cleared away suspicions, clarified misunderstandings and created a new climate of trust in situations of conflict that had been dragging on for many years and seemed to have no solution. Dialogue is an almost infallible remedy for all the tensions that can develop in the heart of a group.
Dialogue is not a debate of ideas, fought in the crossfire of criteria behind which personal attitudes and interests hide and defend themselves.
Dialogue is not an argument, nor a controversy, nor a dialectic confrontation of distinct conceptions or mentalities. Dialogue is a search for the truth between two persons or within a group.
Each person contemplates things from his own perspective. Each one grasps and participates in things and events in an original and different way.
For the same reason, our personal perception is necessarily incomplete and we enrich ourselves with the perception of others, which is also limited. We necessarily grasp the truth in an incomplete form, due to the limitations of the human condition, to the relative and historical character of the human race.
Every dialogue is built on differences. You must be yourself, and I must be myself, each one of us in total identity with himself. Hence, dialogue first requires great sincerity.
In order for a dialogue to be constructive, it first has to discover what the other person and myself have in common, and then discern the precise differences between the two points of view.
Whenever the truth is sought or whenever one wants to overcome an interpersonal conflict by means of dialogue, the first and essential attitude must be humility.
We must accept the other as he is, without prejudices or preconceived opinions. It would be good to awaken within ourselves some reverence for the one speaking. When one feels appreciated, one easily opens one’s interior doors.
Dialogue is an art for which there are neither routes nor preestablished guidelines. Only by dialoguing does one learn to dialogue, in the same way that only by taking steps does the child learn to walk.
Extracted from the book Come With Me, by Fr. Ignacio Larrañaga
