Good morning friends. I am delighted to have been asked to speak today. As a Mediator my work is in healing and essentially the healing task is a growth task. It is person centred and asks for the respect, tolerance and acceptanc of each individual's uniqueness. The title of this talk "fear of difference is at the core of conflict" arose from a talk I gave to the Peace Committee last November and was originally entitled "The small domestic steps of peacemaking". The emphases on small domestic steps has a feminine quality and is hopeful in today's climate where overall answers to conflictual difference may elude us.

There is huge fear around conflictual difference and not without reason. Compounded and hardened conflict can lead to harrowing and destructive behaviours.

In mediation we do not see difference as bad or difficult in itself. Difference is seen as the raw material of creativity and the progenitor of change. Your part and mine- we can make together - in this way the outcome becomes more than the sum of the parts and synergy is at work. We learn more from our differences than from our sameness. Difference arises naturally all the time. Our innate blueprint of masculine and feminine creates difference. There is difference in culture climate time frames resources values and ability all ensuring that we must constantly grapple with complexity.

The role of the mediator is to create space, structures and rituals that can hold and contain diverse views and needs. Creating a climate where frozen hearts can begin to thaw is central. Freedom of expression and openhearted listening is aimed for.Dialogue. Dialogue is the guiding motto. Moving away from shame or blame towards accountability and responsibility helps. Clearing up misconceptions in order to understand the interests behind positions taken expands consciousness. Surfacing unconscious fears and prejudices can free up energy. Mediators hold that a "ritual" is stronger than "a rut" and that each one of us is more than our personality and our behaviour. Beyond the masks of personality and behaviour is a Creative inner core - Friends might call the Divine Spark or the Light within.

Difference like cholesterol is said to fall into two categories that which is good for us and helps bring about creative change and that which does us harm and leads to stagnation or destruction. Where difference cannot be negotiated we sometimes resort to avoidance or once and for all strikes to rid ourselves of it. Harmony is what we work for - too much sameness and we stagnate- too much difference and we are overwhelmed.

Difference can be very frightening.

Staying creative with difference then is a challenge for each one of us and is above all what maturity asks of us. It asks us to start over to begin again on a daily and regular basis. It asks us to believe that we cannot know the outcome from the outset much as the potter hands over her pot to the kiln having done her part. Staying with difference we stay in process moving from a-b and b-c trusting that with sincere and honest dialogue progress will be made- small sequential steps eventually build. Despair has a life of its own- staying encouraged means keeping heart-it means trusting that trusting that we are each evolving towards wholeness in our own way and our own time. It is a learner centred approach and requires us to stay with our experiences.

Know-how for this task is essential and is made up of a connection between heart and head. There are skills that can be usefully learned around communication and negotiation - reasonable one might say. But in matters of the heart - self-awareness counts most. It is sometimes said that the heart will muddle through where reason would despair. A heart/ head connection then is what we are aiming for. Staying with difference sometimes requires healing. Healing asks us to grow. Sameness is what the young part of us seeks - merging has a young quality to it. To grow to be sturdy in the face of difference sometimes we are asked to rework old growth tasks.

Trust builds as we develop self-awareness and know how. Learning to trust is a developmental task. It is made early in our lives within our families and as no perfection exists in any family many of us have development tasks we can revisit. Trust develops through a process of secure and safe belonging while at the same time gradually learning to become individual and separate.

The process needs to be gradual allowing a child to experience their own and others difference in manageable doses. Some families cannot allow for difference - sameness and conformity is insisted upon for a wide range of understandable reasons and so great is a child's need to belong they may give up their autonomy or their own ethical standards to feel accepted.

Creating sturdiness in the face of difference is then part of each person's development. The template for our behaviours is forged early in our life, so for some of us going back and reworking those that do not serve us well is an ongoing challenge of healing and growth. Our ability to trust difference and stay with it is intimately related I believe to how safe it has been in our formative years to be separate and different and for us to allow others to be separate and different also.

While we are mastering this dance of attaching and detaching we are also learning interconnectedness - that is we all connect.

This acceptance of deeper connectedness asks another step in the maturational process. Our individual behaviour affects others and their behaviour in turn affects us. As humans we are in fact telepathically porous and are constantly absorbing energies around us. There is no doubt that the graphic pictures of the genocide in Africa that were shown on a T.V. documentary this week had a deep impact. Our capacity to feel empathy and connection is essential to our humanity.

Science today is very focused on addressing issues of interconnection. Chaos theorists explain that minute distant changes can have a direct effect across the globe. The now perhaps clichéd example of the butterfly flapping its wings in China and having an effect on the weather in New York gives weight to the importance of connections. Creative conversations are now taking place between disciplines and in this age of Globalisation we can put down markers for principled progress.

Difference shows up in a myriad of ways everyday in each of our lives.

(1) The principle that diversity and even conflictual difference can enable creative growth and change;.
(2) A respectful climate where curiosity and inquiry is nurtured;
(3) Behaviours that promote the freedom of expression;
(4) Structures that maintain and honour the intrinsic value of each person.

Conflictual difference without tools and know how creates fear and erodes trust. When we act from fear we behave and respond very differently than we would from a trust base. Fear cripples and muddies the water. We cannot act with discernment and clarity when we act from fear. Light is eclipsed.

Nothing then has more importance that trust. The opposite to trust while it can be said to be fear is much more likely to be encountered as cynicism. When we are cynical possibility healing and growth is lost of sight of.

The integrated sturdy personality allows difference- welcomes and embraces difference. Winston Churchill who played a major role in World War II was troubled through his life with depression- the black dog he called it. He expressed the view that the empires of the future would be the empires of the mind.

Making peace will involve mind shifts and new viewfinders so that consciousness will change - this can happen one person at a time and in this way small steps matter.

On our journey to developing and growing into self-awareness and sturdiness we learn trust, self-esteem and conscience.

When Trust is high then we can be committed, we work for win/win. We believe in possibility and the legitimacy of ourselves and others. Our behaviour is co-operative and open and explorative. We are accommodating collaborative, non-threatening.

If Trust is low our attitude is ambivalent, win/lose and absolutist. We do not see the legitimacy of other. Our behaviour is competing, closed - "there is no alternative" we avoid, withdraw or threaten.

When Conscience is high we focus on human rights. We value the intrinsic worth of the person we understand and enshrine the belief that we are all connected and inter-related. We take broad long-term views, which are holistic. Our behaviour is ethical principled respectful concerned and forgiving

. If Conscience is low our motto may be one of "the end justifies the means" 'People hurt' 'that's life'. There is an absence of concern. There is disrespect. Selfishness and short-term views are prevalent. Narrow-minded fragmented and unholistic views become the norm. Our behaviour is geared to 'get even' 'tit for tat' and taken to extreme "dominate or annihilate".

When Self-esteem is high (by self- esteem I do not mean self centred or narcissistic). We believe in the intrinsic value of our selves and of others. We think in terms of there being enough to go around - abundance is possible. We are adaptive and flexible.

We believe in the right to self-determination of others and ourselves. We are kind generous and assertive.

If Self-esteem is low we are self-depreciating and perhaps self-destructive. We can be depreciating or destructive of others also. Our thinking may be of scarcity - fear that there won't be enough. We may stockpile- become mean. We resort to force or coercion. We may collude or blackmail in small or big ways. We may act power hungry, aggressive, selfish or cruel.

Staying with difference without resorting to power struggles then is our ongoing and daily challenge. Creativity asks of us to stay with the natural innate tensions of difference to work for growth expansion inclusiveness and when all is done to withdraw without harshness or struggle.

Wisdom involves Timing as well as Right Action.

(1) Respect the natural cycles of flux that help process change and to recognise the organic way in which we have productive and fallow times.
(2) Cultivate flexible adaptive boundaries that allow us step outside our usual way of thinking and to allow new information in.
(3) Have a clear core intention for responsibility not punishment accountability not revenge - complementariness not domination - collaboration not competition curiosity and inquiry - not absolutes and fixed certainties.
(4) To juxtaposition - to play- to brainstorm.
(5) It asks us to harmonise what the Chinese call the Yin/Yang essence. (Loosely translated as the masculine / feminine quality innate in all of us whether male or female).
(6) It asks us to accept mistakes as our teachers we learn from both via positive and via negative. To experiment.
(7) To trust process and value all meetings. Above all to stay encouraged and to start over again and again.

(Note:- As Miriam used notes rather than reading from a script the above represents the core ideas of the address at Yearly Meeting rather than the actual words. It reflects some of the ideas set out in her book on Conflict and Creativity that will be published in due course. Ed.).