"Reconciliation" - a Difficult Word

An office reports that they have an answering machine that instructsncallers to leave their name and address, and to spell any difficultnwords.

Early one Monday when the secretary was reviewing the weekendnmessages, she heard an enthusiastic young woman recite her name andnaddress and then confidently say, "My difficult word isnreconciliation. R-E-C-O-N-C-I-L-I-A-T-I-O-N."

Everyone's a comic! But in another sense, reconciliatio
IS andifficult word. If not difficult to spell, then difficult to carrynout. Other difficult words are "I'm sorry" and "I forgive you."

When my son was eleven years old he came home from school in tears onenday. A couple of the older kids had beat him up at the bus stop.

We soon learned that tension had been brewing for some time. Fornseveral days there had been taunts, then pushing and shoving. But nownthe conflict escalated to fists. Rob wanted to stay home from schoolnso he wouldn't have to confront the boys in the future.

We called the school and found great support. "We'll be happy to callnthe boys' parents," we were told. "And you should call the police."

"We don't know what we will do yet," I said. I wanted to consider thenbest way to handle this situation.

The next day was Saturday. Rob happened to look out the window andnsaid in alarm, "There are the boys who beat me up!" Two older boysnwere standing in front of our house, as if they were waiting for Robnto step outside.

I immediately began to think of what I wanted to say to them, but mynwife Bev, a natural reconciler, acted first. She opened the door andnsaid with a smile, "Hi guys. Would you like some ice cream?"

They looked at each other in puzzlement. But they were teenagers,nafter all, so they shrugged their shoulders and one of them said,
"Sure. Why not?"

They followed her indoors and Bev promptly introduced herself, Rob'snyounger brothers and me. She even introduced Rusty the dog. "And Inthink you already know Rob," she said, pointing to our son. Her ideanwas to help them to see that Rob was a person, not a target. He had anfamily; he lived in a neighborhood and even owned a friendly dog.

Bev drew the boys into conversation while we ate ice cream. After anfew minutes, she said, "I know there's been some trouble at the busnstop. I think there may be a misunderstanding."

They nodded that there had indeed been trouble at the bus stop.

"Rob wants to be your friend," she continued. "Maybe we can talk aboutnthe misunderstanding so you can all be friends."

They nodded their agreement and we talked. Eventually the boysnapologized and said there would be no more trouble. And there wasn't.

The vice-principal of the school called back the following week andnasked about the fighting. "Did you call the police?" he asked.

"No, but we've taken care of it," I said.

"What did you do?" he wondered.

I said, "We fed them ice cream."

Reconciliation is a difficult word. But it's one we need to learn!