JULIEPERRIN:WhenI thoughtoftalkingtoyouabout
courage,I thoughtaboutthetimesI’vewatched
youleadgroupsthroughconversationsofconflict.
I’vewitnessed how fearlessly and carefully you listen
to people who say things that I find really confronting.
And I’m impressed by your capacity to name fear
without entering into combat. So I wondered if we
could start there, in some of those places where
you’ve been holding the space open for dialogue?PÁDRAIG Ó TUAMA: Sure. While I have done some
qualifications in conflict resolution, groupwork and
group mediation, there is nothing like being in the
context to teach you who you can be in those rooms.
And I use the word “who” very deliberately, because
it is about coming from the deep sense of self. I think
when people in a room sense that you’re just being
skilled, that can feel not rich enough. It has to be more
than skill in a room where people are speaking about
things that really matter to them. At Corrymeela and
other environments when people are coming together about a topic of difference—whether
that’s a difference in how they view morality, politics, who they see as the perpetrator of a
civic unrest, et cetera—in those contexts people really, really care. And skill isn’t enough.
There has to be a presence of the heart. For meI think that requires a certain kind of bravery and open-heartedness. I remember years ago
being part of a gathering of people who were all from Bradford in England. There had been
some riots in Bradford in the early 2000s I think. A friend of mine was one of the people
involved in a citywide engagement with all kinds of civic leaders. It was a training event
and everybody was lining up to get their food—there was a nice buffet laid on. As we were
lining up, one of the participants turned around to the group leader and really launched
in at him with a serious critique about something. After they moved on, the guy who was
the group leader turned to me and said, “Everything is information.” I remember thinking,
That is such a helpful muscle to flex. Because defensiveness is so easy in that context. I really
like the simplicity by which he said, “It’s information.” And that the first thing shouldn’t be
who’s right and who’s wrong—which can lead to either a sense of apology, which might be
appropriate, or defence, which also might be appropriate—but that it’s information. So for
me when I’m working with a group of people, everything is information: their time of arrival,
their anxiety, sometimes people will want to interrupt you very quickly. I led a group once
and within four words somebody had interrupted me and said, “You haven’t asked the right
question yet.” It was like, well, here we have some information. And it’s not just information
about what that person thinks the right question is. It’s information about how they feel the
room is, whether they feel like there’s space, they’re testing whether the room will listen to
them, maybe they’re testing whether I’m an insecure leader or a defensive one. The thing
is, you often don’t know what the information is about. And you won’t know. But still it’s a
matter of holding it.Yeah, like being the Mother of God who “treasures
all these things in her heart” [laughs]. Half the
time the emotion is there, you feel attacked or you feel defensive or you feel like, “Fuck, you
didn’t listen to me,” or “You’re wrong.” All those things are there. But it is a matter of saying,Wow that’s a magnificent response, isn’t it? Just to hold.
there’s always a striving, from the moment you
start, for an encounter with the heart and acommunication from the heart that isn’t using
fancy language—language that isn’t being
deceptive to the self or to the other.42
PÁDRAIG Ó TUAMA
DUMBO FEATHER