This is the script of this morning’s Pause for Thought on BBC Radio 2 with Zoe Ball.
The silly season has clearly begun.
A friend of mine has just drawn my attention to a story from a couple of years ago. Clearly, my mind was fixed on other news at the time.
Apparently, children in Scarborough schools were being taught how to prevent injury from seagulls. According to this report, someone had even set up a ‘seagull mugging hotline’. Now, I know from experience what can happen when an opportunistic seagull aims for your ice cream or a bag of chips. What I didn’t know, though, was that the birds take 21 seconds longer to attack if a human being stares directly at them.
It’s all a bit Crocodile Dundee for me.
OK, I laughed when I heard this and made a mental note not to try it out for real … just in case. But, it did make me think about how this might shine a light on something else.
All of us face conflict at some point. In any position of leadership it can’t be avoided. But, different sorts of people handle conflict in variety of ways. Some instinctively avoid it, hoping it’ll just go away and everything will turn out nice. It rarely does. What most of us discover through experience is that conflict – or strong disagreement – has to be faced if it is to be resolved. In other words, we need to look it in the eye – stare it down and not run away from it. (Like seagulls, I imagine, it will simply follow you or haunt you, anyway.)
I learned something about this from reading how Jesus dealt with it. When his friends argue with each other, he doesn’t close them down. In fact, before his trial and death he addresses the tensions by bringing them together for a meal during which he kneels at their feet and offers a reality check about relationships. At his trial he looks his judge right in the eye and puts the hostile question straight back to him: “So, what do you think is truth?” No cheap avoidance here.
Well, Scarborough is still lovely. But, if you go there and the seagulls aim for your lunch, remember not to run. Look them in the eye and see who blinks first.
