Sacred Avenues to Conflict Resolution

What does your rival hold dear?
What does your counterpart honor?
Find a way to honor that, too.

It’s not practical concessions
Alone produce diplomacy.
They may even be insulting.

Remember this little secret—
Groups don’t differ much when it comes
To holding some story sacred,

Only in the particulars.
You can’t be one of them. You can’t
Not be one of you. But they’ll have

Some cherished sense of what’s holy,
What’s good, what’s honor, what’s duty,
And it won’t be yours and it won’t

Be unlike yours. Show their sacred
Some respect, and you’ll have a chance
To alleviate some horror.