By Adrian Pyle, Director of Chaplaincy and Connections
Harmony or silence?
For use in councils/boards of schools who value or connect to the characteristics of the Uniting Church (or are just exploring them). It may take you about five minutes to read aloud at the start of a meeting. There is a video version of this reflection located at the bottom of this page. (Approximately five minutes to read aloud at the start of a meeting).
Chair’s introduction
Please note that this is an optional script.
“As part of our meetings this year, we are taking a few minutes at the start to pause with a short reflection. It is not a sermon or a lecture, just a way of stepping back briefly and asking what might be shaping us beneath the surface as we lead. The aim is not to resolve anything immediately, but to give us a shared lens before we move into the agenda.”
Why this reflection?
Most boards would hope for some sense of harmony. Yet harmony and silence are not always the same thing.
Over time, certain subjects can become strangely difficult to discuss, while disagreements that are really about competing values can start to feel personal. At the same time, quieter members may slowly contribute less and less, with the result that what appears to be agreement may simply reflect caution, exhaustion or a sense that there is little point in speaking.
Healthy governance may not depend on avoiding tension. It may depend on learning how to remain curious and relational when tension appears, and on recognising that disagreement is not always a sign that something has gone wrong.
What’s the story this month?
This is one that many Uniting Church communities of faith are hearing.
In the Gospel according to the community of Matthew, Jesus tells a parable about wheat and weeds growing together in the same field.
The servants notice the weeds and immediately want to act. They ask whether they should pull them up, but the landowner urges patience, warning that acting too quickly may damage the wheat as well.
It is an interesting story because it resists the desire for immediate clarity – something we often seem to crave. Rather than separating everything neatly, the parable acknowledges that living communities are often more complicated than we would prefer, and that rushing towards certainty can sometimes create new problems.
School boards may recognise something of that complexity. Certain matters seem to return repeatedly without ever being fully explored. A board chair, noticing that pattern, might simply ask, “This issue seems to come back regularly. What are we finding difficult about it?” Sometimes naming the difficulty is itself a step forward.
Where else this idea shows up
A somewhat similar instinct appears in Sikh traditions through the idea of Chardi Kala, a hopeful resilience that persists even in difficult circumstances. Challenges are acknowledged rather than denied, but they are not allowed to define the life of the community.
Bahá’à traditions approach disagreement through the practice of consultation, which encourages participants to hold their own views lightly and to seek the wellbeing of the whole rather than the victory of a particular position. The aim is not uniformity but a deeper truth that emerges through conversation.
Both traditions suggest that disagreement and relationship need not be enemies.
What this might mean for school boards
Disagreements that appear personal are sometimes rooted in differing values. One member may be concerned about financial sustainability, while another is trying to protect culture, wellbeing or pastoral care. In those situations, it may be more helpful to ask what each person is seeking to preserve than to decide too quickly who is right.
Likewise, apparent harmony may not always mean everyone feels heard. Some chairs deliberately pause before decisions and ask whether enough space has been created for those who have not yet spoken, or they invite written reflections afterwards for members who think more carefully once the meeting has ended.
One Uniting Church characteristic speaks strongly into this space: Courageously elevating difficult subjects and evolving responses.
Perhaps courage in governance is not always expressed through decisive action. Sometimes it is found in creating enough trust that difficult matters can be discussed honestly, and enough patience that responses are allowed to mature over time.
A few questions to sit with
Not for immediate answers, but perhaps to let travel with us through the meeting:
- What subjects do we never seem able to discuss openly?
- Which disagreements are actually about values rather than personalities?
- Do quieter members experience harmony, or silence?
- Where might patience and curiosity serve this board better than quick resolution?
