This article was first published in January 2019 when Bill Knott served as editor of the Adventist Review. This article has been reduced due to space limitations, but the full article may be accessed here.
I’ve been living with this ever since I first was caught by it on a gray January day in my fourth-grade classroom. Back then, and naturally enough, it was a story about the derring-do of a child only a bit older than me.
Later on, it became a story about cool-headed, tactical planning, perhaps because that was the quality I needed most as a young and middle-aged adult when unbridgeable chasms yawned at every turn, and professional and personal disruptions filled my days.
More recently, the story has become for me a potent metaphor for how we bridge the great divides that naturally enough grow up between individuals, in groups, in congregations, and even between large Christian organizations.
***
By the fall of 1847, three decades of thawing relations between the United States and Canada had largely obliterated memories of the shooting war that had erupted over the boundary Niagara River during the War of 1812. A booming economy south of the river and great economic potential north of it had convinced government and business leaders on both sides. A bridge was needed to span the turbulent river that marked the border between the British Empire and the nation that had declared its independence from Great Britain just 70 years earlier.
An engineering firm was hired to design the first suspension bridge over what was deemed an unbridgeable and treacherous chasm—the Whirlpool Rapids, just above the famous falls. At 800 feet across, and 225 feet above the water, it was the narrowest point between the two sides. Depending on which version of the story you prefer, supervisor of the building works Theodore Hulett either personally solved the architectural puzzle of how the bridge could be built, or else got his brainstorm from watching boys fly kites out over the Whirlpool Rapids.
Hulett organized a kite-flying contest with the goal of landing a kite—and its string—on the other side of the chasm. Dozens of Canadian and American boys responded to the challenge, which included a prize of $5, worth more than $150 in both Canadian and U.S. currencies today. One talented kite-flier, 16-year-old Homan Walsh, crossed the river well above the rapids and successfully landed his kite on the American side early in the contest, only to have the string break. Walsh tried again two weeks later, letting out hundreds of feet of string as the prevailing westerly Canadian winds carried his kite—symbolically named “Union”—out over the swirling rapids. Toward nightfall, as the winds died down, “Union” settled in a tree on the U.S., and the string was secured by Hullet’s associates.
All reconciliations ultimately depend on things as fragile as kite strings.
Now a single string—a kite string—united the two territories.
And over that string, Hulett’s engineers drew a slightly heavier string, riding on a silver ring. And over the slightly heavier string, an even heavier string. And over the heavier string, a rope. And over the rope, the first, thin metal wire—until strand by strand, one small step at a time, incrementally but irresistibly, the foundation for the first suspension bridge over the Niagara River was built.
And it all rested on a kite string.
***
This isn’t the usual plotline for a story about how big divides get crossed. As we typically tell such tales, a great, even heroic, gesture is required to bridge the unbridgeable. But behind the grand heroic gestures that capture our imaginations and the headlines, there are a hundred smaller moments on which all reconciliations ultimately depend. Someone picks up the phone and calls a person long deemed an “enemy.” Two diplomats from warring sides go for an unobserved walk. A private note passed from hand to hand around a tense negotiating table signals a new solution to an old and intractable quarrel.
Yes, let it be said: there’s a string—a kite string—beneath all hopeful moments when our broken, proud humanity makes peace with other broken, proud human beings. Someone swallows hard, and deliberately puts aside the memory of the latest injury to send an olive branch—or just a twig—to an opponent on the other side of the boardroom or the church business meeting. Someone prays for weeks about the apostle Paul’s admonition—“Forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you” (Col. 3:13)—and hesitatingly picks up a basin and a towel. Leaders—yes, even church leaders—deliberately put aside the clamoring of partisans and the assertions of correctness, and send the text that simply, elegantly says: “Let’s talk.”
All reconciliations ultimately depend on things as fragile as kite strings.
All reconciliations ultimately depend on things as fragile as kite strings.
***
You don’t need me to tell you that we live in fractious times. The toxic, intensely partisan political culture in all nations of the world has seeped into the company of those who say they “keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Rev. 12:17, KJV). From behind the barricades of blogs and lava-infused newsletters, we launch fusillades against the decisions and integrity of those who disagree with us.
In His prophecy of the turmoil that would precede His second coming, Jesus unflinchingly described the end-times as an era when “the love of many will grow cold” (Matt. 24:12, NRSV).1 It follows just as logically that the hatred of many, even for other “believers,” will grow hot as well, for like the dragon who inspires such enmity, they sense that their time is short (Rev. 12:12).
Is there still a way to bridge what seems unbridgeable? Is there still a moment when we could imagine—even fleetingly—a kite string landing on the other side? Are there still thousands—no, millions—of honest-hearted Seventh-day Adventists who have heard and listened to the appeal of Paul?
“From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us” (2 Cor. 5:16-19, NRSV).
I believe that there are, in fact, a nearly uncountable number of faithful members of this pilgrim movement who still yearn for reconciliation, even with those who have injured them.
The future of this movement doesn’t, in fact, depend preeminently on leaders in far-off conference or division offices who will agree to talk, mend fences, and resume their trust in those with whom they disagree. Let it be clear: they have a helpful role to play, but they can lead only when others choose to follow.
The future of this movement will be built on a hundred—no, a hundred thousand—small and fragile kite strings landed gracefully in places that haven’t seen enough of grace or kites in recent years. It will be built through reconciliations made across kitchen tables between spouses, and across board meeting tables among elders. It will occur when sharp-tongued Sabbath School combatants agree, at last, that “he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us” (Eph. 2:14, NRSV).
Here’s how it could happen.
Pray for a reconciling spirit. All great things begin with prayer, “and the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13). This means frequently praying “against the grain”—against the natural tendency of our hearts to assume our own correctness, especially in matters we deem “truth.” And we’ll never move an inch, never mind ascend the hill of the Lord, unless we begin praying with a sincerity heretofore unknown for an attitude of reconciliation with those whom we are sure are “wrong.” Such inner change doesn’t spontaneously appear in a moment when the church business meeting sings “Side by Side” or “Kumbaya.” The emotions of any given moment will disappear as quickly as they came when there’s a consistent, persistent commitment to pray for reconciliation, first in our own hearts, and then in the hearts of those with whom we disagree.
Be alert for olive branches—and kite strings. The smallest, slenderest of strands became the base of a bridge that ultimately carried locomotives. An olive branch may first appear as insubstantial as a twig. But those who have, through grace, acquired a reconciling spirit see signs of life where others just see fuel. In boardrooms this may be as momentary as a sigh, an opening of the chairman’s hands, a brief acknowledgment that there’s at least a little legitimacy in other ways of seeing. Practice spotting—and offering—olive twigs, which may yet grow into branches.
Avoid the demagogues. These are the ones who insist that talking with “the other side” is “traitorous,” a sign of “creeping compromise,” a first step into error. Such misinformed and maladapted men and women haven’t been reading their Bibles much, for Scripture calls us repeatedly to demonstrate the same deep respect for those who oppose our ideas as we usually reserve for those who are our greatest cheerleaders.
Ellen White similarly reminds us of the unmatched example of Jesus: “Jesus did not suppress one word of truth, but He uttered it always in love. He exercised the greatest tact and thoughtful, kind attention in His relationships with the people. He was never rude, never needlessly spoke a severe word, never gave needless pain to a sensitive soul. He did not censure human weakness. He spoke the truth, but always in love.”2
Those who can both imagine and help to build bridges should expect that their motives will frequently be misunderstood by the partisans on both sides. “Talking with the enemy” is not, as some would claim, a sign of unfaith, but of faith. Only confident faith, which rests on the merits of Jesus and not on the cleverness of logic, is competent to negotiate with those of opposing views. Those who build bridges from fragile kite strings should expect to get “walked upon,” for the test of a bridge is ultimately whether it can bear traffic and become the path of communication and connection.
Stay at the task of peace. We frequently remind each other that “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” But then again, neither was Jerusalem. And if Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us (John 14:2), He has chosen to make the new Jerusalem a hallmark of His craftsmanship, even as His Spirit shapes the men and women who will, by grace, inhabit it. The multiple references in the book of Acts and in the epistles of Peter, John, and Paul to conflict in the church illustrate that the task of reconciliation is as essential to the church of Jesus Christ as are the tasks of proclamation, evangelism, pastoral care, and compassion.
As long as there are humans in God’s church, reconciliation will be necessary, for even the closest of friends will frequently have to choose to be reconciled to each other instead of letting a difference of opinion blossom into a new world war. This can’t be accomplished by occasionally mumbling a prayer. There will be hours—days, weeks, and months—of hard and often thankless effort for those who understand that unity is forged in fire, not dropped from the sky. Like every welding job, the welding of believers’ lives together will show both some heat and some friction if the bond is going to last. We will prize our unity only when we have given—and given up—something to achieve it.
1 Bible texts credited to NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission.
2 Ellen G. White, Steps to Christ (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1956), p. 12.
