Tournier devotes a complete book to the issue of relationships and understanding ... and summarizing his wisdom and insight in only a couple of pages would be obscenely inadequate.  And yet, his thinking is an ideal starting point.  Tournier's ideas and philosophy on how to build strong (caring) personal relationships provides a golden recipe for 'bridging the distances and barriers' between cultures and religions.  Consider some of the chapter titles from his book To Understand Each Other:

- To Achieve Understanding, We Need to Want It 
- To Achieve Understanding, We Need to Express Ourselves [Communicate & Listen]
- To Achieve Understanding, We Need Courage [Reaching Beyond Our Fears]
- We Need to Understand in Order to Help Each Other

Although the details can be complex and the implementation difficult, the path forward to improving relationships, to establishing peace with one another, to building (or restoring) compassion and healing where ever people are broken and wounded, is contained within the roots of understanding: We Need to Want It; We Need to Listen & Reply Honestly; We Need to Remove Prejudices and Misconceptions; We Need to Reach Beyond Our Fears.  Simply put: We Need to Understand in Order to Help Each Other.

I recall an interesting story that touches on our human desire (when we so want) to achieve understanding even when the cost is immense.

"Warren Bennis wrote about a promising junior executive at IBM who was involved in a risky venture for the company and ended up losing ten million dollars in the gamble.  He was called into the office of Tom Watson Sr., the founder and leader of IBM for forty years, a business legend.  The junior exec, overwhelmed with guilt and fear, blurted out: 'I guess you've called me in for my resignation.  Here it is.  I resign.'  Watson replied, 'You must be joking.  I have just invested ten million dollars educating you; I can't afford your resignation'."²

Did Tom Watson understand the magnitude of the mistake made by his junior executive?  Absolutely!  And yet, he chose to look beyond the obvious ... to see potential opportunities (successes) further down the road.  Watson's 'understanding' was a different understanding than what the young executive expected when he walked into the CEO office.  However, both individuals exited that meeting with a path forward that saw new possibilities even under the shadow of what had become an obvious failure.

Problem solving can seem so straightforward and simple under the light of Great Thinkers.  And yet, "practicality" reminds us that even the smallest step forward can some times be a struggle.  'To Understand Each Other' does not solve our problems overnight.  But it is a beginning.