The Late Years Fourteen

My orchid when it was young.

***
The Late Years Fourteen  February 3, 2019

We met in a Baptist Church. Some of us are
church-goers, some of us are not. We had a 
prayer from Debbie–non-denominational.
We introduced ourselves. We were nine,
with our two lawyers. They were eight, with
their staff and lawyers. The Christian rule
is to love your enemies. First, we talked
briefly, each of us about our concerns.
Then we went over the history of what 
happened in court over the five years.
So far, we’ve both won and lost. So have
they. The appeals court said we had to
start all over, go back to the beginning,
but we all chose mediation. The mediator
was kind and respectful, treated us all
well. First, he listened to us. Everyone got
a chance to speak. Then he took our list
to our enemies to see if they could agree
to any of our wishes. Meantime we ate
a potluck lunch and rested. They’d 
brought sandwiches and ate in their designated 
rooms. The mediator returned with three
of our wishes granted, all minor, and yet
a good sign if our enemies could yield in 
small ways. We think they don’t want to
go back to court. As the afternoon wore
on, they never yielded on the big things. Our 
lawyer proposed having a break of several 
months, when more information would be
available, and they agreed. As the clock
moved toward five, we all wanted to leave. 
We said goodbye and shook hands. If we
didn’t exactly love our enemies, we did
respect them more than we had before, and 

we hope they came to respect us.