COLUMN: Viewpoint – Learning from Abigail

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/06/2024 (418 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Last month a church invited me to speak on the topic of peacemakers. I chose to talk about Abigail, an accomplished peacemaker from the Old Testament. She negotiated the end of a complicated conflict between her rude and hostile husband Nabal, and the tempestuous and impulsive future King David.

David, who was on the run from King Saul, asked Nabal, a rich man with a great deal of livestock, for a little food to feed his camp of hungry men. Nabal ignored David’s request and acted as if he didn’t even know David. This made David furious and he armed his men to ride out and kill Nabal and his household.

Nabal’s wife Abigail got wind of the conflict. Without telling her husband she rounded up bread, fruit, wine and meat. She rode out to intercept David. Offering him her gifts, she praised his fine qualities and asked him to forgive her belligerent husband. David, impressed with Abigail’s articulate petition agreed to her request.

In a time when our world is in desperate need of peacemakers it might be helpful to look at things Abigail got right in her peace pursuit.

First of all she was a woman. According to the United Nations when women participate in peace negotiations the odds of it being a lasting peace go up 20 percent. Many women have followed Abigail’s peacemaker tradition and have won the Nobel Peace Prize.

We’ve all heard of Mother Theresa and Malala Yousafzai but the female peace prize winners also include Leymah Gbowee a Liberian social worker, peace activist and women’ rights advocate. She led a nonviolent movement that brought together Christian and Muslim women in a campaign to end a 14-year civil war in Liberia. Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan won the prize for their peace efforts in northern Ireland and Nadia Murad a member of Iraq’s Yazidis minority won for spearheading efforts to assist female victims of sexual abuse during wartime.

The second peacemaking tip we get from Abigail is that she offered food. An article called Negotiating Peace One Bite At a Time on the NATO website reports on a study done by professors at Cornell University and the University of Chicago that shows sharing a meal can make people more cooperative and less competitive with each other. Sharing food encourages mutual understanding and empathy. Researchers claim when politicians are in the midst of negotiations over a tricky matter sharing a meal together can sometimes lead to a quicker and more equitable resolution.

We know, for example, President Nixon ended twenty-five years of no diplomatic ties between the United States and China. Was that because during his seven-day official visit to three Chinese cities he shared food with many different important and influential Chinese leaders? In an article called Dining for Detente writer Joseph Temple says Nixon and his team received repeated briefings about meals with the Chinese. The White House chefs served them birds nest soup and Peking duck so they would be able to remark in a complimentary fashion on their taste and aroma. Nixon and his wife rehearsed eating with chopsticks for months so they could use them properly at their dinners in China.

Abigail exhibited other exemplary qualities as a peacemaker. She remained calm when the two men involved in the conflict rashly lost their tempers. She was courageous, willingly confronting a man who was on his way to kill her family. She was hospitable, humble, polite and found good things to say about her enemy.

There is a lot we can learn about being a peacemaker from the ancient story of Abigail.