David and Ernie both enjoyed
Tuesday's episode of The Great Reset, but not in the same way. Ernie saw it as encouraging progress towards the group learning how to "Love More Like Jesus." But while David considered it a positive experience, he did not see it as any sort of real progress. He felt it was more like a random walk. Ernie conceded the apparent randomness, but claimed even that can generate forward progress, with the right filter (a la Maxwell's daemon).
To clarify his thinking, David claimed that relational problems are like speed bumps: there is usually one difficult part, after which it is "green pastures" (until the next bump). Some of these are minor problems that a "mature adult" can easily get over (or not even notice), whereas others are extremely difficult. That is why he didn't see Tuesday's call as progress: while we didn't do anything "wrong", we haven't yet overcome the truly hard part necessary to bring reconciliation.
Put another way, truly challenging speed bumps require a "miracle" to overcome. He has seen unexpected miracles like that in the group (e.g., Steve speaking up, Ernie submitting to criticism), but this Tuesday's encounter wasn't sufficient.
Ernie liked many aspects of David's framework, but wondered why David didn't seem particularly curious about Ernie's framework. David countered that he was in fact very curious about what was going on inside Ernie's head. However, it seemed obvious to him that Ernie's framework was (or at least should be) basically the same as his, since they were built around the same values.
Ernie countered by attempting to draw a distinction between "validity" and "effectiveness": multiple models may be equally valid (in the sense of well-formed), but differ greatly in how and where they are useful. David disagreed with that use of the word 'valid' -- but Ernie had to run off to a meeting, so they left with that unresolved.
References