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I love little animals; the furrier and the fuzzier the better. I saw a great picture of a little fuzzy one recently in a wildlife magazine that really caught me. It was a picture of a small raccoon who had taken up residence in an attic and who had been humanely trapped to be released into the wild. The raccoon was in the gloved hands of a ranger. It was curled up into a ball – and had its paws over its eyes. According to the ranger, that is what they do when they are in trouble.

It reminds you of the ostrich, doesn't it? Supposedly the ostrich buries its head in the sand when it feels threatened. It turns out this is a myth. The myth was begun by Pliny the Elder, the First Century Roman historian and naturalist who claimed to have witnessed ostriches do this. Evidently he saw something that made him think this is what they do. They don't. You wouldn't expect the species to have survived for 2,000 years it its defense was to stick its head in the ground and leave its rather ample bottom up and exposed, would you?

Unfortunately, all too often we are like the ostrich of myth and the raccoon of reality: when problems arise, we stick our heads in the sand and hope the problems go away. They very rarely do. Problems are not necessarily bad — if we do something that will make things better for ourselves and others.

When faced with problems, people follow one of five approaches. First, they "ostrich" or avoid the issue. While there are times when this is appropriate, they are few and far between. Avoidance rarely solves a problem and usually makes the situation worse. Some people take a "boxing" approach – it is me versus you, and only one of us can win. This power-based strategy usually leaves one person hurt and resentful even if they knew they were wrong to begin with.

Another approach is that of the "teeter-totter" or compromise. The underlying assumption here is that both people give up something and win something. Neither party will get what it wants and no real resolution is achieved. A fourth approach is that of "whatever you want dear," or accommodation. This is at heart an avoidance tactic. Rather than respect who you are and work things out with you, I just give in. This is rarely satisfying to the person who supposedly wins because it shows a basic lack of respect for the other.

Finally, and best of all, there is the "three-legged-race" approach, cooperation. Rather than see the other person as an outsider, an attempt is made to try to find a process and a solution that will help both people to accomplish their objectives. This approach should be our goal whenever problems arise.

Taking a cooperative approach requires that we use our minds as well as our emotions. To do this we have to be certain that we understand what the issues really are, something that is often missing in conflicts, and we have to look for the causes of the problem and identify alternative solutions. Once the array of possible solutions has been found, we need to pick the one that will maximize everyone's welfare, and then both implement it and see if it worked. Why the big deal about problem solving? Because God has called us to be peacemakers, not just peacelovers, and peacemaking requires thought, care, and action on our parts. Becoming peacemakers may not always work, but it is far better that becoming a raccoon, isn't it?

Dr. Benjamin G. Davis was executive director of the Religious Coalition for Emergency Human Needs in Frederick from 1996-99, teaches theology at St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore and is president of the University of North America. To respond to his column, e-mail ben.davis35@verizon.net.