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Good Morning, The announcement that a Northern Ireland Brexit deal had been agreed seemed to come out of nowhere. Indeed, it would be easy for a public, jaded and worn down by this seemingly intractable problem, to miss its significance. Subject to others’ approval, could it be that an unsolvable puzzle has been solved? It turns out that it didn’t come out of nowhere. People have been working for weeks in secret, away from the crosswinds of comment, shut up for hours in badly lit rooms, drinking stewed coffee and eating stale biscuits, analysing, listening, compromising. Commentators spoke of timing, trust and intensity of focus being key. But it wasn’t the Wisdom of Solomon that got the deal done; it was something less dramatic. The difference, according to EU President, Ursula Von der Leyen, was that there had been a constructive attitude from the beginning. It turns out that the protocol required to sort out the Protocol was simply practising basic courtesy towards the other negotiators in the room. Like the Good Friday Agreement, which was reached 25 years ago next month, this week’s deal is testimony to the idea of compromising for the greater good – that is, the good that goes beyond our own present wants. Peace being the goal. And yet compromise is a dirty word for some in this increasingly uncompromising world. Perhaps we have too much reverence for the ideal of the intransigent leader. I don’t know why. The adversarial, macho approach to negotiation isn’t working. Indeed, it often leads to conflict. How many countries are crying out for their leaders to get into those badly lit rooms and compromise their way to peace? In his Letter to the Corinthians, Paul, a man committed to his cause, said ‘Though I am free, I make myself subservient to everyone, to win as many as possible. To those under law I became like one under the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak.’ Paul became all things to all people so that by all possible means he might lead people to a greater good. If His God can compromise, then so can he. Life itself is one gigantic compromise. It is an inevitable reality. But when motivated by the telos of a greater good, it makes sense. It just takes leaders willing to risk losing their own power, and status, in order to win something that lies out of sight and imagination. They have to hope against hope for others – the next generation – for something they themselves may not live to enjoy. This is so much braver than those who refuse to set aside their right to be right. Blessed are the compromisers. They may not inherit the earth themselves, but others might because of their actions.