I noticed in the last 4 hours that we all are excellent masters of the art of offending each other; and yet we do not realize it. We choose to become offended by something someone did to us. Then when you talk to the one who "offended" you, they get offended because we thought they were offending us. (So both of us are offended even though we both never planned on being offended.) The thing is that none of us actually wake up in the morning and plan on offending. I have realized that friendships can break due to becoming offended. Today I had an experience where something happened to me, and I reacted to it and became offended. It wasn't long before I realized that the only thing I can control is my reaction to situations. The person had not done the action to offend me. A friend of mine also had an experience like mine this morning.
Throughout church, I was shown that we all tend to get offended easily. We think that everyone is out to get us, and we react to every little thing. When in reality, few people really choose to offend others. I don't think that offending is something someone does to us, but rather something we do to ourselves because of the way we choose to see reality. We choose to get annoyed, angry, and feel resentment. I think we also have to realize that things we do can seem offensive. Knowing that, we must act accordingly - either through kindness, love and reaching out to others.
It reminds me of an interaction between Inspector Javert and Val Jean in Les Miserables. Javert thinks he has wrongfully accused Monsieur la Mayor of being a convict and he tells Val Jean to punish him, to dismiss him from his post because of this offensive action. The knowledge that a man had denounced and accused another man would seem offensive to anyone, but Val Jean does not dismiss Javert. He forgives him. Javert is astounded by this turn of events, because any "normal" person would be greatly offended and wish to take make the offender pay. We have to be like Jean Val Jean though and take no offense. We cannot dwell on how we all are human and are inescapable of doing things we don't know we are doing.
It just amazed me today while sitting in church how easily we as fellowcitizens of this world can break ties, ruin friendships, and create rifts just because we misunderstand each other and choose to be easily offended. It has taught me an extremely valuable lesson.
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