of·fen·ded

Several months ago, my dad showed me a podcast episode by Woman Being that asked "Can Christians be gay?" and related questions of queerness & spirituality (if you're looking for more podcasts or book recommendations on this topic, I have many). Apart from the fact that there were too many Chatty Cathies on the mic, the episode was compelling - they were interviewing Jared Edskerud, a Christian actor who met his husband years ago on a movie set and now advocates for LGBTQ+ people in the church. He shared that he and his husband long ago made a decision that has shaped their interactions and guarded their hearts in a simple, powerful way since: They choose not to get offended. It may seem like choosing to never get offended is like choosing to never again be kicked in the face or get a charley horse - like yeah, that'd be nice, but it's not really in our control is it? Wrong. Well, not about the kicking/charley horse situation - shit happens - but about them being comparable (ok I'm sorry to interrupt, but the apples & oranges comparison from My Big Fat Greek Wedding just popped into my head, and my eyes watered a bit). They're not the same thing: hurt and offense. I cannot choose whether someone's words hurt me, whether they poke at my dignity or highlight my insecurities, whether they make me slink away with my tail between my legs or shatter any recently solidified sense of resilience. Believe me, it's relatively easy to hurt me. I'm a Four; my confidence is fleeting. I can, however, choose whether to take offense at what others say. Being hurt by something is being injured or damaged by it - hurtful words/actions can make us feel small, unimportant, misrepresented or unintelligent. Being offended is letting yourself feel attacked - this often leads to harboring resentment, negatively shaping our perception of the offender. In my eyes, taking offense holds the hurt inside. And when you hold your hurt inside, like taking any other unwanted emotion hostage, you prevent it from surfacing in a way that's proven to release it. You reject mutually educational conversation that can help heal whatever hurt may have been inflicted. You refuse to extract the bullet or stinger from your wounded flesh. In the podcast, Jared explains,

"You always have the right to judge people’s actions; you will never have the right to judge people’s hearts. Only [God] will know. And in the moment you’ve stepped over into thinking you have the right to judge someone’s heart, you are already wrong."

There are endless reasons why people do the things they do that hurt us. They may have misinterpreted something we said or did. They could be projecting their own insecurity or offloading the shrapnel of a recent argument. Maybe they just don't understand us or want to distance themselves from us because they think they do. Maybe they're trying to impress someone with their testosteronal aggression. Maybe they're just tired and don't realize how their actions could penetrate us. Since we can't read minds (not that I would want to - can you imagine?) or hearts, it's honestly a waste of time and energy to take offense at what people say or do to us. We're familiar with "Stick and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." This adage used to come off as a gross concoction of toxic masculinity and naïveté to me, like an unfeeling guardrail, incompatible with my own cherished attribute of empathy. However, these days I choose to embrace the phrase, with one slight modification: "but words will never offend me". Let me share an example:

I was walking home with a friend of mine, rounding the corner past a neighborhood ice cream shop, brushing up against the hydrangea bushes and steel gates that line the side streets of Lakeview. We were discussing astrology and how I can't really relate to my Scorpio sign since the archetype is typically hard on the exterior but with a soft emotional interior. I explained that I see myself as someone who has a soft exterior and interior, to which he said that he sees me as the opposite of a Scorpio, as someone with a soft exterior but a hard interior. He explained that I easily and warmly let others into my outer circle but am pretty restrictive about letting people access the meaningful parts of me. I was confused, and a long minute later I shared, "the reason I'm being pretty quiet is I'm thinking about that comment - I don't super understand what you mean." He apologized in a panicked backpedal, which I cut short with, "I'm not offended at all by it! I just don't know what you mean and don't want to come off as cold." We continued the conversation, wherein he explained his experience around the emotional boundaries I'd put up in our relationship. I was then able to explain to him that in our case I had erected those walls because of our uniquely complicated past. His comment was not meant as an insult or a character judgement, but rather an observation, maybe even an expression of the hurt I'd inadvertently caused him. The tension I felt from his initial comment and the pain and fear that it briefly sparked were defused by my choice to omit the offense, the resentment-crafting emotional shield, and ask questions about the thing that hurt.

More poignant examples include times when sharing something vulnerable and/or exciting is met with cold silence or disapproval; when you learn after-the-fact that a close friend was in town and didn't reach out; or when your interests are dismissed for not aligning with the group's. Each of these suck. They're worth addressing and could even shift relationships. But if you keep the door locked to the Room of Offense and remain in the Room Where it Happened, you're bypassing the most unnecessary phase of conflict. This is all idyllic; I'm aware. I'm not pretending like I've just solved the issue of "being offended" and certainly not of "people being offensive." There are times to react and to fight back - when people are racist, sexist homophobes, reactions cannot always take the form of gentle diplomacy. But I think that even in the context of fighting for necessary change, choosing a position of resilience amidst pain (which requires a great deal of humility, zooming out, and articulation) actually protects the hurting parties in their work. It allows them to walk away if the "hurters" choose to continue being horrible, and it fosters productive conversation if they choose to listen and change. Take from this what serves you.