It’s ok to get offended
What matters is how we respond to that offense.
If I have offended you, know that my intention in offending was to challenge you. It is not ever my goal to ridicule, shame, or belittle you. Any belittling of ideas is just that, a belittling of ideas, not personhood. For more, please see posts in the Common Ground USA blog: Call Your Friends Fools & Thank you for disagreeing.
If you clicked here because you are mad that I hold a certain idea. You’re welcome. That’s the good stuff. Squeeze all you can out of it.
Never forget… The truth is safe!
It can take any & all scrutiny from good or bad theses. Any belief that is indeed true, can and will be strengthened when tested.
Without this understanding, we will always cringe and run from challenging ideas. At one point, all the beliefs you hold most dear disrupted a “consensus-established truth.” Getting offended is more than just ok; it is the only way forward. We must learn to break, harness & bridle offense. We must welcome it as a fellow journeymen on our road toward fulfillment and purpose.
We must get out of our own way. Most will nod their head at the sentences above, but when our core views are tested, we still run, writhe, and wriggle from the mere thought of our “precious” being questioned. We must determine to let even those beliefs stand the test of fire.
Great things are always held in great tension. One of these tensions is the balance between meeting people where they are and pushing them to think anew.
Maturity is truly the ability to bring others along with you. And it is my goal to offend you enough to let you follow each offense to its very root. When offended, keep asking why, why, why.
The road of offense always leads to treasure. And with topics like these, there is going to be a gold mine. It is my intent to offend you because it is my intent to offend myself. On our journeys, if the things we learn never offend us, we are simply furthering the entrenchment of our current beliefs. And for some, that’s the goal. But for the rest, it is for us to overcome offense in order that we might experience progress. Offense that is left unattended is the root of so much hatred and even war. It is no doubt an uphill struggle, but the good news is:
If you don’t quit, you win.
Some will tell us to stay away from offensive content, they tell us certain topics are dirty & unclean. They are cultish religious fanatics who blindly manifest the very fundamentalism they profess to abhor. These prophets of faux intellectualism should be ignored. These pariahs feed off attention; their kryptonite is irrelevance.
This fight is a battle for the sovereignty of our minds. If, in our addiction to comfort we run from offense and refuse to wrestle with words, we will eventually be dragged to war. We can not escape truth’s victory: it comes by word, it comes by blood. We get to choose between the two.
There are no other options. So speak up.
Remember, restoration alone brings victory
Being offended is an inevitable call to action. Like it or not, with every offense, by thought, word, and deed, we will either seek to restore or destroy. Every offense brings us to that fork in the yellow wood. One road is easy and comes with applause; the other is less traveled. Way indeed leads onto way; our stewardship of small offenses will direct us towards our response in our life's most hingent moments. Without restoration, victory is not victory; it is a seed for a greater destruction, a deeper sadness, and the feeling of being utterly alone. Ultimately if our response to being offended does not lead us to restore, we have, and we are already lost.
There are few guarantees in life, but I, with the utmost confidence, guarantee your pursuit through offense will bring good things.
Please come along with me in this adventure, let’s do this together. If at any time you have something to say.
Contact me here. I need to hear what you have to say.
