People always remind you to give people the benefit of the doubt because you don't know what's going on in their lives. This is one of those hard things to practice even if it's easy to preach. Often we find out after the fact what was going on in that person's life (if we ever find out at all) and I suppose you have to hope that when/if you do find out that you don't regret your actions upon knowing their backstory.
I think the biggest way people offend is through their words. I remember sitting in a circle of people all the way back in middle school hearing people joke about how "that test is gonna rape me" which i never liked.. But it hit me even harder when I learned that one of my friends in that circle had been raped. Think for a moment how she felt every time someone misused the word rape in that way, pushing her to recall something unpleasant and feel like she was surrounded by a bunch of people who were insensitive to her pain.
I myself have never liked when people used the term "that's so gay" to mean something stupid or otherwise undesirable. I may not agree with living a gay lifestyle but that doesn't mean that their struggle or their experience should be vilified into some ridiculous colloquialism. I have felt the pain of someone speaking negatively about something I identified myself as and while I know they would never assume that was something I identified with, I still didn't appreciate the attitude from someone I was supposed to feel safe with.
And that's the thing. Sitting around with a bunch of people you're close to, you might assume you can say things you might not otherwise say.. But sometimes it's better to keep your filter on.. Because you don't know if there are people in your audience that may forever feel unsafe telling you something about themselves after your moment of bluntness. To me that is a sad loss, losing someone's trust, losing the ability to make them feel safe...
Keeping your filter on doesn't have to mean not expressing those opinions even in a circle of people you feel close with, or with people you believe share your opinion... It just means that you should strive to still present those opinions in a way that does not show disrespect. Differences of opinion are OK. Different ideologies are OK. Differences in lifestyle are OK. And differences in how we experience things are OK. But I do not believe in hate. And I do not believe in showing disrespect toward any group, experience, lifestyle, ideology or opinion. And you shouldn't either if you want people to feel safe in being themselves, and expressing themselves, and sharing intimate things about themselves with or around you.
You might think that it's their job to choose not to be offended by your words. And that's true. But you are forcing them to make that choice. Having been in that position myself, I have thought, "Well, I can choose to believe that they are just using the term colloquially and do not realize the pain I feel when using it" or "They don't mean to hurt me personally with their words" But even after making that decision, they still might no longer be someone I feel safe bringing up certain topics with. That doesn't mean some of those people weren't able to earn back that sense of trust and safety, but regardless, you have to consider that at one time or another, that might have been you. You have probably made someone feel unsafe in representing some part of themselves to you. I have even learned of doing it myself to one of my dearest friends, and even my spouse. I believe that if you are truly striving to be Christlike in all of your interactions that this kind of pain and loss of safety will never happen. (Perhaps with some exceptions since people doing evil never feel comfortable being chastised, of course.) But there ya go. That's my belief and my recommendation to you. Be Christlike, Be Kind. Be Mindful.
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