I can\u2019t breathe without offending someone.<\/p>\n
Literally.<\/p>\n
And neither can you.<\/p>\n
I breathe in the wrong direction. I breathe at the wrong time. I breathe from the wrong distance. I breathe with my face covered. I breathe with my face uncovered.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t breathe without offending someone.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t live if I don\u2019t breathe.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t live without offending someone.<\/p>\n
Welcome to the process of reopening from the coronavirus lock-down.<\/p>\n
Face it: we\u2019re all going to offend someone, multiple someones, multiple times, every day. The fantasy of living with others in non-offense is gone.<\/p>\n
If I\u2019m masked-up, I automatically eliminate and exclude some who have trouble hearing. My voice is muffled by my mask; they cannot see my lips. My mask says to them, \u201cYou don\u2019t matter. I care more about myself or other things or other people than you and your participation.\u201d<\/p>\n
If I\u2019m unmasked, I automatically eliminate and exclude some who are in a high-risk group for one reason or another, or are fearful. My unmasked face says to them, \u201cYou don\u2019t matter. I care more about other things and other people than you, your health, and\/or your feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n
So I have to breathe. I have to breathe out<\/em> my offense at being tagged as offensive, my defensiveness, my frustration, my explanations, my exhortations, my demands, my opinions, my view of \u201cthe facts.\u201d I must breathe out my offense at being offensive. I have to breathe in<\/em> the Holy Spirit\u2019s presence; His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.<\/p>\n I have to breathe not just air, but humility, because I am<\/em> going to offend someone. I don\u2019t want to, but I won\u2019t be able not to offend someone. My breathing offends; so my being offends.<\/p>\n How can we ever navigate these treacherous waters of re-opening?<\/p>\n \u201cNot by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.\u201d Only a God-filled people will find a way to be together, overcoming inevitable offenses with inexhaustible grace. Only a God-filled people will find a way to live together in love, service, unselfishness, and other-centeredness \u2026 while still finding a way to breathe.<\/p>\n This is our moment. Now is the time. Either we prove able to be the church or we will show what we really are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I can\u2019t breathe without offending someone. Literally. And neither can you. I breathe in the wrong direction. I breathe at the wrong time. I breathe from the wrong distance. I breathe with my face covered. I breathe with my face uncovered. I can\u2019t breathe without offending someone. I can\u2019t live if I don\u2019t breathe. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","post-preview"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sgYGxX-offense","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3208"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3209,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208\/revisions\/3209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}