We were taught this as children (80s and before?), not in a way to pity or feel sorry for another's feelings, but awareness for how we affect others. It's how I try to help my children sort themselves out too - because rifts happen among family, much less with different-looking strangers. Thanks for a powerful message, George.
I must say, your writing has left a strong impression on me. I'd like to explore the concept of unintentional offense and how it affects others. With great writing power comes great responsibility, doesn't it? As someone who's studied boundaries, I'm eager to learn about your strategies.
Unconditional love, agapé, has only one underlying strategy, that of making all others more important without being against ourselves. It means loving those who love us and those who hate us -- by seeing (envisioning in technical terms) past the latter's blindness and recognizing their true value, always worth loving. Unintentional offenses occur before the conscience can prevent them. When we love the enemies of conscience, they are a great opportunity to forgive and express that agapé.
Loving those who love us and those who do not frees us from making boundaries to distinguish them -- so that our conscience is free to treat them the same at least in terms of perspective. This automatically makes their conscience more important, for it is in greater need. We do not have to worry whether their offenses are unintentional or intentional, for with agapé. we will forgive them either way.
The goal is to help them restore their conscience or at least leave it in a better state, which, unless they are serving our conscience, they cannot do for themselves. For if they are serving their own, when we unintentionally offend them, their conscience will demand the right to offend us back in an addictive way.
When we are offended by their offensive words or actions, it is mostly due to our failure to make others more important, failing to see spiritual blindness in them. Agapé is never ashamed or offended. When our agapé is restored, we can take advantage of the situation and apologize for our offensive reaction to build new or improved relationships.
The social environment of the conscience (suneidesis) is complex, but it can be restored one offense at a time if we have agapé. In one case, it may appear that someone is not aware enough to know when others are being offensive toward them, when, in fact, they may know it but are serving the offenders' consciences and it is they who are not aware enough. In another case, two parties may be offending each other addictively. If one is aware of it, they seek an end to it and are receptive to our agapé. The name of the game is endurance.
Groups often define offensiveness their own way with a self-serving group conscience. Defending it in each other, their tactics including uniting against acknowledging the possibility of unintentional offenses by outsiders, tying it to real or rumored failures in the offender. For the very thought of others having a self-less conscience threatens their self-serving group conscience and all their rationalizations. The dynamics of the group conscience are no different than the individual one, but enduring it with agapé can face more attacks. But it can also be easier to help when one of the group hears you and turns the tide.
Making others more important with agapé works with the truth that none of us have anything that was not given to us in life by Name. Offending others works with thinking we are the source of something and deserve to be treated better than others. With the humility of agapé though, we are all given the greatest blessing of knowing how to love the least among us. See The Practical Guide: https://georgeallenbooks.substack.com/i/158417260/the-practical-guide
In time, endurance builds agapé stronger than life and death in all of us. This is necessary since, sometimes, we face those who, sadly, offend with hatred stronger than death. Such is the spiritual warfare of the world suneidesis. So with great writing power comes the responsibility of turning every situation of the conscience into a learning experience for all.
We were taught this as children (80s and before?), not in a way to pity or feel sorry for another's feelings, but awareness for how we affect others. It's how I try to help my children sort themselves out too - because rifts happen among family, much less with different-looking strangers. Thanks for a powerful message, George.
Thank you for staying on the right path since childhood.
I must say, your writing has left a strong impression on me. I'd like to explore the concept of unintentional offense and how it affects others. With great writing power comes great responsibility, doesn't it? As someone who's studied boundaries, I'm eager to learn about your strategies.
Unconditional love, agapé, has only one underlying strategy, that of making all others more important without being against ourselves. It means loving those who love us and those who hate us -- by seeing (envisioning in technical terms) past the latter's blindness and recognizing their true value, always worth loving. Unintentional offenses occur before the conscience can prevent them. When we love the enemies of conscience, they are a great opportunity to forgive and express that agapé.
Loving those who love us and those who do not frees us from making boundaries to distinguish them -- so that our conscience is free to treat them the same at least in terms of perspective. This automatically makes their conscience more important, for it is in greater need. We do not have to worry whether their offenses are unintentional or intentional, for with agapé. we will forgive them either way.
The goal is to help them restore their conscience or at least leave it in a better state, which, unless they are serving our conscience, they cannot do for themselves. For if they are serving their own, when we unintentionally offend them, their conscience will demand the right to offend us back in an addictive way.
When we are offended by their offensive words or actions, it is mostly due to our failure to make others more important, failing to see spiritual blindness in them. Agapé is never ashamed or offended. When our agapé is restored, we can take advantage of the situation and apologize for our offensive reaction to build new or improved relationships.
The social environment of the conscience (suneidesis) is complex, but it can be restored one offense at a time if we have agapé. In one case, it may appear that someone is not aware enough to know when others are being offensive toward them, when, in fact, they may know it but are serving the offenders' consciences and it is they who are not aware enough. In another case, two parties may be offending each other addictively. If one is aware of it, they seek an end to it and are receptive to our agapé. The name of the game is endurance.
Groups often define offensiveness their own way with a self-serving group conscience. Defending it in each other, their tactics including uniting against acknowledging the possibility of unintentional offenses by outsiders, tying it to real or rumored failures in the offender. For the very thought of others having a self-less conscience threatens their self-serving group conscience and all their rationalizations. The dynamics of the group conscience are no different than the individual one, but enduring it with agapé can face more attacks. But it can also be easier to help when one of the group hears you and turns the tide.
Making others more important with agapé works with the truth that none of us have anything that was not given to us in life by Name. Offending others works with thinking we are the source of something and deserve to be treated better than others. With the humility of agapé though, we are all given the greatest blessing of knowing how to love the least among us. See The Practical Guide: https://georgeallenbooks.substack.com/i/158417260/the-practical-guide
In time, endurance builds agapé stronger than life and death in all of us. This is necessary since, sometimes, we face those who, sadly, offend with hatred stronger than death. Such is the spiritual warfare of the world suneidesis. So with great writing power comes the responsibility of turning every situation of the conscience into a learning experience for all.