There’s a high chance that some of you are trying to make unoffence (or unoffense for you Americans out there) into a word right now.
How about ‘no offence’ or ‘unoffensive’?
‘No offence’ often precedes the word ‘but’. So, “no offence, but…” is someone about to say something offensive and attempting to soften the blow. In reality, the warning gives us a few moments to throw all our walls up and start overanalysing whatever comes out their mouth next.
If we give them the benefit of the doubt, they may be genuinely trying to provide constructive criticism; but without an invitation to speak into our lives, all their best intentions may not land as they hope.
‘Unoffensive’ describes the message. It doesn’t capture the response of the receiver. It is possible for someone to receive an unoffensive message and take offence at it. Check out the internet and you’ll find this in action.
Before we explore the word I’m thinking of, let’s look at one other angle. When we describe someone who is carrying offence, we express it as ‘taking’ offence. Perhaps therefore, finding the opposite of taking offence requires giving something.
We could give them the benefit of the doubt. But stronger than that, we could give, or extend them, some grace.
There it is. The opposite of offence is grace.
Not the kind of grace we say before a meal. The other kind.
Grace has a few meanings. They all apply here.
First, smoothness and elegance of movement. When we extend grace, we demonstrate strength of character. By not taking offence, we maintain the flow in our relationship, smoothing the way for clarification, correction or change. The conversation continues, the criticism is assessed and assimilated, the communication remains clear.
In contrast, taking offence shines a spotlight on our insecurity, blocks the flow of communication so that we can’t resolve the issue and breaks down the relationship itself.
Smoothness and elegance are captured in the word gracious. We describe someone as gracious when we admire the ease with which they navigate life.
Secondly, courteous goodwill. When we extend grace, we strengthen the position of both people and the relationship. We show the other person that their opinion matters. They can express themselves without upsetting us. We become a safe person that they can be open and honest with. We can hear them out without them losing relationship (necessarily – occasionally we will conclude that the relationship needs to change form, but we can do that without taking offence).
Honouring another person, even when they’re being offensive, and being courteous because we value them, regardless of their behaviour, says a lot about our heart toward them.
We become a pillar of strength. They do not hold sway over our feelings. If they’re manipulating us, they’ll quickly pick up that those games don’t work here. Having the strength of character not to buckle will lead to greater respect, even if they don’t have the strength of character to accept it.
Thirdly, undeserved favour. Enjoy this one. You can even revel in the undeserved bit for a moment. But then it gets challenging. Some people live with a constant tally system: I did that for you, you owe me. For these people, extending undeserved favour is going to hurt. It’s right there in the description – undeserved. Wrestle with it if you like. Extending undeserved favour will mess with your ego. They don’t deserve it!! That is the point.
Extending grace can be a challenge. It goes against our nature and our sense of right and wrong. Our justice system naturally defaults to ‘you get what you deserve’ or ‘I’ve got to look out for number 1’. Giving undeserved favour to someone who is undermining or attacking us is counterintuitive.
Why would we do it?
It shows that we value them. When others give us the benefit of the doubt or show us grace when we do something stupid, we appreciate it. Relationship is restored. We know that receiving an expression of grace is a joy. It is a gift. Giving them something they can’t earn is probably one of life’s greatest gifts. The golden rule – do unto others what you would have them do to you – shows that we have considered their perspective and thought through our response.
It is healthy for our own wellbeing not to carry around yesterday’s troubles. Each day has enough troubles of its own. I could tell when I was overtired or carrying too much on the days that I was cranky with my dog. He was a black labrador, a friendly, low maintenance dog, pretty consistent and eager to please. Occasionally I got frustrated walking him, but I knew that it wasn’t him. Those were the days that I planned an early night or some down time to pull myself together.
When we don’t let things go, we carry around much more than we can handle. I have a friend who I shop with every 6 months or so. We used to buy ridiculous amounts of clothes. We carried copious amounts of heavy bags around from store to store, blocking aisles, getting caught on racks and stopping to allow the blood to flow through our fingers. We learned to take those bags of clothes back to the car at lunchtime and start fresh. It made the whole day more enjoyable. Since then, we have learned to buy less; an even better solution!
For those of us on a faith journey, forgiving and valuing others reflects our growth. We can’t always do it on our own, our natural tendencies towards selfishness are in constant tension with the selflessness it takes to forgive another. When we’re in relationship with our creator, words like surrender and self-control which are out of our reach, slowly grow and transform us to be people who consider others and display aspects of a character greater than our own. We transform from who we used to be into someone new.
We pass on something that we’ve experienced. When we’ve experienced grace, receiving something that we don’t deserve, that can be a catalyst to pass that experience on for someone else to enjoy. When you don’t know what grace feels like to receive, you’re probably not going to bother with it. But when you know what it is to receive that gift, you’re more likely to want to share it.
The opposite of offence isn’t to become unoffensive. That’s never going to be enough. If someone has already taken offence at you, the most innocuous thing can be interpreted the wrong way. Being unoffensive isn’t going to help when you’re already walking on eggshells.
No offence, but you can’t counter offence by pulling back.
Offence is focussed on self. It is a posture of taking. It carries an ‘air’ or a ‘spirit’ about it. The more someone carries offence, the more obvious it is to those around them.
Operating in the opposite spirit, giving without making things even, controlling our responses: those things show grace.
Extend grace. It’s a radical departure from ‘normal’, but it’ll transform you.
