Taking Offense...

A number of months ago, during the fall, we were getting ready to pour concrete in the backyard. In preparation, we had torn up a lot of pre-existing vegetation. What we didn’t know was that there was a nest of sun spiders living in that part of our yard, and our activity had agitated them. Over the following few weeks, we were finding the little buggers in our kitchen, on our patio, hanging from walls, and just about everywhere else you’d never want to find a sun spider. We hadn’t meant to take away their humble abode, but that didn’t exactly matter much to them. They were angry, just the same.

I’m actually going somewhere with this, believe it or not. I don’t get my kicks by sharing pointless stories of residential infestations.

But this somehow reminded me of an experience I had years ago when I was a new member. It had only been a few months since my baptism and I was sitting in Elder’s Quorum. We were talking about same sex marriage because, as is typical of Elder’s Quorum meetings, we often got off topic from actual doctrine. Although I don’t remember what the real lesson was about, I recall that I grew very uncomfortable by the new topic. All too recently I had the sad realization that, despite being baptized, I was still gay. As such, it was a bit of a sore subject for me.

I believe that’s why I was aware of Brother Morris’ comment. He was responding to a rise in contention over same sex marriage and although I don’t remember exactly what he said as commentary, I remember noticing how out of harmony with Christ’s teachings it was.

And whether his comment was accurate or not wasn’t the issue. I had been offended and, even now with more than four years separating me from that instance, whenever I see Brother Morris, I remember what he said so long ago. In a way, I’m renewing that offense which he didn’t even knew he was giving.

More recently, I was at a friend’s house playing games. The friend, Gary Tiggle, randomly brought up the conversation of gay people. I inwardly cringed, knowing that no good could come from this.

“Yeah, so President MacBell,” Gary said, referring to our Branch President, “was talking in PEC the other day and in the middle, he just randomly asked us if we know anything about homosexuality.”

Gary laughed, saying, “Well, I told him that I knew that it was an awkward subject.” He laughed again, as did everyone else who was there playing games. I just sat there, trying to think of a polite way to jump to the next topic.

In a way, I felt like those sun spiders that got stirred up while we were preparing to pour concrete. (See, I told you there was a point to that story!) We didn’t mean to upset them. We didn’t even know they were there! But they were unsettled just the same. And, without home, they began hanging out in ours. Not appreciating their presence, we usually killed them. Which, keeping to the analogy, seems kind of weird since I likened myself to the sun spiders.

This leads me to my next story, and the second half of the post.

Recently, at institute, I heard an interesting story. The teacher, Brother Jones, was explaining how he once visited an old friend of his who kept a rattlesnake farm.

“And just as the name suggests,” Brother Jones said, “it was a farm where they raised rattlesnakes. Why would anyone want to raise rattlesnakes? For the anti-venom.” He explained the process how the farmers raised the snakes for the soul purpose of obtaining the anti-venom. And, just for fun, the friend got out a rattlesnake to perform a little experiment for Brother Jones.

The guy held the snake behind the head and while the snake writhed under his grip, the friend told Brother Jones to drop a live mouse in front of the snake. Immediately after the mouse hit the ground, the snake doubled it’s effort to break free from the guy. And all the while, it was opening its mouth, exposing those fangs.

“You see those?” the guy asked, pointing to the fangs. “You see what is coming out of them? That’s the venom. Right now, he’d do just about anything to get at this snake, but just wait a moment.” After a moment, the snake suddenly went limp.

“Did it tucker itself out?” Brother Jones asked.

“No. It’s dead,” the man said, letting go of the snake. “You see, a rattlesnake just stand just about anything, except its own venom. In its anger, the snake actually killed itself.”

And, just as Brother Jones told the class, the point of the story was to that, we too hold a deadly venom in us. That venom is anger itself. We have lots of opportunities to be offended these days. One doesn’t even have to go looking for it. Offense will find you. But what we do with it when it comes is what defines us.

If we allow ourselves to hold onto our anger, it will eventually kill our spirits. We’ll begin to see nothing but the negative in everyone. We’ll get offended at everything.

In my case, instead of getting offended over these two individuals for comments that they made, I could have simply seen it for what it was: immaturity. Spiritual immaturity causes us to do and say all kinds of things that do not reflect the teachings of Jesus Christ very well. But, it is a sign of our own spiritual immaturity to become offended at those people. This is something I struggle with greatly. But, with any luck, one day I will learn how to forgive as the Savior taught. “I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.”