Why Take ‘A Fence’?

If I take ‘a fence’
(yes, that’s a play on the word ‘offence’)
and put that fence up between you and I,
I put up a barrier —
because I chose to respond in hurt —
I break the peace between you and I —
and I commit to carrying something heavy
at least wherever you or I are together.
Taking ‘a fence’ is onerous and heavy.
But, worst of all, it breaks relationship.

Taking ‘a fence’ is always a choice we make. Certainly, we can still make a choice to not associate with a certain person; but making a choice to respond in a way that doesn’t take ‘a fence’ means I can always respect you, no matter what you have done to me. I just will not automatically give you unequivocal access to my life. Yet, there need not be any barrier of offence between us.

Proverbs 16:7 (NRSV) says:

When the ways of people please the Lord,
he causes even their enemies to be at peace with them.

There are certainly times in our lives when we need to protect ourselves from the abuses of others. But just as commonly, and even more so, there is the phenomenon of our taking offence when someone has hurt us. We can separate these persons from our lives without adding insult to them from our injury.

Indeed, the best retaliation is to install a firm boundary
and to install it respectfully with immediacy.
Such a ‘retaliation’ maintains our emotional control.
It resists empowering their pride because we infracted them.
Why give your abuser fuel for justifying more cruel behaviour?

We choose to take offence, and sometimes we may even insist on it, justifying it because it is our right, because we think we are right; that they were wrong. It doesn’t feel like a choice, but it is still the choice.

It’s inherently helpful, indeed it is empowering,
to see the pathology in our thinking.

At this point it is helpful to mention the progression of an idol. According to PeaceWise, we all have good desires that are not always met. We, therefore, are tempted to make demands out of our desires; in fact, we’re doing this all the time.

In other words, in our demanding that our desires be met, our attitude becomes one of judgement, and our behaviour quickly morphs into punishment. In short, we become capable of behaving cruelly.

Our human nature is to punish
those who frustrate our goals; those that hurt us.
It is good to be honest about this.

Of course, there is a better way. Instead of making an idol out of the thing we were offended about, we could simply appreciate the complexity of the conflict we have become aware of. We find it interesting. Instead of feeling offended about their behaviour, or even ashamed for our taking ‘a fence’, we explore and grieve the wrong of the situation with God. Hence, we learn.

It piques our curiosity. We are to remember that there are many factors we cannot understand, let alone comprehend; all we can see is what, for that time, we can see. For instance, how much of their perception is actually theirs? If their perception is theirs and theirs alone, and it is, assuming they are normal like us and have a mind of their own, we are better to accept the complexity of humanity (theirs and ours) in the conflict — given that as far as we’re concerned every other person is basically incomprehensible to us, especially in conflict. It’s only by good grace that people give themselves to us in good favour, and we to them.

Finally, it must be said in all this, that, whilst there are so many of us who take offence, there are those too who give offence as their modus operandi. We must be prepared to leave them to God. (More on this at a later time.)

We dare not arm those who give offence by taking offence.

Acknowledgement: to Rob Douglas for the idea that offence is something we take i.e. we choose to take.

Image: Photo by Mitch Lensink on Unsplash