Our ER is busy.
You see, I work at a trauma center, so during my shifts, I see heart attacks, gunshot wounds, overdoses, car accidents, strokes, thirty-foot falls, and all sorts of other things divinity school didn’t prepare me for. In my role as a chaplain, I often run interference, sitting with anxious or angry family members while my colleagues piece their patients back together on the other side of the security door. I have to keep my cool when people shout or cry or swear at me, and all the while, I still need to love them. Honestly, I fail at it more often than I succeed, but I work with an amazing team of chaplains who happily embrace their roles as mentors, and in all this, there’s one three-word koan they’ve given me that cycles in my mind throughout the day:

Take no offense.

Our patients have often been through hell. Whether they’re in the ER due to acts of violence or horrific accidents or their bodies just breaking down, our patients are under tremendous strain. Their family members feel it too, and they’re often looking for anyone to vent to (or vent at). I remember the first few times I had someone blow up at me or give me a cold shoulder. I found myself wondering what I had done wrong. But that’s when I learned those three great words: take no offense. Nine times out of ten, a person’s reaction to me has nothing to do with me, so why take it personally?

In the months since I started working there, I’ve found myself taking this philosophy beyond the hospital. A student lashes out when he or she isn’t progressing quickly enough. Take no offense. An old friend comes out of the woodwork on social media only to express outrage at my political views. Take no offense. A first-time visitor to a bible study sees my Christianity as contrary to his own. Take no offense. So often, the people around us are facing issues outside our awareness and beyond our control. There is nothing we can do about these things, and they’re usually not our fault anyway.
So take no offense, show compassion, and then move on with life.

I wonder what would happen if we could take this philosophy into every space. What if, rather than taking each other’s remarks personally the second they’re uttered, we took a moment to peel back the motivations and see what was going on underneath?
What if we took no offense around the dinner table?
Around the water cooler?
In the social media space?
How might our conversations —how might our treatment of each other— be different?