De-Chip Your Shoulders
Fresh Start , Issue 16

It's is my habit to try to dechip my shoulders. Why do Christians have such a tremendous capacity to take offense? Most of what hurts and offends us are matters of the highest inconsequence. Why do some Christians have on their shoulder not a chip but the whole tree? I've known some Christians to be so angry and argumentative that they can't even take yes for an answer.

If you go looking for "offenses," there will be no end of them. Some people think I'm hard of hearing. My hearing is fine. I'm just hard of taking offense. I don't have to scold every inanity, confront every insanity, or rebuke every obscenity. Groucho Marx even gave me a way of not fighting every battle by making someone think I'm agreeing with him even when I'm not and while telling him I'm not. "I cannot say that I do not disagree with you," Groucho liked to say to contentious guests on his show.

Excerpted from "Learn to Dance the Soul Salsa" by Leonard Sweet, PhD

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