Greetings Dear Reader,
In Virginia Beach, there is a seafood buffet called George’s
Seafood Buffet. It is vast, elegant, and
the best buffet I have ever experienced.
One could not possibly try everything.
Still, I ponder returning to it to see if the repast matches my memory.
Buffets are one of my favorite ways to dine out. It is not the volume so much as the variety
that entices me. I do not have to know
what I want until I see it. I can get a
salad, meat, and vegetables in a variety that suits my mood of the moment. Buffets are also one of the things that are
dangerous for me. They are temples to
gluttony where one can worship or not.
Like so many things the idea of the buffet is a good one until one
crosses the line overeating.
There are other buffets that have nothing to do with
food. There exist in our opulent society, many choices about many things. Shopping
malls host a vast smorgasbord of choices for clothing, jewelry, and electronics. We are given enticements through discounts,
buyer rewards, and sales. There are even
social buffets.
We live in a culture where every single day we are offered a
bounty of things over which we can choose to be offended. To see this clearly is to recognize that
being offended is a choice. Like every
response, we may train our brains to be automatically angered or offended by something
but it is still a choice. That we choose
often enough for it to become a reflex is always on us.
If we survey the bounty of offenses available in our culture,
there is something for every faith, ideology, passion, and political position. We can find something to offend us for every
meal or mood. We have become a society
of the perpetually offended. The
difficulty is that we are never meant to dine at this buffet. We are supposed to be people who are forgiving,
loving, and merciful.
If we dine on offenses, we become angry, bitter, and
hard. When we are guided by our
offenses, we must constantly feed them. It
is my obligation not to feed on anger or offense. It is my duty to filter everything that comes
at me through the love of Christ. Even
if something is offensive on the face of it, we are not obligated to take up the
offense. I must choose to avoid being
offended as often as possible. I must not
visit the buffet of offenses offered daily but, rather, I must focus on being
kind and loving with equal measure for everyone.
I can stand against injustice, prejudice, and hatred without
being angry or hating. I can offer a healthy diet of love, generosity, kindness, and grace to anyone who will dine
with me. I can offer samples of these
things to entice others to feed on that which gives life by being lovingly
unoffendable. I can choose to ignore the
Liturgy of the Common Man that entices me to feast on offense and instead take
a seat at the bounty of love and grace.
You are always welcome to dine with me here Dear Reader.
Wishing you joy in the journey,
Aramis Thorn
Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every
writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a
homeowner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure
store.”
(͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Contacts for Aramis
Thorn:
#aramisthorn
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