Hello again, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another episode of Freedom's Treaty. I hope that all is well in your life, and I appreciate you tuning in to another episode of the podcast. I know your time is valuable as is mine, so I want to get started right away today and talk about something that we've all heard about over the last few years, and that is this idea of canceling someone. It's commonly referred to as canceled culture. I actually believe it to be one of the most destructive forms of human behavior. None of us, nothing from history, can be canceled. The mere mention of the word cancel with respect to another human being is impossible. None of us can be canceled. In fact, it's an impossibility. A definition that I really like when referring to this kind of cancel is to bring to nothingness. In reality, then one cannot be canceled. Now we may not like what someone says, we may not like someone's beliefs, we may actually hate someone. But none of these issues can ever cancel another person. Only God can do that. And even then, though they may be invisible to our sight, he knows where they are. Is taking offense because of what someone else believes, thinks, says, or does a reason to attempt to try to ruin another person's life? One of the unfortunate answers to that question is that there are people in our country who want to do that very thing, to ruin someone else's life because of the way they believe, think, what they say, or what they do. And we cannot afford to have that happen. Another unfortunate aspect of our society today is that it seems to be more important that the feelings of other people are more important and in fact take precedence over the rights of the people to say the things that the First Amendment allows them to say. Now, I'm not advocating for being mean. I think that all people should be nice and try to treat other people with dignity and respect. I've said that before, I'll say it again, till my dying breath. I will say this. Occasionally, we hear of small businesses that sometimes are in the news because they refuse service to a customer, because maybe that customer doesn't share the business owner's religious beliefs or political affiliations or what have you. If you have a business, you're the creator of that small business, more power to you. However, when you go into business to provide a product or service to customers, there shouldn't be any quote-unquote conditions relating to the purchase of your product or receiving your services. One prominent example of that is the bakery that refused to make a cake for a same-sex couple. Now, as I understand it, and I don't know you if you have a business, but I think the reason why you got into business were probably a lot of reasons, but primarily to provide that service or product to your customers to make a better living than what you could perhaps make working for someone else. None of these things have anything to do with the lifestyle choices of other people. So just continue making your cakes and providing your product or your service to your customers and to hack with what they might believe or if they are different than you. Who cares? And just so you know, I'm not talking only to business owners. If you're a customer, which all of us pretty much are, and you don't like the service that you were given, or you think that you were snubbed or some other factor, guess what? Go somewhere else. Go somewhere you can get the product or service that you want, take your business elsewhere, and leave it alone. Don't ever go back to that establishment again. In fact, if you want to say horrible things about that establishment, then that's your right to do so. In all of this, it just seems to me that the sensitivity level of people in 21st century America is at an all-time high. And I don't think that's a good thing. I'm certainly not saying we're going to walk around like robots and not have any emotion at all. I'm just saying that we ought to be in control of them a little more often than we are sometimes. And I'm speaking to myself when I say that. So, what is it that often leads someone to want to cancel another person? Clearly, there seems to be as many reasons for someone to want to do that as there are people. In my view, it comes down to two emotions: anger and taking offense. People get angry because someone does something or says something they don't like. Often, anger and offense go hand in hand. Ultimately, when we take offense at something someone says or does, that's a choice we make. No one did that for us. We did that all on our own because we made the choice to do so. That's happened to all of us at one time or another in our lives, maybe even multiple times. So don't take offense at what I just said. Or don't get angry and throw something across the room. And no, I won't be apologizing for my little snicker. And I don't mean a candy bar. The bottom line, when we get angry, we can't just say, oh, the devil made me do it. That's a cop-out. We all know that. It doesn't happen much anymore, but it happened in my parents' generation more than my own, I suppose. I don't remember really saying that phrase much as a kid or even as a young adult. Here's what a prominent leader in my church once said, and I think it's some really wise counsel. He said, We hear I lost my temper. Losing one's temper is an interesting choice of words that has become a widely used idiom. To lose something implies not meaning to, accidental, involuntary, not responsible. Careless, perhaps, but not responsible. He goes on. He made me mad. This is another phrase we hear also implying lack of control or agency. This is a myth that must be debunked. No one makes us mad. Others don't make us angry. There is no force involved. Becoming angry is a conscious choice, a decision. Therefore, we can make the choice not to become angry. We choose. And using the agency that they have in a more wise way. And that's just my opinion. Let's face it, being angry is never a good thing. I dare say that anger is what leads to the commission of most violent crime. If people were more in control of themselves and not allow themselves to become angry, then problem solved, or at least part of the problem is solved, because the escalation of a conflict doesn't get to a point where someone gets extremely angry, and at that point they lose all ability to reason and taking someone else's life because they're upset at what that person did or whatever happened, as I said, is never a good thing because it always leads to something else, and it oftentimes is extremely more violent than the first instance of any anger shown. Obviously, I just gave an extreme example of what uncontrolled anger can lead to. But think about those that you love in your life. Think about your family and your friends. Think about the times that you got upset about something, and a lot of times it was the most trivial and idiotic thing to get mad about, but we allowed ourselves to get angry, and then we perhaps said something or did something that we regretted later. And it doesn't necessarily always escalate into something violent, but it can. It has the potential to do that unless we control it. We have to be in control of that emotion so that we don't do something that we would regret down the road. Here's my assessment on what we do when we take offense at something that someone says or does to us. We give that person a measure of power over us that we under normal circumstances just would not do. Think about it. Would you let someone control where you go? Would you let someone else control what you do? Would you let someone control where you work? Would you let someone control the way you eat or a host of other things? Then why on earth would you let someone else control your emotions? Now, I'm not a member of Congress, but I will take the liberty of amending the things that I just said. And that is, if you're listening to this and you're in a relationship where somebody is controlling you, then get help. Find someone you can trust. Find someone that you can confide in about your situation. Now, I'm not licensed as a clinical psychologist or any other license that is needed to counsel someone. So I implore you, if you are listening to this and you are in a situation where someone is controlling you and you can safely tell another person, then please do so. No one deserves to be treated in a way that they don't want to be treated or to be controlled by another person. In reality, that is the essence of cancel culture, to try to control another person to get them to not do what you think they shouldn't do. So you see, this idea of cancel culture and trying to control other people, it's no good when it's from one stranger to another or if it's in the walls of your own home or amongst friends. It's just simply not right. All of us have the freedom and liberty to choose to do what we want to do, so long as it's not hurting another person. Now each of us have to sort of grapple with our own feelings about things in the normal day-to-day interactions that we have with other people. If we are taking offense or our feelings are getting quote unquote hurt by someone who says something we don't like, then that's different than being controlled or actually being abused by another person. I hope that you're understanding where I'm coming from here and that I'm not just getting into this tangled web that I'm not going to be able to get out of. But look, I have no fear. I have conversations with my wife on a regular basis about feelings, and if you're a man, then that's probably one of the conversations that you maybe don't look forward to so much with your significant other. But in my own opinion, it's important to understand where our woman is coming from, because we have a connection that supersedes any other relationship in our entire lives. So if you're a man, why wouldn't you want to take the time to strengthen and cultivate that relationship? If you're a man and you think I just called you out, then so be it. I just called you out. I want to go ahead and wrap things up for this episode. I have another quote that I want to read from another church leader that is prominent in my faith. And he had this to say quote, when we believe or say we have been offended, we usually mean we feel insulted, mistreated, snubbed, or disrespected. And certainly clumsy, embarrassing, unprincipled, and mean-spirited things do occur in our interactions with other people that would allow us to take offense. However, it ultimately is impossible for another person to offend you or to offend me. Indeed, believing that another person offended us is fundamentally false. To be offended is a choice we make. It is not a condition inflicted or imposed upon us by someone or something else. To believe that someone or something can make us feel offended, angry, hurt, or bitter diminishes our moral agency. End of quote. Well, what can you or I do to overcome the tendency to be angry or take offense? It seems to me that love is a pretty good place to start. Love doesn't mean be in a doormat. To disagree or to agree is not necessarily synonymous with love. It's either an agreement or a disagreement. To end this episode, I'll share a quote from Mother Teresa who said this quote To show great love for God and our neighbor, we need not do great things. It is how much love we put in the doing that makes our offering something beautiful to God, end of quote. And certainly not to speak for Mother Teresa, but I believe the way Mother Teresa defined neighbor was not only limited by who lives across the street, but by anyone we may come in contact with on our journey through this life.