What a day! Me and my big mouth!

  • Thread starter Thread starter jules11
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
J

jules11

Guest
Ever have one of those days where it starts bad and just keeps getting progressively worse? Days, where you should just keep your mouth shut before you do some serious damage?
Well, today was one of them.
I was at work, there is five of us (all women) in our office. We have a new lady and she knew my boss through the lutheran school their children went to. My boss is a Lutheran and so is this lady. I assumed she believed in most Christian principles.
We were talking about nothing in particular when my boss says, ‘did you know that so and so has left the school?’ (a teacher) and new lady says,
“yes and I’m glad, he was an opinionated, nasty, …, …, …, (more adjectives) homophobic, so and so.”
I piped up, 'I hate that word ‘homophobic, it insinuates that we’re scared of homosexuals and we’re not, we just don’t agree with what they do’
She said, ‘my son is homosexual’
I said, ‘you can love your son but it’s still wrong’
THEN THERE WAS SILENCE… in the whole office.
I could have crawled into a hole!
I emailed my boss and said, ‘Oh dear, I’ve upset her. I wish i had known. I would have kept my mouth shut!’
So she suggested she go out with her and I come and I could talk to her.
We had to go out not long after to take photos and boss told me and this other lady to go too.
I apologised to her, said I didn’t know. She said it was fine and not to worry. She didn’t really want to talk about it.

I talked to my other co workers, saying how bad I felt (before we left to go out) and one said very little, the other said, 'it’s not wrong, there’s nothing wrong with it if they’re not hurting anyone, etc etc,"
OH boy!

After that, we were coming back. Lady I offended (trudy) fell over on the road and grazed her arm. I found a little bird that was suffering from heat exhaustion. So i picked it up and brought it into the office to revive it. It was in a box, after a while it got out and started flying around the office, to the shreiks and screams of my co workers who were scared of birds!
All while Trudy was getting her arm bandaged…

Later on, we were discussing my second daughter, who wants to go to a very traditional catholic college in another state. I told them that it was catholic and it had mass every morning etc.
Lady who agreed with homosexuality,(Silvana) said she couldn’t think of anything worse. We got onto religion, then abortion!
OH NO!!!
We debated abortion with me saying how wrong it was and she saying that its someones choice… and used herself as an example. If she wanted to have one, she would just have to live with the consequences and learn from them.
At the cost of the life of another? I said to her…
And she said that she believed that when a baby was conceived that the soul goes in and out of it until it was born. That it doesn’t stay with it. Huh?
I said that makes no sense and that was just a copout to allow people have abortions without having to worry about killing a child with a soul (not exactly those words but something to that effect)
AND MORE SILENCE.
Arrrrggghh!
I left feeling terrible. I know what I was saying was right and I wasn’t nasty but sometimes there is no right or good way to state the truth.
But why is it when I stand up for my beliefs that I always come away feeling like the ogre??
Is it best never to say anything? I just don’t know.
 
I wasn’t there: but it sounds to me like you did nothing rude or offensive.
You stated (in my opinion, correctly) that the word “homophobic” is misused to imply irrational fear on the part of those who disapprove of homosexual acts. You were then confronted, and replied truthfully and reasonably.
Had you sought out the confrontation that might have been different: but you did not. Indeed you apologized afterward to Trudy.

As for the abortion argument, you mentioned a practice at a college your daughter might attend. Someone else turned that into an abortion debate, and got offended when you wouldn’t agree with her.
—The soul goes in and out till you’re born!? I have never in my life heard this one before. It sounds like a cop-out to me too. Even if it were true, how is that a reason to justify abortion? She admits there’s a soul, and abortion still kills the body, depriving that soul of a body to inhabit.

Of course one must try to be courteous, and avoid giving offence: but that doesn’t mean pretending to agree with those who attack your religious or moral position.

Rescuing the bird was a very kind thing to do. 🙂 Though perhaps bringing it into the office could have been avoided? I don’t know. Was there some other place you could have left it to recover?

In any case: stick to your guns when someone attacks your religion, :knight1: try to do it charitably, and may the peace of Christ fill your heart. :gopray:
 
Your opinion is exactly that ; yours. No need to apologoze.As I see it, you did nothing wrong.
Kathy
 
Just remember that everyone in this world is entitled to their opinions, except Catholics.

:rolleyes:

(please hint the overdose of sarcasm in that statement)

It is always easy to talk with someone that agrees with you about things like this, it gets more difficult when they do not. I feel that you did nothing wrong.
 
I know the exact feelings you are going through after this incident. A couple weeks ago, I met up with two college friends to celebrate their birthdays. One of them is “conservative” while the other is “very liberal.” We enjoyed the entire day until the evening when my “liberal” friend decided to bring up abortion. I could not believe she would even think to bring that up when she very well knows where my other friend and I stand on it. Furthermore, she knew that our other friend is a survivor of abortion and now very much involved in the pro-life movement, so to even bring up abortion during what is supposed to be a celebration between friends was in ill taste. Anyway, we began arguing and the argument turned ugly (that is to expected, I suppose, as we are arguing about the most ugly action currently sanctioned by our government). The debate continued on and finally, she stated that it is merciful and Christian to kill an unborn baby who we know will not have a “viable” life. I asked her who makes some man or woman God to say what life is “viable.” (She was even referring to a child with Down Syndrome as not truly “viable”). I then told her such thinking was appaling and the same as Adolf Hitler’s thoughts that he made come to reality. I could not take her defending the killing of the unborn from a “Christian” standpoint and the not viable life view is just about the worst point to bring up and say you support. Anyway, after I mentioned Hitler, she became extremely upset and stormed off into her bathroom where she went into the shower. I then called to her to say good-bye as I had to leave and said I was sorry if she was upset by what I said, but I cannot change my views on it. She did not speak to me and I left. My other friend had the misfortune of having to spend the night there as they originally planned and our pro-choice friend refused to speak to her for the rest of the night and morning. Now, I have learned she has completely broken off her friendship with me, our other friend, and our families. I am sorry that the friendship had to end because we actually enjoyed hanging out together and just laughing and joking around, but I guess now finally that relationship had to come to its end. She refuses to talk to me. I could not have sat there that night and just allowed her to make the accusations she made, though, about people who do not see the right and good in killing an unborn child whose life is so deemed by some doctor as “not viable.”

So please, take courage. Stand strong. Christ was spat upon for His words and actions and for good reason. He upset a lot of people, but it was necessary for we are talking about Truth and Lies. Light and Darkness. Eternal Life and Death. We must either be hot or cold and not lukewarm for God, Truth, Light, and Life.
 
jules11 said:
Ever have one of those days where it starts bad and just keeps getting progressively worse? Days, where you should just keep your mouth shut before you do some serious damage?
Well, today was one of them.
I was at work, there is five of us (all women) in our office. We have a new lady and she knew my boss through the lutheran school their children went to. My boss is a Lutheran and so is this lady. I assumed she believed in most Christian principles.
We were talking about nothing in particular when my boss says, ‘did you know that so and so has left the school?’ (a teacher) and new lady says,
“yes and I’m glad, he was an opinionated, nasty, …, …, …, (more adjectives) homophobic, so and so.”
I piped up, 'I hate that word ‘homophobic, it insinuates that we’re scared of homosexuals and we’re not, we just don’t agree with what they do’
She said, ‘my son is homosexual’
I said, ‘you can love your son but it’s still wrong’
THEN THERE WAS SILENCE… in the whole office.
I could have crawled into a hole!
I emailed my boss and said, ‘Oh dear, I’ve upset her. I wish i had known. I would have kept my mouth shut!’
So she suggested she go out with her and I come and I could talk to her.
We had to go out not long after to take photos and boss told me and this other lady to go too.
I apologised to her, said I didn’t know. She said it was fine and not to worry. She didn’t really want to talk about it.

I talked to my other co workers, saying how bad I felt (before we left to go out) and one said very little, the other said, 'it’s not wrong, there’s nothing wrong with it if they’re not hurting anyone, etc etc,"
OH boy!

After that, we were coming back. Lady I offended (trudy) fell over on the road and grazed her arm. I found a little bird that was suffering from heat exhaustion. So i picked it up and brought it into the office to revive it. It was in a box, after a while it got out and started flying around the office, to the shreiks and screams of my co workers who were scared of birds!
All while Trudy was getting her arm bandaged…

Later on, we were discussing my second daughter, who wants to go to a very traditional catholic college in another state. I told them that it was catholic and it had mass every morning etc.
Lady who agreed with homosexuality,(Silvana) said she couldn’t think of anything worse. We got onto religion, then abortion!
OH NO!!!
We debated abortion with me saying how wrong it was and she saying that its someones choice… and used herself as an example. If she wanted to have one, she would just have to live with the consequences and learn from them.
At the cost of the life of another? I said to her…
And she said that she believed that when a baby was conceived that the soul goes in and out of it until it was born. That it doesn’t stay with it. Huh?
I said that makes no sense and that was just a copout to allow people have abortions without having to worry about killing a child with a soul (not exactly those words but something to that effect)
AND MORE SILENCE.
Arrrrggghh!
I left feeling terrible. I know what I was saying was right and I wasn’t nasty but sometimes there is no right or good way to state the truth.
But why is it when I stand up for my beliefs that I always come away feeling like the ogre??
Is it best never to say anything? I just don’t know.
Click to expand...
I for one am proud of you.

Catholics in particular have been silenced out of ‘politeness’ for far too long.
 
blessed_wife said:
I know the exact feelings you are going through after this incident. A couple weeks ago, I met up with two college friends to celebrate their birthdays. One of them is “conservative” while the other is “very liberal.” We enjoyed the entire day until the evening when my “liberal” friend decided to bring up abortion. I could not believe she would even think to bring that up when she very well knows where my other friend and I stand on it. Furthermore, she knew that our other friend is a survivor of abortion and now very much involved in the pro-life movement, so to even bring up abortion during what is supposed to be a celebration between friends was in ill taste. Anyway, we began arguing and the argument turned ugly (that is to expected, I suppose, as we are arguing about the most ugly action currently sanctioned by our government). The debate continued on and finally, she stated that it is merciful and Christian to kill an unborn baby who we know will not have a “viable” life. I asked her who makes some man or woman God to say what life is “viable.” (She was even referring to a child with Down Syndrome as not truly “viable”). I then told her such thinking was appaling and the same as Adolf Hitler’s thoughts that he made come to reality. I could not take her defending the killing of the unborn from a “Christian” standpoint and the not viable life view is just about the worst point to bring up and say you support. Anyway, after I mentioned Hitler, she became extremely upset and stormed off into her bathroom where she went into the shower. I then called to her to say good-bye as I had to leave and said I was sorry if she was upset by what I said, but I cannot change my views on it. She did not speak to me and I left. My other friend had the misfortune of having to spend the night there as they originally planned and our pro-choice friend refused to speak to her for the rest of the night and morning. Now, I have learned she has completely broken off her friendship with me, our other friend, and our families. I am sorry that the friendship had to end because we actually enjoyed hanging out together and just laughing and joking around, but I guess now finally that relationship had to come to its end. She refuses to talk to me. I could not have sat there that night and just allowed her to make the accusations she made, though, about people who do not see the right and good in killing an unborn child whose life is so deemed by some doctor as “not viable.”

So please, take courage. Stand strong. Christ was spat upon for His words and actions and for good reason. He upset a lot of people, but it was necessary for we are talking about Truth and Lies. Light and Darkness. Eternal Life and Death. We must either be hot or cold and not lukewarm for God, Truth, Light, and Life.
Click to expand...
Blessed_wife and jules11 -

Your defense for the Truth is commendable! Naturally, when disagreements like these occur, people on both sides will feel bad. But this should not discourage you to continue to proclaim the Truth of God.

God bless you both!
 
You are entitled to your opinion, Jules. As long as you’re not slugging each other at the office, I would act as if what you said is just matter-of-fact, every day common sense.

They are entitled to their opinion, too.
 
Jules–I think it’s called witnessing of your faith…and I admire what you did. As long as we are not condeming in our tones to others, we are doing what God calls us to do…witness our faith. We can’t save souls, but we can tell them about the awesome power of God…and how He wants us to live…I can see why you might be concerned, with the workplace being a PC type environment these days–but I think all will be fine, and you planted seeds for God’s kingdom.

:blessyou:
 
My work Rule #1: NEVER EVER discuss politics and religion at work!!!

I don’t want to go to work having someone pushing their political and religious beliefs on me, so why would I do that to them??
 
The soul thing - where on earth did that idea come from??? So, if the soul is coming and going, then it’s OK to have an abortion —I presume the reasoning is that it’s not a life without a soul, but by her theory, then at least some of the time there is life present. So if one wants to have an abortion and not take life, how exactly do you go about knowing when to proceed? I guess a soul monitor would be nice in this instance. I have a horrible picture of an abortionist watching the monitor, “Hold on…hold on…OK, now!” And so then the soul does what when it tries to come back, and there is no baby? Oh my word. I could have had a hey day, except I’m not as bold and strong as you are.

In fact, let me just say that I suffer from great cowardice, and I think it’s so backward that I should be willing to listen to others and offer friendship and love, and an acknowledgement that someone is not the devil for having an opposing point of view, but not be able to voice my opinion without facing ostracism.

I find it so interesting that the poster who wrote about the birthday celebration was not the individual that ended a friendship over disparate opinion, but the person with the liberal POV! It reminds me of something Dennis Prager says a lot, that the political Right thinks people on the political Left are wrong, whereas the Left thinks people on the Right are bad. That seems to me exactly what you are facing. Your ex-friend thinks you are bad for your opinion, so there can be no friendship. But you just thought she was wrong, which does not exclude her from your love.

So interesting. Someday, I will face the homosexual discussion with friends and family (and particularly, some friends of family who are homosexual and have two children by IVF). I know that my view will not be tolerated enough to say and prove that I can love and like and be friends without agreeing that this is a healthy lifestyle for them to be in. And I will be considered hateful towards the children. And I hate conflict and confrontation, and I’m afraid I will wimp.

Offer your bad day up for people like me who are spineless. Please. Seriously.
 
jules11 said:
Ever have one of those days where it starts bad and just keeps getting progressively worse? Days, where you should just keep your mouth shut before you do some serious damage?
Well, today was one of them.
I was at work, there is five of us (all women) in our office. We have a new lady and she knew my boss through the lutheran school their children went to. My boss is a Lutheran and so is this lady. I assumed she believed in most Christian principles.
We were talking about nothing in particular when my boss says, ‘did you know that so and so has left the school?’ (a teacher) and new lady says,
“yes and I’m glad, he was an opinionated, nasty, …, …, …, (more adjectives) homophobic, so and so.”
I piped up, 'I hate that word ‘homophobic, it insinuates that we’re scared of homosexuals and we’re not, we just don’t agree with what they do’
She said, ‘my son is homosexual’
I said, ‘you can love your son but it’s still wrong’
THEN THERE WAS SILENCE… in the whole office.
I could have crawled into a hole!
I emailed my boss and said, ‘Oh dear, I’ve upset her. I wish i had known. I would have kept my mouth shut!’
So she suggested she go out with her and I come and I could talk to her.
We had to go out not long after to take photos and boss told me and this other lady to go too.
I apologised to her, said I didn’t know. She said it was fine and not to worry. She didn’t really want to talk about it.

I talked to my other co workers, saying how bad I felt (before we left to go out) and one said very little, the other said, 'it’s not wrong, there’s nothing wrong with it if they’re not hurting anyone, etc etc,"
OH boy!

After that, we were coming back. Lady I offended (trudy) fell over on the road and grazed her arm. I found a little bird that was suffering from heat exhaustion. So i picked it up and brought it into the office to revive it. It was in a box, after a while it got out and started flying around the office, to the shreiks and screams of my co workers who were scared of birds!
All while Trudy was getting her arm bandaged…

Later on, we were discussing my second daughter, who wants to go to a very traditional catholic college in another state. I told them that it was catholic and it had mass every morning etc.
Lady who agreed with homosexuality,(Silvana) said she couldn’t think of anything worse. We got onto religion, then abortion!
OH NO!!!
We debated abortion with me saying how wrong it was and she saying that its someones choice… and used herself as an example. If she wanted to have one, she would just have to live with the consequences and learn from them.
At the cost of the life of another? I said to her…
And she said that she believed that when a baby was conceived that the soul goes in and out of it until it was born. That it doesn’t stay with it. Huh?
I said that makes no sense and that was just a copout to allow people have abortions without having to worry about killing a child with a soul (not exactly those words but something to that effect)
AND MORE SILENCE.
Arrrrggghh!
I left feeling terrible. I know what I was saying was right and I wasn’t nasty but sometimes there is no right or good way to state the truth.
But why is it when I stand up for my beliefs that I always come away feeling like the ogre??
Is it best never to say anything? I just don’t know.
Click to expand...
“Tolerance does not apply to truth or principles. About these things we must be intolerant, and for this kind of intolerance, so much needed to rouse us from sentimental gush, I make a plea. Intolerance of this kind is the foundation of stability.”
  • His Excellency Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Servant of God
 
Blessed are you that are persecuted for my name’s sake. Your’s is the Kingdom of heaven.

Somedays it just seems worse. But never feel like you need to apologize for something that is the truth of our faith. Defend it. But before you speak, send up a silent prayer to the Holy Spirit to put the right words in your mouth and believe me you will be pleasantly surprised for what comes out.

God bless you!
Too bad about the bird though.
 
Sounds like you must have felt really alone. These are definitely topics that you have to be careful about and can really only talk about at work in certain settings.

I have discussions at work with Muslims and Protestants, but only at coffee break and only after we kind of got to know each other.

I doubt I would ever talk about any of this with a boss around. That would just scare me!

I personally don’t think you said anything wrong by the way. Sounds to me like some of those people were just going along with what the media and popular culture has taught them.

Plus, as another poster said, they made an offensive comment to you about how dreadful it would be to have to attend mass everyday ( at your daughter’s intended college ). But she was entitled to her opinion I guess!

🙂

HUGS. Hope you are feeling better today?
 
If you want to get precise about it, homophobic would mean fear of humans.
 
GOOD FOR YOU, jules, GOOD FOR YOU! You stood up for the truth! There is nothing wrong with stating you opinion(especially if it’s the true one). If other people can state theirs, you can state yours. As long as you didn’t belittle or berate or insult someone else for holding a different view, you’re fine! You may have shaken the other ladies up a bit, but I don’t remember ever hearing that that was a sin. It’s certainly not a sin to disagree with other people. 😛 I’ve had a few moments like that myself, and at work no less. Someone was talking about a friend who was uncomfortable around girls in bikinis, and they said that they would have to ‘make him get used to it’. I can’t remember exactly what else was said, but I basically said, ‘Why??? He doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to’ and I mentioned that my bf also doesn’t like bikinis on girls, and I said I also didn’t wear them. Someone else threw in the old ‘you don’t have to be ashamed of your body’ and I retorted ‘I’m not, but I just don’t like sharing it with the rest of the world.’ I think it ended there. 😛

Long and short of it is, if others around you can state their opinion, you can state yours. Just don’t insult anyone. (Note the difference between ‘offend’ and ‘insult’. Some people are offended by the truth. Not much you can do about it.)
 
jules11 said:
I left feeling terrible.
Click to expand...
Don’t ever feel terrible for doing the right thing. It’s hard - but no one ever said it would be easy.

Jesus didn’t say “I come with a ham sammich and a party”, He said, “I come with a sword…”.

You did the right thing. Others have been fed to lions for it - you got some cold shoulders. You came away quite fortunate.

Keep up the good work. 👍

~Liza
 
Is it best never to say anything? I just don’t know
Click to expand...
It depends on your attitude. If you are angry and emotional you can say things and not change anyone’s mind. The objective is to change people, not get in arguments. If you can speak calmly, rationally, unemotionally, you might help someone. We never want to argue for the sake of argument, though many people do.
 
JustAnotherThou said:
My work Rule #1: NEVER EVER discuss politics and religion at work!!!

I don’t want to go to work having someone pushing their political and religious beliefs on me, so why would I do that to them??
Click to expand...
In most offices, the OP and colleagues would **all **have been called on the carpet for these conversations, which, minimally, made life uncomfortable for those involved. The OP was made to feel uncomfortable. And she made others feel uncomfortable as well. Not the time or the place . . . At its worst, it is called harrassment.

I agree with her opinions; but they don’t belong in the workplace.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top