I have struggled a lot with what to do over being offended. “Should” hammers down on me, “forgive and reconcile and consider yourself the chiefest of sinners or you wont be forgiven by God!!!” I have let Should and what I now consider Wishful Thinking govern me a lot. But what I can’t get around is the louder voice of Trust and Honesty, without which the above wont work, for long anyway. I don’t think Should means that I continuously put myself in a position of being burned and abused. Forgiveness doesn’t mean trust. Elder Zacharias from the pre-Lenten Retreat said something that has let me be at peace with my situations of estrangement. I found my notes btw, but they don’t convey the message that I got which was that Peace needs to govern the situation. “In so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men”. The first part of that leaves open a lot of eventualities. We can’t force our vision of an ideal turnout on other people, and sometimes the peaceful thing is to withdraw. This is what my notes say,

“Increase pain of heart” what I think this means is that, though we may receive overwhelming consolation at times, especially at the beginning stages of our Orthodox journey, that soon suffering becomes a part of this. Father Hopko in his lectures on the Theotokos talks about Simeon’s prediction that Mary would feel knives piercing her heart.

“Pray fervently every day and throughout the day. Remember.
How to love enemy – Spirit does in us.
Lord ate with sinners who had desire to see Him.
Don’t associate with sinners who don’t want to see Him.
Cut out your eye.
Should force self to pray. If things get better, keep.
If doesn’t get better, abandon it.
till God’s grace comes and prays in us.
Reproach self for selfishness, opens heart, things will get better.
Maintain memory of death.
Salvation – unity to Body of Christ.”

I know I have to guard against self-righteousness and self-justification, but if you find yourself panicking and feeling absolutely miserable and uncomfortable with someone, and you can’t talk yourself out of it and you feel like they want to suck the very juice out of your eyeballs (see Tom Hanks in Joe vs. the Volcano), then withdrawing can keep Hate and Resentment and Bitterness from becoming the biggest entities in the room. I’d rather find my happy, peaceful place and I’m trying to give myself permission to stay there. Please let me stay there instead. And if not, then let Love grow in me so that it doesn’t atrophy when I’m with them. And I’m not talking about people we are responsible here like our children, though there may come a day, Lord help it never happen to me, I don’t think it will. Space can help me love some people better. I seem to be all or nothing. Praying can be loving from a necessary distance, can’t it? I think so.