THE BULLIED AND THE BULLIES, PART 2
Mike Cunningham
November 10, 2013

Frank Peretti tells us that “One Christmas, Mom and Dad surprised me with a dummy named Jerry, and that little wooden-head became my alter ego, bringing out the ham in me. We entertained our family members and put on shows, and Jerry even went to school with me a few times to perform for my class. Jerry and I became pretty close. He helped me come out of my shell. We won ourselves some new respect from my classmates, and, he never had a problem with my looks or size.” “No More Bullies” by, Frank Peretti, Pgs. 52-53.

“Somewhere in my head, planted there repeatedly over the years, was that I was”….”ugly, rejected, picked on, and somehow less worthy of membership in the world of normal kids. I was entering adolescence, that weird age when the size, shape, and appearance of your body mean everything, and everyone seemed to be growing except me. On the right side of my neck, a visible scar and a depression could be seen where once there had been a tumor. Because of the problem with my tongue, I spoke with an obvious lisp and often mangled words when my mind darted faster than my mouth could follow. I wore glasses and one of two favorite vests every day, and let’s face it, if I wasn’t a bona fide nerd, I sure came close. Girls? Hey, I couldn’t be better protected from temptation. Once, I lamented to my Mom, “I’m so ugly, nobody would ever want to marry me!”

“So it was predictable that some of my classmates-all of them bigger and proud of it-would take special pleasure in making my life miserable. I was pushed, shoved, thrown, hit, insulted, badgered, manhandled, teased and harassed, just as any monster must get tired of everyone screaming at the first sight of him. Why can’t they just skip that part for once and say hello? I was tired of kids asking, “Ooh, what’s wrong with your tongue?” before they’d even ask me my name. Increasingly, through the eyes of others, I saw myself as a monster.” Ibid. Pgs. 59-60.

Some kids are able to cope with bullying and some aren’t. For instance, in describing a very tragic event this past September, the news release said that, “Two girls were arrested in connection with the death of 12-year-old Rebecca Sedwick, who committed suicide last month after being the target of online bullying, police said.
A 14-year-old girl and a 12-year-old girl were charged as juveniles with felony aggravated stalking on Monday, according to a release from the Polk County sheriff’s office. Grady Judd, a sheriff in Polk County, Fla., said the teens “repeatedly and maliciously harassed” Rebecca, who jumped to her death from a tower on Sept. 9. The Lakeland, Fla. girl was targeted because she had dated the 14-year-old’s boyfriend, according to multiple reports.
Witnesses told police that the teen sent online messages to Rebecca, calling her “ugly,” telling her to “drink bleach and die” and encouraging Rebecca to kill herself. Both girls also threatened to beat Rebecca up, and got into a physical fight with her at least once, police said.
On Saturday, the 14-year-old girl published a Facebook post that said, “Yes I know I bullied Rebecca and she killed herself, but I don’t give a….”
Peretti asks, “Maybe you can relate. Ever been there? Maybe you’re there right now, in a situation in which someone is constantly stabbing you with words, kicking you with cruel acts, hurting you, and taking away your dignity. You wish you could do something about it, get out of that situation, but all around you are those invisible walls, those axioms of authority that hold you in: “Well you have to be there. You have no choice. You have to go. You have to be in that situation. We can’t change anything.”

“You have to go to that school, sit in that classroom, eat in that lunchroom, work at that particular job, endure the taunts of that particular group, or put up with that boss, supervisor, or co-worker.”

“Maybe you’re the one who lies awake at night dreading every morning because of the people waiting for you at school or work. They have a name for you-it’s not your real name; it’s the one they gave you, something that labels you inferior, ugly, or stupid. And there are others whom you don’t even know, who don’t know you who call you by that name because it’s fun for them. They have never bothered to ask you what your real name is. It’s their mission to take away your dignity. They spit on you, trip you, knock the books out of your arms, and stump on your ankles from behind. It doesn’t matter what you wear, they laugh at it. If you own something new, they steal it, spill on it, tear it, and destroy it.”

“There is no particular reason for the torment. Any reason that can possible be found or contrived will do. They pick on you because you’re smaller, because you have a rare blood type, because you pick apples on your way home, you sing a particular song, you wear a particular sweater, you can’t throw or catch a ball, you can’t run fast, you don’t have the right cloths, or simply because you’re different.”

“And in physical education class, your oppressors have the perfect opportunity to harass you, because they’re in close proximity, and all the activity is physical. It’s a convenient time to take physical advantage of you because you’re small or week or maybe not so great an athlete. So they push you and shove you, throw you, kick you, and trip you.”

“What’s a person to do? Ignore them? Let’s be honest: Ignoring is acting, and nothing more-acting as though the words or actions of your oppressors don’t hurt. You hear the words, you feel the insults, and you bear the blows. You can act deaf and impervious to pain, but the stabs and the arrows pierce you anyway.”

“Just stay away from them? Don’t you wish that you had a choice? Can you choose which lunchroom to sit in, which squad to line up in, which desk to sit at, which bus to ride home, or which direction to walk home?”

“If you say anything about the bullying you endure, you’re a snitch or a wimp, and you only compound the problem. At least, that seems to be the universal, unwritten code of conduct.”

“If you had a choice, you wouldn’t be there, but you don’t have a choice. You are hemmed in by the rules and requirement of the adult world, the expectations placed upon you from birth. Of course, you obey, of course you do what you’re told, of course, you submit to authority and authority’s axioms, and, yes, in many cases, that is as it should be.”

“When an authority tells you, “You have to go to school” you go. You get dressed, grab your books and your lunch, and go. When an authority reminds you that your boss has a right to badger you at work because he signs your paycheck, you swallow hard and, with a sense of resignation, go about your work as though the belittling behavior by the boss never occurred.”

“By their indifference to the abuse, of bullying, and harassment, parents, teachers, and employers send additional, subtle messages often written between the lines: You must also endure whatever comes with the package. It happens. Life is tough. Kids will be kids. We all went through it. It’s part of growing up. It’s a rite of passage. Get over it. It’ll make you stronger. Suck it up, kid. Hey, you wanna work here, you don’t make waves.”

“Hemmed in and with few options, you go every day, and you get stabbed every day, and you bleed every day.”

“But wounds can fester. They can become infected, and then they can infect others.”

“And they can change you because you haven’t merely cut your finger or bruised your knee. You’ve been wounded in your spirit, and the wound pierces deeply, painfully, sometimes even permanently. As Proverbs 18:14 says,

“The spirit of a man will sustain him in sickness, but who can bear a broken spirit?”

“When tough times or injuries come, we must be able to draw upon a reservoir of hope, faith, and self-confidence that God has stored up inside us through the love and encouragement of friends and family. If enemies through cunning and cruelty have plundered the reservoir, what will sustain us then?”

“Won’t God sustain us? Won’t He give us the grace that we need? Don’t we find our hope and strength in Him? Won’t He get us through?”

“Absolutely. I wouldn’t be here today if God’s presence and grace were not true and ultimately
provable.”

“But that’s the rub: To prove anything ultimately takes time and experience. You have to live it out for a while, sometimes a long while. A process is involved. Even now, in so many of our lives, there are issues to be resolved and wounds that have to be faced squarely, forgiven, and healed. Many of us adults have been carrying unhealed wounds since we were children.”

“At the time of this writing I’m close to 50 years of age, but I still remember the names and can see the faces of those individuals who made my life a living hell, day after day, after day, during my childhood. I remember their words, their taunts, their blows, their spittle, and their humiliations. As I review my life, I think of all the decisions I shied from, all the risks I dared not take, all the questions I never asked, all the relationships I didn’t pursue, simply because I didn’t want to be hurt again.”

“I remember the thoughts I had, sitting alone in the school library after D. H. picked me up by my neck or sitting alone on the street curb, eyes watering after P. B. sprayed deodorant in my face. I remember what I wished I could do if only I had the strength, the skill in martial arts, or the advantage that a baseball bat might give me over the bullies who bludgeoned and battered me around verbally and physically.”

“Of course, my parents taught me never to fight. I was a Christian, I had a loving God to turn to when times got tough, and I had a biblical code of conduct that required a nonviolent solution. I knew the Savior who taught us to turn the other cheek and forgive. So, instead of retaliation or confrontation I sloughed off the wounds inflicted by my abusers and retreated in solitude and safety of my room.” IBID. P. 67

“… “A modern-day victim of abuse can gravitate to violent video games in which he can vent his pain and anger by blasting his enemies into atoms.”

“He can watch movies-so many movies, in which the hero solves his situation by shooting everybody and blowing everything up.”

“He can live in a fantasy world in which he’s the guy with all the power and all the guns.”

“He and his cohort can make a video for a class project in which they dress in dark trench coats, carry guns, and blow away all the jocks.”

“He can customize the bloody “shoot-em-up” game “DOOM,” creating two shooters instead of one, giving them extra weapons and ammunition, and programing the game so the people he encounters can’t fight back.”

“He might identify with a historical monster: Adolph Hitler, a tyrant who had total life-or-death control over millions, who could scare and terrorize people, and who could solve all his problems with guns and bombs.”

“He can fill his mind with Nazi mythology and wear a black shirt with a swastika. He can speak German in the halls of his Web pages, and talk about whom he hates and whom he’d like to kill.”

“He can vent his rage with threats and obscenities on the internet. The ranting’s of the Columbine killers are terrifying.”

For instance, the following is what one shooter shouted,

“…for those of you who happen to know me and know that I respect you, may peace be with you and don’t be in my line of fire. For the rest of you, you all better hide in your houses because I’m coming for everyone soon, and I WILL be armed to the teeth and I WILL shoot to kill and I WILL KILL EVERYTHING!”

“… dead people can’t do many things, like argue, whine, complain, narc, rat out, criticize, or even talk. So that’s the only way to solve arguments with all you out there, I just kill you people. I’ll just go to some downtown area in some big city and blow up everything I can. Feel no remorse, no sense of shame. I will rig up explosives all over a town and detonate each one of them at will after I mow down a whole area full of you snotty, rich, high-strung, godlike-attitude-having worthless pieces of—-. I don’t care if I live or die in the shootout. All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you as I can…”

Paretti says that, “He can give in to the hate that grows out of his wounds and talk about a plan to attack his school so much, and for so long, that eventually, as James 1:15-15 warns, the thought becomes an act, and the thought brings forth death.”

“Finally, on April 20, 1999, Hitler’s 110th birthday, he can carry out his most gruesome fantasy. And what better place than a school, where everyone, from the parents, and teachers on down, has all the power, and he doesn’t? What better place than in the high-school cafeteria, where students once surrounded Eric and Dylan and squirted ketchup all over them, laughing at them and calling them faggots while teachers watched and did nothing.”

“And he can leave behind an emailed suicide note to the police (allegedly written by Eric Harris): … “Your children, who have ridiculed me, who chose not to accept me, who have treated me like I am not worth their time, are dead. THEY ARE —–DEAD. Surely you will try to blame it on the cloths I wear, the music I listen to, or the way I choose to present myself—but no. Do not hide behind my choices. You need to face the fact that this comes as a result of YOUR CHOICES, PARENTS AND TEACHERS, YOU [fouled} UP. You have taught these kids to be gears and sheep. To think and act like those who came before them, to not accept what is different. YOU ARE IN THE WRONG. I may have taken their lives and my own—but it was your doing. Teachers, Parents, LET THIS MASSACURE BE ON YOUR SHOLDERS UNTIL THE DAY YOU DIE….”

“Although the authorship of the above suicide note is in question, as are many details surrounding that day, to me, in the overarching scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter. Who ever wrote it pegged the problem. We now have in our society a myriad of young people and adults who have been deeply wounded by the demeaning words and actions of authority figures and peers.”

“It is no secret that kids on the fringes of the cool crowd of Columbine endured their share of taunts and abuse. They were called faggots, were bashed into lockers, and had rocks thrown at them. They were shoved, pelted with pop cans or cups of sticky soda, splattered with mashed potatoes and ketchup, even sideswiped by cars while they rode their bikes to or from school.”

“I know how that feels. Maybe you do too. Why is it so important that we address the problem of bullying and other demeaning attitudes and behaviors in our society? Because one in four bullies will end up in the criminal correction system, and those who have been wounded, often become those who wound others. Because we could be allowing the creation of more monsters-the kind we never see, never expect, until they snap and take desperate, violent measures. And all of us, those who have been wounded as well as those who wound others-need healing, forgiveness, and a new heart attitude toward our fellow human beings.”

“No longer can we hide our heads in the sand and pretend that atrocities such as Columbine don’t happen in our backyard. No longer can we live in denial, pretending that abuse does not occur in our family, church or workplace.” (End of quote!)
According to the latest news reports, “The recent NFL bullying story is still developing, but here’s what we know so far: Second-year player Jonathan Martin left the Miami Dolphins last week after alleged harassment from teammates. Teammate Richie Incognito was suspended by the Dolphins this weekend after being tabbed as Martin’s main alleged tormentor. Incognito allegedly sent Martin racist, explicit text messages among other harassment, and, in retrospect, his Twitter history ominously foreshadows these recent developments.”
“Martin left the Dolphins last week after a cafeteria prank. Teammates reportedly invited him to sit and eat with them, then all promptly got up and moved to another table as soon as he sat down. That reportedly triggered an emotional breakdown for Martin, who left the team to seek counseling and be with his family. The extremely unusual move prompted rampant speculation about what else had happened between Martin and his teammates, as well as how outside the norm it was for the NFL’s macho culture.”

As we have just seen in this message, bullying is rampant among all age groups. It’s awful! Bullying can bring about a lot of horrendous far-reaching consequences. Every Christian must do their utmost to prevent and eliminate it in our country.

I hope this message has been helpful. Please feel free to post your thoughts concerning this tragic issue on my blog.

Lord willing, next week….