No More Bullies

by Frank Peretti

  Others are more of a mystery. They look so normal, so “together,” so everyday: One’s a landscaper, another is an electrician, and over there is a mailman, and now I see a wife and mother, and next to her, a minister. You can’t guess their stories. You’re even surprised to learn they’re carrying the same sort of wounds as you.

  There’s an important lesson in that: The wounded spirit is borne by many, yet it often can’t be seen. It can be a burden heavy enough to bend and warp the course of our lives, but it’s buried deeply, hidden in a secret place, and we’ve been afraid to talk about it.

  Until now. I never thought I’d be some kind of Pied Piper, but suddenly, all these people who recognize the validity of what I’m saying are coming out of the woodwork. Some are still carrying deep wounds from long ago; some are enduring fresh wounds each day. As in the case of other secret scars, those individuals who have suffered a wounded spirit often suffer in silence, unwilling to talk about it.

  But maybe it’s getting to be that time.

  Our society, and especially the Christian community, has been slow to discuss many sensitive subjects. Not too many years ago, domestic violence was something we only whispered about across the back fence: “Have you seen Lois this morning? She’s all black and blue. Guess he’s beating her again, poor thing.” We gossiped about it, but beyond that, we felt it was none of our business. After all, those things didn’t happen in our families, and certainly not in our church!

  Similarly, just a few years ago, child abuse was something we suspected (and sometimes we were dead certain of it), but we hesitated to say anything. We weren’t sure what to do. Besides, surely Christians would never be guilty of such a heinous crime. Sadly, we now know better, that such offenses happen in Christian homes almost in the exact same percentages as those of nonbelievers.

  During my childhood in the 1950s and 1960s, the black man in some parts of the country was expected to “know his place,” and we were comfortable with that. We were extremely uncomfortable talking about racism or attempting to change it. “Let them have their own baseball teams. Let them worship in their own churches. Not in my backyard.”

  So what about this problem? We call it by many names: Abuse. Teasing. Taunting. Harassment. Bullying. Until now, we’ve been strangely quiet about it. It happens, we say. We all go through it. All the kids do it. It’s part of life. It’s no big deal.

  It happened when we were kids.

  Is it wrong?

  Let me ask again, Is it wrong?

  Consider your answer carefully. If the answer is yes, that immediately raises another question: Then why do we allow it? Why do parents, teachers, teacher’s assistants, fellow students, friends at school and church, coworkers, extended family members, and others see it happening, hear it happening, and know it’s happening but fail to take it seriously? If devaluing human life— and thereby mocking God’s creation—is wrong, why do so many do so little to stop it? Worse yet, why do so many participate as part of the problem?

  Surely Mr. M was aware of what his students—and his teacher’s assistants—were doing to that poor little kid in the shower. Surely the teachers and staff at Columbine— or any school for that matter—could hear the sounds of bodies hitting lockers, can see the ketchup stains all over some students’ clothing, can hear the laughter of the bullies and the cries of the victims. Surely the bus drivers know when a gang of losers descends on one helpless kid, knocking his books all over the street at the bus stop. Surely the teachers notice when a child comes into class with his shirt torn, his shoes missing, and his clothing soiled. Most certainly, the kids know what’s happening; they’re a part of it. They face the bullying, badgering, and other such treatment almost every day in school; they’re immersed in it. Why don’t they attempt to put a stop to it, to refrain from such behavior themselves, and to confront it in their friends?

  What about the parents of children who are being bullied? Do they have no options? Do they have no voice? Must they sit by in silence when they know their child is near vomiting from stress before leaving for school each morning? Or are they even aware of the problem?

  But we’re not just talking about school.

  Even grownups have to put up with it. Sometimes it creeps into a marriage or into other family relationships. We might experience it at the hands of an overbearing minister, board member, policeman, or coach. Many people endure it in the workplace, sometimes even in businesses ostensibly run according to Christian principles and values.

  Do we address it as something wrong that should not be done, or do we just go on pretending we don’t hear it, don’t see it?

  What about you? Are you being wounded senselessly, mercilessly, needlessly, by someone stronger than you, more powerful than you, someone who has leverage over you in some inexplicable, yet very real way?

  Or are you the person who is perpetrating such despicable acts, either overtly or secretly?

  It’s time to talk about it, friend. It’s time for a change.

  Let me restate what I said earlier: The message a bully sends is a mockery of God’s handiwork, a lie that slanders God’s nature and negates His love for us.

  Or do we really care about God?

  As you can well expect, I will argue that a right attitude toward God will bring a right attitude toward our fellowman. As we have all seen clearly demonstrated, when God is removed from our thoughts, our lives, our schools, our society, any evil is possible, for we have no ultimate argument against it. Whether on an international scale, in your own neighborhood, or in your own family, the results are the same: People are no longer intrinsically precious, so it’s easy to find petty reasons to mistreat the weak, the less intelligent, the less affluent, the physically disfigured, or those who, for whatever arbitrary reason, don’t measure up.

  In the next chapter, I’ll share a parable with you that illustrates the absolute necessity for the inclusion of God in our thinking, our families, our world. If we really want to bring about change, this is where the change must begin.

  THE

  PLAYGROUND

  PARABLE

  Chapter Six

  It was the daddy of all playgrounds, stretching out acre upon acre and filled with laughing, ebullient, playing children. Boys and girls were running, chasing, and screaming playfully. Jump ropes were spinning as little girls chanted rhythmical rhymes; baseballs arced through the air, glove to hand, hand to glove, ball to glove, glove to ground. From the paved basketball and Four Squares area came the constant boing, boing, boing of big red, inflated playground balls bouncing from one child to another.

  This was a happy place—usually. The kids played well together and followed the playground rules—most of the time. Sometimes a quarrel broke out, occasionally even an actual fight, but these skirmishes were quickly resolved. All in all, the playground was a wonderful, fun-filled, safe environment for kids to enjoy.

  The playground rules, clearly posted on a big wooden sign beside the entrance, helped to provide every recess with the desired peace, order, and domestic tranquillity. The rules were clear enough for any eight- or nine-year-old to understand:

  NO HITTING.

  NO PUSHING OR SHOVING.

  NO FIGHTING.

  SHARE THE EQUIPMENT.

  TAKE TURNS.

  NO SPITTING ON THE GIRLS.

  NO CHASING THE BOYS.

  The playground rules were sacred, omnipresent, and inscribed on every heart and mind; there was hardly a child there who hadn’t had cause to appeal to those standards at one time or another.

  For instance, when Jordan Smith first arrived on the playground, he brought with him the assumption that once the baseball was in his hand, he had sovereign control over it in perpetuity. His would-be teammates tried to explain to him that unless he relinquished possession of the baseball from time to time, there would be no baseball game. Reason alone would not change his mind. Appealing to the playground rules finally did.

  Clyde Saunders always seemed to ha
ve extra saliva in his mouth and apparently felt compelled to put it somewhere else. Rachel Parks was the nearest available depository, and he was happy to share with her out of his abundance, until she appealed to the playground rules, and he was required to swallow.

  Ah, the playground rules—steadfast and sure, a shelter for the oppressed, the defender of the weak, the guarantor of social stability.

  Of course, we cannot overlook the importance of Mrs. Kravitz, the teacher on playground duty. Mrs. Kravitz represented the authority that put up those rules in the first place. Without her presence, the playground rules would have been nothing more than words painted on a board. She was sharp-eyed and elephant-eared, always ready to help in time of trouble but also ready to deal with troublemakers. She had a stern expression for that purpose, as well as a whistle, a clipboard, and a stack of pink slips that could mean a visit to the vice principal.

  Some of the kids appreciated her presence on the playground, and, naturally, some of the kids preferred she not be there. The former felt secure; the latter felt imposed upon. But like it or not, the playground was reasonably safe and orderly, because Mrs. Kravitz and the playground rules kept it that way.

  Then one day, something was different on the playground. It took a while for the kids to notice, but eventually they realized that Mrs. Kravitz was nowhere to be found. Some were glad, of course. “Good riddance!” they said. But some were concerned and asked the other teachers where Mrs. Kravitz had gone.

  “Well,” said the teachers, “we’ve decided there is no authority, and you kids are inherently good and able to decide for yourselves the right thing to do. You have the capacity within yourselves to solve all your own problems and make this a better playground. You don’t need Mrs. Kravitz.”

  “But what about the playground rules?” they asked.

  “You can decide for yourselves if the playground rules are right for you. It’s really not our place to say that any one set of rules is better than another.”

  And so the kids were left to their own wills and feelings and the whims of their own hearts.

  For a time, the playground rules still held sway in their minds. The rules worked well enough in the past; they continued to bring stability in the days that followed.

  But then, one day, Clyde Saunders stopped to consider the excess saliva in his mouth and whether or not he should swallow. “It’s my mouth and my spit,” he reasoned to himself. “I don’t see what business anyone else has telling me how to get rid of it.” Whereupon, he fired off a huge, viscid, undulating glob that hit Rachel Parks right in the eye.

  Rachel was beside herself. She felt violated, betrayed, insulted, and infringed upon—not to mention wet and gross. “Clyde! You aren’t supposed to do that!”

  “Oh, yeah?” he responded. “Who says?”

  She promptly took him over to the old sign displaying the playground rules.

  “See here?” she said, pointing. “The rules say, ‘No spitting on the girls.’”

  “Well, I can choose to live by those rules or not.”

  “But you hurt me and you know it!”

  “That depends on your definition of hurt and your definition of knowledge.”

  Not long after this, the baseball game came to a screeching halt when Jordan Smith caught a pop-up fly and abruptly walked off with the baseball.

  “Hey,” the others shouted, running after him, “that’s our ball!”

  “It’s mine now,” he replied.

  “But you have to share!”

  “Oh, yeah? Who says?”

  They pointed to the rules. “It says, ‘Share the equipment.’”

  Jordan was unmoved. “You really believe that old sign? Come on, we don’t need those rules. We have Reason to show us the way.”

  So they tried reasoning with him. After all, in the absence of authority, Mrs. Kravitz, and the playground rules, Reason alone should suffice.

  “Well,” he responded, “A: I want the ball; B: I don’t want you to have it; and, therefore, C: You aren’t going to get it!”

  The other boys were stymied—except for those who weren’t afraid of a little roughness. The rules didn’t apply anymore, and Reason wasn’t giving them justice, so . . . they ganged up on Jordan, knocked him to the ground, and got the baseball back.

  Following Jordan’s line of reasoning, Sally and Jennifer promptly took possession of a jump rope. The girls from whom they’d taken it tried to be open-minded and tolerant, but they still couldn’t help feeling cheated somehow. “We think you should share,” they said.

  Sally rolled her eyes as Jennifer responded, “We think you should stop trying to impose your narrow-minded, middle-class morality on us.”

  “But remember the rules?”

  Sally and Jennifer laughed mockingly in the other girls’ faces. “We’ve evolved beyond the rules and attained a higher perception: We think the jump rope is ours. We think we’re entitled to it. Therefore, the jump rope is ours.”

  This new way of thinking caught on. The children had no need of authority or Mrs. Kravitz anymore. Each child was his or her own authority. As for the rules, although the standards on the old sign beside the playground never changed, the rules became increasingly offensive. The children finally tore down the sign and threatened to kick and punch any kid who tried to put it back up.

  So the playground was all theirs, and all the kids lived and behaved according to what felt right to them.

  When the first real fight broke out and Tracy Sorenson beat the living tar out of Stevie Boland, the kids watched and debated what may have caused such a fight, but none of them could say it was anybody’s fault. Nor did anyone say that it was wrong.

  Since nothing was wrong or anybody’s fault, every kid soon felt entitled to have or do anything, by any means. Since there were no rules and reasoning was inconvenient, the kids resorted to hitting, shoving, fighting, spitting, and chasing. The jump ropes, balls, bats, and other playground equipment became plunder to be captured, always going to the strongest kid or the biggest gang. Sharing came only with a price, and as for taking turns, the next turn always went to the toughest kid.

  The playground fell into chaos. The big rubber balls didn’t go boing, boing, boing anymore, and there were no more baseball games—no one wanted to play by the rules, and most denied there were any rules at all, so no one played.

  A few, unwritten rules did crop up eventually, dictated by the toughest, meanest, strongest kids and very easy to demonstrate: Might Makes Right. Survival of the Fittest. Natural Selection.

  Jordan Smith liked those rules because he was tough.

  Unfortunately for Jordan, Tracy Sorenson was tougher. He beat the living tar out of Jordan Smith and established his reputation as the toughest, meanest, strongest kid on the playground.

  Now it was forbidden to speak of the old authority the children had once known, and the memory of Mrs. Kravitz quickly faded. The playground rules were gone, not only from the old wooden sign, but also from the minds and hearts of the children.

  Tracy’s will was now law. He controlled all the bats, balls, and jump ropes, and he decided who could play with them and when. He had a gang of tough boys and girls around him who enforced his will upon all the others through sheer brutality. There were no rules except his.

  There was no longer any fun either.

  The playground parable illustrates a familiar, historical pattern that is really no more complicated than the downward spiral we just traced on the playground. When we consider Stalin’s Russia, Hitler’s Germany, or the killing fields of Cambodia under Pol Pot, we see clear examples of what happens when man cuts away his moorings in God. At first, he thinks he is free, but then he realizes he is actually adrift, without a moral compass, in dangerous waters, where only the big fish win.

  And the big fish can be horrendously mean to all the little fish when they have no absolute authority to whom they are accountable.

  The Scripture records numerous times in the history of G
od’s people when the majority of the population rejected God’s revealed Word to them, and hence, God’s authority. In describing one such period, one of the saddest, most poignant refrains in the Bible states flatly, “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judg. 21:25 NASB). While at first glance that seems to imply that the Hebrew people enjoyed enormous freedom and autonomy, the exact opposite was true. The Book of Judges records a time of rampant immorality and chaos, with horrendous crimes against humanity. Predictably, the people fell into bondage to one tyrant after another, and God had to raise up a series of judges to deliver them.

  In America, we haven’t fallen under the heel of a ruthless dictator—at least, not yet. But we might ask ourselves: What point in the playground parable describes where we are today as a society? Here’s a sobering hint, excerpted from the Eric Harris autopsy report:

  HISTORY: This is the case of an 18-year-old, white male who was the alleged victim of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head that occurred in the Columbine High School library on 04/20/99. No other history is available at the time of autopsy.

  EXTERNAL EXAMINATION: The body is clothed in a bloodstained white T-shirt with the inscription “Natural Selection” on the front. . . .

  On his Web page, Eric Harris listed many things he hated, but Darwin’s theory of evolution, particularly his suggestion of natural selection, stood in stark contrast. Harris’s words are the haunting result of a playground in chaos:

  YOU KNOW WHAT I LOVE???

  Natural SELECTION! . . . it’s the best thing that ever happened to the Earth. Getting rid of all the stupid and weak organisms . . . but it’s all natural! YES!1

  When we pause to ponder what Eric Harris was wearing on the day he helped shoot to death thirteen people, we are well on our way to explaining why it happened.