(If you want to hear Lori read this story click)here

 

 

There is a movie called The Bully that addresses the harmful ways kids treat each other. Bullying can involve persistent messages of ridicule or shame as well as physical assault.

 

Bullying is frightening in its ability to demoralize innocent children, for their weight, or their social awkwardness, their accent or their lack of affluence. I still remember the boy and girl that were bullied in my second grade class... Emil and Lucy. I have no recollection of adding to their misery, but I don't think I went out on a limb for them either. 

 

It is not a simple matter of the bully is bad and the victim is good. Both deserve compassion, but the behavior must stop.  

 

One of the most profound memories I have of understanding the subtle insidiousness of bullying was reading the book, The Hundred Dresses. Although I could not have articulated the awakening in my young heart, I knew at least one face of contempt. No one ever hit Wanda Petronski, or stole her lunch money. The teacher was mostly ignorant of the teasing. But on the playground the taunting went unabated. 

 

 

 

Friends tell me about how their spouses belittle them. People may say things that make their husband or wife feel powerless, and stupid. I feel the same roiling urgency to want to protect them. Often the injured person is soft hearted, and in my experience eschews meeting unkindness with revenge.

 

Sometimes in movies the unscrupulous character says things to incriminate himself, unaware of the hidden camera documenting every word. Then the hero replays it for the media, or the judge. Suddenly his own vicious monologue comes stinging back at him. 

 

It is my belief that the hidden cameras are rolling on all of us every minute. One day we will sit in the front row to watch our own unedited actions on replay.

 

I pray to behave in a way that will not make me weep with unquenchable regret.

 

 

 

Photo by Photobooththing

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