Bullied No More
He was in trouble. Tom was in my high school counselor’s office at Benedictine High School in Metro Detroit. Not because he was kicked out of class or had the typical scheduling problem. As he unfolded his torment to me, it was immediately upsetting to hear of his being bullied daily by classmates before and after school. I asked him for names, knowing it was the only way I could almost guarantee that the bullying would cease.
Of course, Tom was reluctant to give me any names, especially the name of the “ring leader.” I told him that I’d had plenty of experience working with tormenters like those menacing him and that I could almost guarantee there would be no repercussions. I tried to help him understand that bullying acts between members of our community were defiantly dismissing the elements that made for peace in the whole educational community. That every act of unkindness was a momentary forgetting of the kindness of God (Romans 2: 4). He had to trust me that I could get the torments to stop.
Roger came into my office the following morning. I immediately told him that he wasn’t in trouble and we exchanged some high school pleasantries. He seemed to be more relaxed. There was a quiet pause.
I then took out a 3-by-5 index card from my drawer and began to write out Tom’s first and last name as slowly and deliberately as I could, and in large letters that filled up the card. Another extended pause.
I slowly picked up the card and showed it to Roger. “Do you know this guy?” I asked.
He gulped and then blurted out, “It won’t happen anymore!” And it didn’t.
While facing the torments of the bullies that verbally and physically assaulted him, the brittle high schooler wouldn’t have known much about “shoes fitted for readiness” to help him sprint to aid others in the pursuit of justice, the balm of kindness, and the grace of mercy. Tom’s mind and heart were too overwhelmed by the hovering dominance of dwarfing threats.
When we’re in crisis mode the monsters rarely crawl back under our bed. They’re too pre-occupied with bullying us away from any settled assurance about the peace of Christ.
Saint Ignatius in 108 A.D. was being led by soldiers across the empire from his bishopric in Antioch to the arenas in Rome. During the persecutions directed at the church under the Roman Emperor Trajan, Ignatius was being “bullied” by the forces of a mighty empire. On the journey toward his execution, he wrote,
“Let me be fodder for the wild beasts! This is how I may get to God. For I am but God’s wheat being ground by the teeth of the wild beasts. So, bring on the tearing of limbs and the crushing of bones, but bring me to Jesus!”
Ignatius was given every opportunity to deny the ultimate Lordship of Jesus Christ, an authority to him above and beyond that of Caesar. However, the peace of Christ reigning in his heart dismantled all threats to his eternal allegiance. It was almost as if the bullying didn’t matter. He had trained his ears to hear the transcendent, eternal voice of the ultimate Comforter and Counselor.
In the arena in Rome the wild beasts would consume his body within minutes before a stunned audience unfamiliar such courage in the face of death. Ignatius’ name was not written on a 3-by-5 index card, but in the “Lambs Book of Life.”
And the tormentors were eternally silenced as he crossed into his everlasting home.
Paul D. Patton, Ph.D., is a professor of communication and theater at Spring Arbor University in Michigan. He has graduate degrees in Guidance and Counseling, Religious Education, and Script and Screenwriting, and a doctorate in Communication with an emphasis in theater arts. He has been married to his wife Beth for over forty years and has three daughters (all actresses)—Jessica, Emily, and Grace, three sons-in-law, David, Joe, and Eric, and four grandsons, Caleb Rock, Logan Justice, Micah Blaze, and Miles Dean.