I have been doing a lot of praying about bullying in the
recent years. I am struck by all the
news stories of how bullying resulted in a truly tragic ending of a young
life. I am living in church environment
in which bullies usually not only reside but are enabled by a system that
continues to let them win. I just cannot
understand how our society is “OK” with such behavior. I also recently feel that lots of pop songs
are truly encouraging people to be “Brave” or to be like a “Firework” and other
great lyrics that are pushing people to not let that be the normal.
As part of my prayer I have been trying to be open to the
world around me and in the last several months by heart has grown quite aware
as to the reality of the bully problem.
This is NOT just isolated cases or even just a problem for school age
kids – this is a HUGE society problem and we ALL need to take ownership of this
and change.
I’m calling my husband and his family out on this
first. In their family they spend a lot
of time giving each other a hard time.
In fact my husband calls his sister the “ugly one” even though she is
anything but ugly. It has gotten so
extreme that one time he mentioned her being ugly and she wasn’t even
around. She has her own words for him,
so she isn’t blameless in this. Although
this is how they act, they truly love each other and in the years have come
through to support each other when need.
Yet this is the example that our children have of a healthy (?)
relationship. This relationship is full
of bullying – albeit in a joking way.
I’m calling out all of our TV sitcoms. There is always the one person that the
sitcom makes into a character who is funny just for being – and in a way we all
make fun of them. And making fun is a
form of bullying.
Many normal adults today spend a lot of time bringing people
down in jokingly ways. This is what our
children see – and the people who are different are always targeted out. If we want bullying to stop and to have a
true impact on our world, we need to change.
ALL OF US.
Our Christian faith does not leave room for this. We are asked to lift people up – lift up
their gifts and individuality. So let us
do so. If we spent as much time lifting
people up as we often do tearing people down we all might have more healthy
relationships and our children may get a new message instead of what we are
teaching them today.
