Matthew 11:12
“From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it.”
Psalm 37:35
“I have seen a wicked, violent person spreading himself like a luxuriant tree in its native soil.”
My intention in this reflection today is primarily a linking of resources for listening and conversations…as I recently came across a podcast that interests me. I’ve only listened to a few episodes on this forum but the episode sent into my email yesterday – along with other dialogues I was in -has created a new to pause and express, today.
I woke up this morning thinking loosely about the two verses above. Just texts that came into my mind following a conversation yesterday about forms of violence. I’m not really sure what these mean, but I have heard teachings on these passages over the years – mostly the far-distant past years of my ever-evolving faith.
So I share them simply as food for thought…a starting point…as I take some time to organize what I’m wanting to say here.
After listening to this episode from Lee Camp’s Tokens Podcast – S3E15: Thou Shalt Not be a Jerk: Eugene Cho I was thinking about a number of episodes from one of my favorite spiritual speakers, Rob Bell, came to mind. (I will link these at the end of this piece).
And this, led me to think about a personal story from my own life – my one encounter with actual, physical school violence when I was in 7th grade. (Oh, which now leads me to the one other encounter with physical violence with grade school friends, when I was around 4th or 5th grade).
After I share these stories, I will link a number of Robcast episodes which come to mind as related somehow to the numerous conversations seemingly contained in the one Lee Camp podcast I mentioned listening to (above) – an interview with a Korean-American-Christian and what I would label, an “advocate” for the most vulnerable in our world.
PERSONAL STORY NUMBER ONE:
That Day in Middle School Drama Elective – Unsupervised in the Activities Area
I was simply not a girl-fighter in school. I was pretty timid, but I can clearly remember this encounter in my mind’s eye in great detail.
It was seventh grade, and after lunch we had elective period. Me and two of my closest girlfriends in school signed up for some type of play-writing elective. (It actually may have been folk dancing – I don’t recall for certain, and it doesn’t really matter in a sense…although, maybe, it does…because if it was folk-dancing that would add yet another layer of why the personal differences of all those in our group converged that day in such “violence?” I do not know).
In our group was another girl – very tall, very smart, shy and sensitive, too – one of these big-boned girls that was so tall she was taunted for her pants being appropriate to wear during a “flood” – this girl was in our group, as well a three other girls with a reputation for being very rough.
In my adult years – through the grapevine – I learned some things about each of these rougher girls and their homelife that filled out my insights into their personal story, too, and how things converged that day.
There was a huge area for various joint activities that was surrounded by at least one hallways of classrooms and I believe, another hall on the opposite side. Definitely a bathroom – a girl’s bathroom – on the opposite side. I can see it spatially in my mind so very well, to this day.
This group of me and six other girls were sent to do our thing – unsupervised (which is OK, but it was a factor in this story, too) – in this area.
I don’t recall what triggered this first interaction exactly but I recall some verbal taunting going on involving the three “rough” girls toward the tall girl. Then, one of these girls went up to her and violenting slapped this girl across the back of her head with her hand. In my memory, I can almost hear it.
She turned away and stood there with her back to them, crying. The girls continued to taunt her, as me and my other two friends watched.
I don’t know what got into me, but I spoke up and said, “Leave her alone, don’t you think you’ve done enough already?”
With this, the girl who had hit her turned to me. She said something like, “Well what are you going to do about it?” And she strolled over to me and we stood, face to face.
I was panicking inside…she said something like, “make me, girl…”
And implied in her tone was an impending physical confrontation.
I’ve told this story before, with humorous framing, and I could do that, too, since in some ways the idea of me (little “Eileen Slifer” as one of my middle school girlfriends called me…even into high school…she had a protective sense over me and was a year ahead…) in a fight with this girl, has some type of “Norman Rockwell” comedic spin to it…immediately coming to mind is his painting of The Shiner! Ha.
But, I will re-tell yet again in another way.
She was daring me to hit her.
To “make her stop” bullying this other girl.
To use violence to stop her violence.
And, something came over me which bypassed – at least for a split second – my intense fear of this girl.
I head never been in a fight before so I wasn’t sure where to start!
I took my right hand and half-gently hit her left arm.
She called and raised me on it – in poker terms.
She took her right hand and hit me a little harder on my left arm.
This exchange – as I recall – went on for a few times with increasingly escalation.
Somewhere in my 7th grade brain I must have thought – I’m either going to have to walk away or communicate I mean business!
I wasn’t even sure what I meant, or wanted…but I found myself taking my right hand (Oh…the dialogue is coming back! She was taunting me saying, “Come on…hit me girl…hit me…”) and hitting her hard enough (on her arm) to provoke an immediate and swift punch to one of my eyes!
Since I am right-handed and I am recalling this encounter that she probably was, too, I’m thinking she slammed me in my right eye, but I can’t say for certain.
This prompted me to immediately run to that girl’s bathroom I mentioned!
I can’t recall if my two friends followed me in – I think they did – I was crying and looking in the mirror and already my eye was bruised and swelling. A teacher was called and came in, but I do not recall for certain which one it was.
Beyond the incident itself, was a tremendous fear that my mother would find out.
Because for a multitude of reasons – she would be the very last person I would want to find out as she would interact with me, the school and all others in a way that would fully humiliate me and make things one thousand times worse – hands down, guaranteed.
I recall I was brought an ice pack and sent to the guidance counselor’s office and begged him not to tell my mother, which he agreed to, since he was well-acquainted with my mother.
I remember going home that night and avoiding my mother, but did tell my father. I can remember him giving me a steak – yes, actual red meat – to take into my room and put over my eye to get the bruising which was not quite noticeable to minimize.
WOWZA!!!
But, it did not end there. Violence never ends as long as it can stay in circulation. Right? (This is a phrase from a Rob Bell episode that came to mind as I write…) But, the question of how to get it out of circulation has no simple or easy answers, currently, in my mind.
Over the next several days I experienced various forms of intimidation from these three girls. When I would pass them in the hallway, one or all of them would take their right hand in a fist and pound it into their left while staring at me.
After several days of this, things came to the head in the lunch cafeteria. I was sitting with my two closest girlfriends and one of them had a plastic ring that could be filled with water, and you could squirt people with it by clutching the water-well inside your palm.
It was just a fun thing we were messing with at lunch.
I had on a jean-jumper skirt that day – it was denim with a front like painter’s/farmer’s pants and the back had a zipper up the middle of this skirt.
I went over to the sink in the cafeteria corner to fill up the ring and found that one or more of these girls had come up behind me, grabbed my arms and taken the ring, which belonged to one of my friends.
I returned to the table – and oh, these rough girls sat at the lunch table behind us, I believe we all had assigned seats, somewhat – where one of the girls continued staring at me during the remainder of lunch doing that “fist-pounding” ritual of impending threat of more violence toward me.
When I returned to the table, unknownst to me one of these girls had come in back of me (or maybe it happened at the sink and I didn’t notice) and had unzipped the zipper on the back of my jean-jumper skirt. I kept hearing people at the table behind laughing at me.
I specifically remember the kind guy that told me the zipper was down – I am friends on social media with him to this day – and the humiliation I felt. I was pretty much shaking by this point and I remember me and my two girlfriends staying in the cafeteria until everyone else – EVERYONE – ALL TEACHERS – EVERYONE but the cafeteria staff had left.
Then, I quickly ran across the hallway into the guidance office and broke down, telling the vice-principal all that had happened. (Actually, perhaps I did not tell a counselor initially, only that teacher in the bathroom whom I pleaded with not to call my mother). Maybe, even, she told me to go home and get a steak. Sometimes it can be hard to piece things together years lately.
I do recall that I did tell my father, and I can remember pressing a piece of cold, red meat to my eye.
However I got from point A to point B doesn’t matter precisely, but, my mother never, ever knew of what happened. Never. I dodged a huge silver bullet, in this…somehow…with the help of a number of players in all this…
The vice-principal put a swift end to this ordeal. I mean swift. These girls never bothered me or my friends again, but I continued to have fear and avoidance of them.
When I was in college, I went into the McDonald’s and the girl whom I had fought with was running the register and took my order. I recognized her, and called her by name and greeted her.
She was surprised I remembered her, she did not remember me. As I recall…
PERSONAL STORY NUMBER TWO:
I Was Violent With a Close Childhood Friend in a Very Unfair Way!
This second story which of course – wasn’t the first to come into my mind, ha ha, as my limited encounters with physical violence growing up – reminds me “just a bit” of two famous scenes in A Christmas Story but not exactly.
Ralphie Rage
Ralphie Saved By His Mother
I think it is more the story of childhood exasperation and feeling powerless, set within the context of me and my three very best childhood friends…one hot, summer day…so long ago…
One of these childhood friends took her own life when she was 29, so this memory, in some sense, is a sacred memory of the four of us together.
I suppose I am now thinking of the film Stand By Me…a beautiful story of friendship, intensity and conflict between a small group of boys one summer…filled with a number of coming-of-age themes…
Anway…one of the girls in our group of four was more of a “tomboy” at that age, for lack of a better descriptor although I know her on social media now, too, and she is so beautifully deeply feminine and a mother…grandmother…wife and more…
But at that time I was on the skinny/frail side and she had quite the strength and energy – I remember she would come up behind me and pick me up and swing me around – playfully messing around I suppose as young girls do…on a hot summer’s day, sitting on the front lawn of one of the other girls.
I can recall we would sit under a Penn Oak tree on Stacie’s front lawn and gather up cicada shells and “monkey balls” (rather, some type of spiked seed-ball from that tree) and it was one of these days where this other friend kept grabbing me from behind and “violently, ha ha, spinning me round and round” until she would put me down and I would feel like throwing up and would staggar!
Oh, we would do gymnastics, too. We all wanted to be Nadia Comăneci…
I kept telling her to stop. And she wouldn’t!
We were just playing – it was simply a convergence of something that day among us four girls.
I don’t recall exactly how this happened but at some point, the girl whose lawn we were on, along with the sister (who died at 29) of this other girl who was spinning me, had her pinned to the ground.
For some reason I was so angry that I punched her in the stomach several times while they had her pinned down. I must have punched her in the diaphram because she started crying and gasping that she couldn’t breathe.
She and her sister made it across the street to their home, and later, the younger girl came out and told me and Stacie that her sister was going to die (or something to that effect) because of how hard I punched her!
Maybe, she said something like: “My sister MIGHT die…” implying it was some “wait-and-see” situation! I am lovingly smiling as I write this…because (and thankfully!)…she didn’t die.
We were just kids. I vaguely recall the two of them were back out later that night …and we were all playing (nicely) together again…and this continued into and throughout parts of high school…waning during my junior and senior years for various reasons…and at U of D me and the girl I had punched spent a lot of time together on campus that first year.
The tragic death of her younger sister, in 1995 as I recall, is a series of heart-breaking connections that took place between the three of us, at that time.
I will just say one more thing – that among us four girls – the passing back and forth of clothing seemed to be some bonding ritual. My family was poor and the Stacie’s mother hand-made an amazing array of clothing for her daughter. Since I was smaller though two days older than her, I loved getting bags of her outgrown clothing given to me. Yet, there was an amount of shame in that.
When we reached middle school and even into high school – I recall me and the two sisters would trade clothing for a few days here and there. A pair of cordoroy jeans I had that she liked, a shirt she had that I liked.
Since I have always found bonding with women more difficult, I am now reflecting on these relationships at that tender age with new eyes, today.
Anway, this has digressed from the theme of various forms of violence…thus ends today’s expression.
The following are a handful of best episode links to the RobCast – ones I have listened to with interest – some, multiple/multiple times:
Episode 102 | An Eye Full of Light
The Thing in the Air | Part 5 – The Lie of Redemptive Violence
Episode 8 | The Enduring Relevance, Astonishing Power, and Unexpected Brilliance of the Bible
Episode 14 | You Are Always With Me And Everything I Have Is Yours
Episode 58 Politics and Guns – Part 5 – The Question at the Heart of the Empire
Episode 57 Politics and Guns – Part 4 – The United States of America
Episode 56 Politics and Guns – Part 3 – The Power of Policy
Episode 55 Politics and Guns – Part 2 – The Endless Tension
Episode 54 Politics and Guns – Part 1 – Politics is a Good Word
Thank You For Reading
Please Feel Free To Express Your Thoughts Below
Thank You For Reading
Please Feel Free To Express Your Thoughts Below
