Tag: church bullies

Bullies 101 – The World is a Playground

I can see you cringing already. You know a bully. Your face scrunches when you remember that pudgy face OR the ubiquitous striped t-shirt. Seared into your memory is color the color of his (or her) hair: bright blond OR maybe jet black and slicked back, maybe a buzzcut. You can still hear the other kids standing around as they watch and snicker while you scramble to get back up off the ground and gather your backpack or your lunch tray and your dignity.

We learned hard lessons on those playgrounds.

Lesson One:

One of the first – and most powerful – lessons was that the punch to the back of your head was so perfectly timed that your retaliation meant that the victims were the ones who would be caught…and punished. Sadly, even though our teachers ought to have known this from their own childhoods, somehow this injustice is generationally repeated: it’s the person who strikes back that gets in trouble, not the one who threw the first punch.

Lesson two:

Bullies are frighteningly adept at finding those soft places we instinctively protect, where we feel weakest. What we mostly remember is the terror, a very personal terror. You likely can feel it in your stomachs right now: standing alone before a bully and his or her posse, tensing up, preparing for the punch or the shove or the kick or the name calling that highlighted how imperfect we were, waiting for the pain to be inflicted. The bully in our midst, whether we were the target or not, preyed upon their victims’ own sense of inadequacy; we often then and even now agree with our tormentors that we are weak, stupid, inept, ugly or bad at whatever it is we’re doing at the moment.

Lesson three:

Only in the movies was there anyone to have your back. More painful than the fist to the belly, more lasting than trying to get your breath back, was the moment you looked up at those standing around and realized no one there felt brave enough to help. The other classmates or co-workers or church council members were afraid of being the next victim and so they were either silent, or worse, they saved themselves preemptively by joining the enemy.

Most of us remember the sickening feeling of being alone with our bully. No one else would help.

We never got over it and we pray we never have to go there again. And yet here we are.

Last lesson:

The bully was not always bigger than the other classmates; but good luck picking a bully out of a crowd before they spotted you. You could forget trying to get your parents to believe that the darling little girl with the pigtails was the thug who had punched you for your lunch money. Worse, it can be nearly impossible to spot a seasoned bully until they have smacked you.

HERE WE GO AGAIN

Sadly, our childhood nightmares have grown up with us, but not matured, mind you.

Part and parcel of a national epidemic of bullying has been our dismay and surprise when those whom we had thought were kind, thinking, generous, have shown us that they may in fact be tired of “sharing” and they are just fed up enough to not care about being civil any more.

Bullying on the pickleball court? Seriously?

I am amazed where this shows up. Recently, while a number of older women were playing pickleball, I asked if we couldn’t change our language. After each match, one woman persisted in directing all of the losers to one court and the winners to another. Losers ended up only playing the same folks over and over (not a great way to improve).

Worse, every new game losers were reminded they were just that. Losers. As if they weren’t aware they’d lost. This language persisted even though we had at least one new person there who needed to be made to feel welcome – or so I thought. There easily exist a variety of ways to rotate play that allow everyone to play with friends they haven’t played with yet, so long as we’re just having fun.

“It’s just a game,” the defacto leader said but not until she had declared with some disgust, “We’re not going to worry about being politically correct here.” Well, there’s politically correct and there’s kind and friendly. These were not folks trying to win any prizes; these were friends out on a beautiful day and yet the atmosphere had begun to resemble a playground where a bully might find some traction. (You might be skeptical, but the dynamics are the same as any group where a few folks who have perhaps been treated with disdain themselves will start to turn that outward.)

Rather than learning to play nice, now, more so at least than in those “kindler, gentler, points of light, we go high” decades, the bullies of our nation are empowered, encouraged in our streets, in our social circles and forgiven (read “pardoned”) when they go too far and actually hurt and become destructive and violent. We have -once again- institutionalized our bullies and that might be the most discouraging aspect of all.

HERE WE GO AGAIN

Bullies who wear masks – or robes and hoods made of old sheets – had, we thought, gone away. The truth is they never went away completely. They have simply grown up and waited for their moment.

At one time, as a society, we were able to enlist the powers that be to make it clear bullying was not acceptable on our playground; but here we are again. Bullying has returned with a bad attitude and an ax to grind, showing up in creative ways as a social and political skill today and is gaining strength with every punch successfully landed.

We thought we’d declared to the world this is not who we are and yet, we are dismayed to find this is in fact who we are: people who want someone else to make the bullies go away. We may point it out and complain, but collectively we do not believe our power to stop it exists, but is that simply because we haven’t tried?

SUGAR BULLIES

I wrote a couple of years ago about a bully I faced in the first church I served, one whose power and tactics nearly drove me to leave ministry. For more on bullies in social groups like churches, see “Here Lies Jimmie’s Arm,” (available on Amazon).

Perhaps most interesting to the study of bullies in general was that the realization that our church’s bully had practiced for years being maudlin and using false compassion to manipulate and bully in a gentle-seeming way. He was a “sugar bully.”

Everybody loved him, until they became a target.

Tactics of bullies in churches (and workplaces, too) include sabotage, subverting worthy causes, enlisting others to do their “dirty work,” and causing victims to self-destruct.

The good news is there are effective ways to stand up to bullies. First, though, some rules.


Rules of the Playground:


Give the bully what they want and they’ll only demand more. Appeasement never works. Never. Just ask Europe.

Bullies seldom act alone. Just like squirrels are just rats with great tails and good PR, bullies are just cowards who are loud. They don’t do well alone.

Effective Tactics

Shine a Light

Specifically, understand the use of half-truths: A half-truth is a deceptive statement that includes some element of truth and that morsel of truth can lead us to a false conclusion. We hear it and assume the second half of the equation is true if the first one is. Being aware of the use of lies by bullies, especially half-truths, is a powerful way to stop them – it can be exhausting but I have found it effective to point out they are lying or their “facts” are false over and over if necessary. Declare their lies for what they are and keep repeating that like a broken record if necessary. They don’t know what to do, especially if you respond softly.

Bullies behave like cockroaches in that they scurry away when a light is shined on them, seemingly fearful that exposure might weaken their power.

Safety in Numbers

Enlist the help of others. Safety in numbers. Depending on how loud and powerful the enemy is, this may be tough, but keep asking and trying and standing your ground and there will be others to stand with you. Sadly, in our political climate right now, some folks have died to get others to stand up and stand against our bullies.

Model Vulnerability BUT Stand Your Ground

Admit you aren’t perfect and you know it but, surprise, no one is. Be humble enough to own your flaws; this will removed the power a bully has over you. This is different from backing down or standing by quietly. Vulnerable means demanding to be treated with dignity while offering the same to the person bullying us.

Finally, realize getting rid of the bully does not get rid of the problem; there remains an atmosphere that nurtured that bully in the first place. Plenty of others are ready and willing to step onto the playground. These folks will be weaker so long as they are not allowed to get a foothold. Once we have cleaned up the playground, we have to stay around and stay vigilant for new and creative ways bullies might try to slip in and gain support.

Prevention

Finally, start to look at the crowd that egged on the bully. No bully stands alone; their needs for control, revenge, attention will have been fed by those around them. We’ve got to wade into the crowd and be willing to address how the mean-spirited behavior was encouraged.

In “Here Lies Jimmie’s Arm,” we had to confront the behavior of the rest of the church that nurtured that bully.

We might impeach the President but that does not guarantee the government will change.

Study Non-Violence – At least read up on it. It has been surprisingly effective.

The older I get, the more I understand this to be the key. We must have a few children on our playground who are willing not to strike back.

We must be those children.

When you stand on your playground in front of a bully, look at the crowd around you and realize that every member of the crowd who taunted you, who stood squarely behind the bully, more often than not was a victim of bullying themselves or, at the very least, was one who got in trouble for hitting in retaliation. This means they also have a desire for vengeance, maybe deep down but unhealed.

Until we all start using our kind words and stop the violence that starts when we are young, we will continue to create more angry people – often whole nations – ready to retaliate and get their own revenge on the bully who hurt them.

Like it or not, the whole bullying thing stops with you, with me, with us. At work, at the dinner table, in church, in our neighborhoods, we must realize that the whole world is a playground and we can learn how to make it safer.

It really is pretty simple.

Here Lies Jimmie’s Arm: A Pastor’s Tale of Smalltown Challenges

(Includes an excerpt)

With your support and encouragement, Here Lies Jimmie’s Arm, my first book, is out and ready for consumption.

Click here to go to my Amazon author page. From there you can Follow the Author and be the first to hear about new books.

Or, point your phone’s camera to this QR code to be taken to the book’s page. (Available in paperback or Kindle download.)

Be sure to leave me a review if you liked what you read!

An excerpt:

From “The Women’s Kitchen Jug Band.”

Lela, Rebecca, Molly and Sally were all part of this impressive gaggle of hardy women who had lived long enough and worked hard enough to say they didn’t really care what anyone else thought any more, though they were not shy about telling you what they thought. What they “thought” often and vocally was that “Mildred was goin’ to hell.” That was because Mildred, who lived across the street from Lela, never let the shadow of the steeple at church fall across her path, even though she was mobile and still drove when she wanted. 

The first time I tried to visit Mildred, I called to ask if she’d mind a visit and she proceeded to cuss me out and tell me with every imaginable expletive why I needed to leave her the #*#* alone! Then she stopped and took a breath, but before I could apologize for bothering her, she asked, “Now, who IS this?”

“Your new preacher,” I offered. 

“Well, damn.”

Like many of the elderly I visited, Mildred, who was even tinier than Rebecca, and even more impatient with the younger folks around her, complained about the same issues every time. She also told me about her “constitutional.” Her need for me to know her bowel habits was, strangely, not unusual for this congregation which was, admittedly, mostly populated with folks old enough for regularity to be an issue. Nevertheless, I never knew so many people in one congregation who needed their pastor to know they were regular. I was not prepared for that. I expected they’d share what they were ashamed of or when they’d strayed from the straight and narrow, but not this. If I’d had a bingo board to take to every visit, “regular bowel movement” would have been the center spot. Mildred was no different. 

I learned quickly to move to another topic in those visits. If I’d been willing, I could have shared what was working or not working for others in the congregation and even wondered if I needed to copy those old timey door-to-door peddlers and carry with me a big black valise filled with stool-softeners, laxatives and Pepto-Bismol. I decided instead that this line of conversation was simply a warped reminder of my responsibility to keep boundaries and not share what was not mine to share. I chose not to take the bait in those conversations.  

All of these women, at different times, worried me to no end, and the challenge was to try to talk them down off those ladders at their age. Mildred prided herself on a perfect lawn, and no one could do it as well as she could. She was so tiny, though, that the brand new “Yardman” riding mower she bought would not start for her because she was not heavy enough for the seat to register that she was actually riding the mower. Undeterred, she doctored the spring system and drove around her steep and hilly lawn at least twice a week during the warmer months while the neighbors cringed and begged her to let one of their sons help her out. Her own son would not help, however, so she was damned if she would let someone else’s son show him or her up. She would not stop mowing, not even after she tipped the mower because she found a new gopher hole. One tire dropped into the hole but kept going even after Mildred fell off. Thankfully, it did not get far before it rested against a small tree and burned itself out. The jolt sent Mildred tumbling and she found herself stuck, headfirst, in a hole. It wasn’t a tight hole and her head had fallen into it so she hadn’t gotten hurt too badly. She would have easily been capable of extricating herself from the offending hole except she didn’t have the arm strength to push herself back upright and so she had to wait, head first in that hole, listening to her precious mower burn itself out against the silver maple tree until one of the neighbors smelled the engine burning and came over to see what was what. That neighbor got cussed out, too. Mildred was nothing if not consistent.

A couple of years later, Mildred died, still alone, and still cussing out anyone in her way, but also still quite regular. All she wanted was a short graveside service and that was certainly her choice except that she died during the coldest February I could remember. Only the Kitchen Band ladies attended and, as was to be expected, each dressed “to the nines” to send Mildred off to her fiery eternal home. Because the only people who would be attending on that frigid morning were these ladies in their nineties, I was grateful the funeral home was prepared with a small tent and some space heaters. I assured the Directors I would keep things brief, and only included a prayer and Proverbs 31. “Who can find a virtuous woman?” In retrospect, I had to admit Mildred had only sparsely shared about her past issues so talking about her as an excellent wife might have seemed disingenuous to the women who knew her well. At the time, though, we all were simply grateful to recite the 23rd Psalm and The Lord’s Prayer and be done with it. Unfortunately, as I took a flower from the pall and broke it up to crumble onto her casket, while I prayed, “Ashes to ashes,” a foul and acrid smell made me choke. I looked up to see one funeral director frantically trying to swat sparks while the other gagged. Rebecca, who’d ventured too close to the heater, had decided friends don’t die every day, so she would celebrate the occasion by resurrecting her fox fur stole, its head hanging where a nice brooch ought to have been. The beady eyes of the dead fox haunted me throughout the short service, but it was the smell that was most memorable. It was not just the smell of hair burning, which is foul enough; it was seventy-year-old fox hair we were smelling, an odor that stayed with me for days. I know, as we moved as fast as we could to get the ladies back into their cars, Mildred was either cussing up a storm or, perhaps, cackling gleefully. Maybe both.

Not convinced? How about some advance reviews?

“Here Lies Jimmie’s Arm is a treasure of a book, especially if you have ever attended a small church. The author describes her experiences growing up and becoming a pastor with much humor and great style. The reader is drawn into the dramas of small towns, small churches and in some cases small minds. How she survives and thrives and laughs along the way is truly brilliant and entertaining.” ~ Nancy B. 

“Very readable. And engaging. These pieces welcome the reader into this country setting, with all its charms, peculiarities and characters. The author juxtaposes the troubled histories of her parishioners with her own, inviting readers  into a novice pastor’s inner thoughts, worries and fears. Should be required reading for all would-be pastors.” ~ Charlie M