BLOGGING-THOMAS

Violence comes in many forms. Bombs. Guns. Fists.

As well as words, gestures, posturing.

Bullying-behavior rarely resorts to the former; but bullies are masters-of-manipulation with the latter.

We live in the middle of what Ryan Halligan, a staff writer for the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation, has described as “An Epidemic of Bullying,” verging on a societal pandemic.  At least, in the case of the bullying of children and young adults, light is finally beginning to be shed on this dark behavior, and responses are being formulated.  For example, St. Thomas’ Parish participated in the It Gets Better project, a national response to the suicides of teenagers who were bullied because of their sexual orientation and identity:

Bullying in the workplace, however, has been described as “The Silent Epidemic” — it happens regularly, but it isn’t being discussed very openly yet.  Writing for Psychology Today, Ray Williams defines such bullying as “the conscious repeated effort to wound and seriously harm another person not with [physical] violence, but with words and actions. Bullying damages the physical, emotional and mental healthy of the person who is targeted.”  And we have gotten so accustomed to such behavior in our entertainment, our politics, and our work-environments that we are numb to the effects of psychological violence, much less to potential remedies for it.

That’s one of the reasons that St. Thomas’ Parish is in conversation with Bishop V. Gene Robinson about the formation of a Center for Nonviolent Communication in our new building when he retires as Bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire in 2013. Meanwhile, we are already beginning to work on our own nonviolent communication skills, as well as the community dynamics that can encourage and discourage them, in our upcoming parish retreat with Canon Charles LaFond, who oversees congregational development in the Diocese of New Hampshire.

This is important work for us to do, because besides being potential agents of change in a culture of violence-filled rhetoric and behavior, churches also can themselves be hotbeds for bullying.  In an organization that is built on a metaphor of sheep being cared for and protected from harm by a shepherd, churchgoers get caught off-guard when the sheep attack one another .. or sometimes, even more viciously, the shepherd.  Episcopal priest Dennis Maynard has chronicled the latter behavior in his book, When Sheep Attack, which provides chilling examples of how a lone-wolf bully, or a small pack of parishioners bent on destruction, can threaten to bring a parish to its knees through their bullying behavior.

One of the worst characteristics of church communities, however, is not just that such behavior exists — undercutting even the best efforts of a community to foster an environment of hospitality, welcome, and inclusion — but that often virtually the entire congregation is  aware of what is going on and chooses to stand by and do nothing.

Rabbi Edwin Friedman, one of the most respected voices in describing the systemic dysfunctions of families and communities like the church, challenges this bystander-behavior in the face of bullying in his little book, Friedman’s Fables, in the story he entitled “The Friendly Forest.”   There he describes the efforts of the inhabitants of a forest to encourage a lamb to disregard the continually threatening and aggressive behaviors of a tiger who has taken up residence in the same forest where the lamb lives. Some want to brush off the behavior as “just the way tigers are,”  while others even go to far as to suggest that the lamb is bringing in on herself by being so unnaturally peaceful. Then the conciliators of the forest suggest that all that is needed is “better communication” between the lion and the lamb; they should should just talk through their differences.

The fable ends rather abruptly when, following the continuing advice to the harried lamb, “Don’t be so sheepish. … Speak up strongly when it does these things,” finally “one of the less subtle animals in the forest, more uncouth in expression and unconcerned about just who remained, was overheard to remark, ‘I never heard of anything so ridiculous. If you want a lamb and a tiger to live in the same forest, you don’t try to make them communicate. You cage the bloody tiger.’”

Bullying continues until it stops.  And it seldom stops of its own accord.  It stops when it no longer is deemed acceptable to blame the victim of bullying and instead the bystanders step up — which often begins when they speak out — and state the obvious: We’ve got to cage the tiger.  Authentic nonviolent communication leads to justice in the way we behave — not by talking while the bullying continues, but by finding ways to “cage the tiger” … in ourselves and in our communities. This is the way that Christians envision the Reign of God when the “lion lies down with the lamb” … and the lamb sleeps well through the whole night.