“The Spiritual Challenge of Bullying” Rev. Roberta Finkelstein November 6th, 2005 One spring afternoon in 1947, Jackie Robinson trotted out to second base, as he did every day of his rookie season. For Robinson, this meant not only fielding ground balls but studiously ignoring the shouted racial epithets that rained down on him. The insults came from the fans and from the opposing team. His own team mates remained silent. Some had signed a petition threatening to boycott the Dodgers if he made the team. Robinson was subjected to this treatment day in and day out, at home and on the road. On this particular afternoon, something changed. The Dodger’s shortstop, Pee Wee Reese, walked over to second base and stood shoulder to shoulder with Robinson, looking directly at the hecklers. Years later he was asked what had motivated him to do this. “Something reacted in my gut at that moment,” he said. “Something about what? The unfairness of it? The injustice of it? I don’t know.” In integrating professional sports, Robinson courageously endured unbearable disrespect, his life was threatened, he was spat upon. He never lost his temper or returned insult for insult. He just stood there and played brilliant baseball. Reese also showed courage by coming to his defense. He took his cues from Robinson by not getting angry or shouting back at the hecklers. He simply stood with Robinson, making eye contact with the offending fans. That little snippet of the 1947 baseball season provides us with a text book example of bullying and how to respond to it. Bullying, according to the web site bullying.org, is “repeated, aggressive behavior towards one person from another.” Sociologists Debra Repler and Wendy Craigsay, “Bullying can be physical, verbal, and/or psychological. It can be direct (face-to face), or indirect (behind one’s back). Indirect bullying includes exclusion and gossip. The key elements of bullying are power imbalance, the bully’s intent to harm, the victim’s distress, and the fact that acts of bullying are repeated over time.” Instances of bullying always involved three parties: the bully, the victim, and the by-standers. Bullying.org says that bullies often grow up in homes where there is a lot of fighting, shouting, hostility, and harsh physical punishment. If you think about the playground bullies of your own childhood, you are probably remembering people who were unpopular, unhappy, unlikable, not very successful academically, and generally insecure. They feel powerless, so they exert power the only way they know how. They look for somebody that they think is weaker than them, and pick on them. Victims of bullying are often perceived as ‘different’ in some way by their peers. Racial, ethnic and sexual minorities are often bullied. Children who are smaller, shy or introverted, unathletic . . . the list is endless. Jackie Robinson, being the only person of color on the baseball field, was mercilessly harassed for being different. But Robinson had been well coached in how to respond to the bullies in the stands. He knew that reacting would only encourage them. He ignored them, and just played baseball, even though it must have been terribly painful for him. He believed in himself, and carried himself with pride and dignity that put the bullies to shame. He lived out the truth of Eleanor Roosevelt’s contention that “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.” The third party in the bullying dynamic is the bystanders. And as bullying.org says, there is no such thing as an innocent bystander. If you are in the presence of an act of bullying, you have a moral decision to make. If you remain silent, you are part of the problem. You give the bully an audience, making him or her feel even more powerful. As a witness to the bullying, you add to the shame of the victim. In the bullying dynamic, the bystanders are, in fact, the most powerful people. Statistics show that in a majority of instances, when a bystander intervenes, the bullying stops within 10 seconds. 10 seconds! And the intervention doesn’t have to be a show of force. In fact, the most effective intervention is to do just what Pee Wee Reese did instinctively. Go and stand next to the victim. Don’t engage the bully, don’t try to talk them out of their actions. Don’t yell at them or get dragged into the same kind of behavior they are displaying. Simply stand with the victim, make eye contact with the bully. Then walk away with the victim at your side. That is the essence of bullying on a personal level – whether it happens at school, in a family home, or in a congregation. I’ll come back to the congregational dynamics in a minute. But first I just have to tell you a little bit about the other 2 sermons I wanted to give this morning. Often when I write a sermon I can’t fit in everything I want to say. Luckily for all of you the days of the 45 minute sermon are long gone, and the text mercilessly cut from my computer screen often becomes the basis of a sermon for another day. So here’s what got cut. The sermon about America as the global bully. Our actions in Iraq, our disdain for the UN and other international organizations, our failure to sign and honor international treaties designed to protect the environment and insure human rights . . . all of that will be in the sermon I give some day about America as global bully. The other sermon that got cut out is about the bullies of the Radical Religious Right and how they are taking advantage of the rest of us. A couple of months ago Bill Moyers did a commentary entitled “Reckoning with the God Squad.” The sub-title was “Fundamentalist bullies cannot be appeased. They must be confronted.” I was tempted. But not today. In the time left this morning, I want to point out that even in churches, bullies are a challenge. A spiritual challenge. Name-calling, sarcasm, insults, referring to the people you disagree with disdainfully as “those people” - these are all direct forms of bullying known to happen in churches. As bullying.org reminds us, there are also indirect methods of bullying that include gossip and rumors, exclusion, and, unique to churches, using your pledge as a weapon. That’s right: withholding a pledge when you don’t get your own way is a form of bullying. Unitarian Universalists have a set of ethical principles that guide our behavior and set boundaries around the behavior we will accept from others. Let’s look at some of those principles and see if they can help us respond effectively to church bullies. My focus here is on being an effective bystander, being the Pee Wee Reese of congregational life. Our first principle calls us to affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This principle is often misunderstood to mean that we are obligated to let everybody do whatever they want. It does not. It means that we see a person of worth beneath the unworthy and unacceptable behavior. It means that we name unacceptable behavior for what it is, give people the opportunity to recognize the harm they have done, make amends for hurt caused, and re-engage with the community. Putting a stop to bullying behavior is a fine example of our first principle in action, because to stop a bully not only is to protect the victim, it is to give the bully a second chance. Another way to apply that first principle is to act in ways that prevent bullying from starting in the first place. We do this by articulating and enforcing a behavioral covenant, such as the one hanging there on the wall, that makes clear to people what healthy communication looks and sounds like. We can also prevent bullying by getting involved in programs for at-risk children – at risk to become either bullies or victims. Matt Simon gave us a wonderful example this morning with his experience as a Big Brother. Betty Pallas, a representative from Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Frederick, will be at a table in the narthex after the service to answer your questions, accept your donations, and hopefully talk some of you into volunteering for this wonderfully simple and wonderfully effective program. And our offertory this morning will benefit another organization that mentors at-risk children: Beacon House Community Ministries. Beacon House is the only Unitarian Universalist social service organization at work in the greater Washington area. Founded by a UU minister, Beacon House provides after-school tutoring, recreation, and mentoring to the children of the Edgewood Terrace Housing. I hope that you will be especially generous in your plate contribution this morning, so we can send a nice big check off to the children of Beacon House. Our second principle is about justice, equity, and compassion. These three are inextricably linked. Remember Pee Wee Reese’s inability to explain exactly why he had taken the radical step of defending Robinson? Unfairness? Injustice? Compassion for a fellow human being? Perhaps what happened in his gut was a jolt of recognition. Jackie Robinson was not just a black person, he was a person. I recall another story from Robinson’s rookie season – something I read long ago and could not find when I went looking for it this week. It may be apocryphal; but apocryphal stories tell us truths. The way I remember it, an opposing player slid into second based and deliberately spiked Robinson, which was the common practice that year among opposing players. When Robinson’s leg began to bleed, this player admitted that he was surprised, then ashamed. Until he saw the blood, he had not been able to recognize Robinson as a fellow human being. Too often when we get into a conflict, we vilify and depersonalize those who differ from with us. We lose sight of their humanity. That is why I am concerned about the practice of referring to the people you disagree with as “those people.” Those people have names, life experiences, souls and spirits. Those people love this congregation as much as you do, in spite of the fact that they disagree with you. Those people helped to build and sustain this beloved community, and will continue to do so. Don’t let it get to the point where you have to see them bleed in order to remember who they are. And who you are. Every instance of bullying is an opportunity – for the bully to learn a new way of belonging, for the victim to gain a new aura of self-confidence, and for the bystanders to practice the principles of justice, equity, and compassion. Each time we stand up for somebody who is being bullied, we stand up for the principles of our faith. Each time we are victimized and are able to defend ourselves with courage and dignity, we grow our souls. And each time we recognize the bully in ourselves, painful though that recognition may be, we redeem ourselves. Years after that fateful afternoon on a baseball diamond, at Pee Wee Reese’s funeral, Joe Black, another early African-American major leaguer, recalled that he had told Reese, “When you touched Jackie, you touched all of us.” What better legacy could any of us aspire to than to be known as somebody who, with courage and grace, stood up to a bully?