Turning The Other Cheek

When I was little, I had a friend I will call Mary.  She was a wonderful friend, and I spent many fun filled hours and overnights at her family farm.  I enjoyed hanging out with her and her older siblings, as I was the oldest child.  It was nice to see how fun it was to be the youngest for a change.  Mary and I weren’t best friends, but good friends.  I considered her to be a trustworthy and loyal friend.  Until one fateful bus ride.

It was sixth grade.  When girls were changing and boys were starting to notice.  Some girls had boyfriends, and other girls, like me, were awkward.  Throughout school, we all were friendly.  But in the sixth grade, the cliques started.  I was sitting in my seat, probably talking or singing to myself.  I don’t know what transpired or how the situation escalated to the point it was, but a group of girls sitting behind me were talking about me.  I felt it, but I did not turn around to look at it.  And then Mary spoke, “Sometimes I just feel like hitting you.”  I turned to her, she was looking right at me, serious as a heart attack.  I looked into her eyes, and knowing full well what was about to happen, opened my mouth.  “Well then, go ahead.”  And she calmly walked up and hit me square in the face, and promptly turned and went and sat back down next to that group of girls.  I didn’t speak.  I didn’t cry.  They were silent the remainder of the ride home.  The bus driver, if she knew, did not say a word about it.  I never told a soul.  I did not bring it up again to Mary or any of the other girls.  They didn’t harass me daily.  There was no more physical violence to me by the group of girls.  It was an isolated incident that stuck with me, so clearly that I can see myself sitting in that green vinyl seat as if it happened this morning.  I remember thinking as I sat back down, “Turn the other cheek.”

My cheek stung, and I’m sure there was a mark, but no one was home when I got there, and so I went on and did my homework.  I never told mom, because I know she would have asked me what I did to provoke Mary.  I didn’t tell dad, because he worked two jobs, and was often tired and didn’t have a lot of time to deal with things like that.  Unless he was getting a call from the principal, school was usually mom’s domain.  And so I just sucked that pain in, and moved on.  Other than reading about turning the other cheek in the Bible, and hearing my mom talk about it, I really had no idea what it meant.  But I felt like I was just supposed to forget the whole thing.

Fast forward six years.  It was graduation day.  We all stood in the Choir room, donning our caps and gowns, holding fat cigars, smuggled in by one of the ornery boys.  We laughed and shared how our memories of each other would last throughout time, and we vowed we’d never forget each other.  Twenty one of us remained from the original class of twenty eight.  We made it from Kindergarten to Graduation together.  And as we took our group and “best friends” photos, we “mingled” around the room, saying our goodbyes and congratulations, planning on whose party we would attend and where we were all going to meet up later.

Mary approached and asked me for a private moment.  We went into the Instructor’s room, and there, in the middle of the instrument laden shelved room, she asked me if I remembered.  I looked into those eyes again.  Today, they were not the eyes of the girl who hit me.  They were the eyes of my friend again.  The soft, friendly eyes that I knew would help me any way she could.  I made my eyebrows furrow, and she pressed on.  “The day on the bus, when I hit you, do you remember that?”

“Yes, I remember.”  I murmured.

“Why didn’t you do anything?  Why didn’t you say anything?  Why didn’t you get mad and yell or cry?  You just took it.  You let me hit you and you didn’t do anything.  Why?”

“Mary, I knew that you were going to hit me before you came up and hit me.  I didn’t know why you did that, and you didn’t offer me the explanation.  What could I have said?”

With a soft tone, she said, “I have thought about that day, many days to this, and I feel awful about it.  I wish I hadn’t done that, and the fact that you never brought it up, you never told anyone… well, it made me feel worse.  I know it was wrong, and I’m sorry.”

Again, looking her square in the eye, I said, “I forgive you Mary.  I forgave you the second you hit me.”

And I meant that.  I didn’t really know that much about forgiveness, or grudges or turning the other cheek.  But I knew that fighting back in that instance would have made no difference.  Apparently, being quiet and waiting made all the difference in the world.  It gave her the opportunity to grow, and it provided us both with a good example of conflict resolution.

She’s a delightful woman, who makes a difference in her community.  She is a wife and mother, and I’m sure, a great educator of life to her children and those she influences daily.  The last time we talked was at a class reunion, and it was nice to hear about the ways she’s impacting our world.  I still visit with her mother on occasion.  I speak to her siblings when I see them.  I harbor no ill will whatsoever to her.  I turned the other cheek long ago, and it’s not surprising that life turned out so well for her.  And me.

I wish all instances of turning the other cheek could be like that.  In life, like video games, you “level up”.  When you’ve mastered something, if you are continually growing, you will move into more and more difficult situations, which you can learn more about growing and changing until you move again.  Growth and change is all about movement. Turning the other cheek is not always as simple as letting someone hit you and then sitting down and forgetting about it.  Sometimes it means compromising when you don’t really want to.  Sometimes it’s letting go of a person who isn’t a good influence in your life.  Sometimes turning the other cheek is not saying something you want to say.  It’s NOT fighting a battle you really want to fight.  Sometimes turning the other cheek is really, really difficult.

Recently, I have been reminded how difficult turning the other cheek can be.  Oh it’s not hard to say I’m going to turn the other cheek.  That’s the easy part.  I have really been struggling with offering up my cheek to be hit again by someone with so much hate in their heart.  Perhaps that’s why it was so easy with Mary.  Because I knew, deep in her heart, she didn’t hate me.  Maybe I’ve just “leveled up”.  Perhaps it’s because I’m older, and more tired.  Perhaps because I’ve been hit before, and it hurts.  Perhaps it’s because the person doing the hurting is not someone I know very well, and therefore, I don’t understand why they would want to hurt me.  Perhaps I’m just going through a season of growing, and I need extra work in this area.  I don’t know the reason.  But I know that, although it is taking me longer to get there, I’m still moving.  I’m still learning and trying and making the effort to turn the other cheek.  And if I offer it up and get hit again, well, at least I have held true to my beliefs, my values and my morals.  At least I have not sinned because of anger, or improperly judged someone.

I hold onto that special feeling of peace that I had on that bus.  I remember it well.  The feeling of doing the right thing.  And that’s the peace, the space, that I want to linger in.  That’s the way I want to live, always.