A outra face

 

 

In Matthew, V: 38-42, we read the following passage: “…but if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also…”. Jesus teaches us to turn the other cheek, but how can we teach this to children without them suffering? I say this because I was surprised by the large number of reports of bullying suffered by the children I live with.

Because we are closer to children during this pandemic, conversations are more relaxed and some open up, telling sad and worrying stories. Listening to one of these stories, I thought: how can I tell these children that they need to turn the other cheek?

Doing an internet search, I found a text by Joanna de Ângelis¹ that says:

“Turning the other cheek is more than exposing the opposite side in order to suffer a new onslaught of wickedness. It is the moral, noble face that is hidden, the one rich in elevated feelings that distinguishes one creature from another.”

It’s still complex to explain to a child… So I went to The Gospel According to Spiritism and saw that, in chapter XII, Kardec reflects on the passage from Matthew, writing to us that Jesus did not prohibit defense, but condemned revenge. Then I came across another question: but how can a child distinguish defense from revenge?

That's when I thought: why do children bully? At first I thought that it was being different that provoked this reaction in children. Everything that was different from them would somehow be pushed away, in this case promoting bullying. But if that were the case, children wouldn't make friends with each other so easily and quickly when they are in the same space and without adults around.

Trying to think with my current mindset of someone who seeks to make an inner change, I see that children are afraid/don't like/don't accept anything that is different from what is “normal” for them. I realize that the construction of this normal is what may have occurred (or is still occurring) in some mistaken way in their little minds. If society, especially the circle close to the child, imposes some “normal” values, children accept them as truth.

I think that children are like a blank canvas, where purity of thoughts and feelings predominate, waiting for us adults to fill them with our paints of love, knowledge, education, faith, respect... If, instead of using these good paints to fill them with teachings about equality and fraternity, we use the wrong paints to impose standards of race, aesthetics, social condition, etc... they will take this as the "normal" and reject the rest, discriminating against anyone who is different from this.

Thinking like the child I was, who was bullied for being chubby and short, what would have made me (at that time) not hit those children who discriminated against me as a way of imposing respect (fear, actually)? My revenge against them was violence, but what if I had (if I had been taught?) another way of defending myself?

Returning to the initial question, I come to the conclusion that, as evangelists, we have the duty to teach our children that violence should not be repaid with violence. We need to show them that not all children have yet understood that it doesn’t matter if we are chubby or short, wear glasses or have braces, or have different skin colors, because, in the end, we are all the same. We need to guide them to have empathy for these children and awaken within them the desire to teach them about equality and fraternity, which is so natural to them when we haven’t yet stained them with our ugly paints!

This should be their defense, the seed of the Gospel that we plant in their hearts should be “turning the other cheek.” And, thinking like this, now Joanna de Ângelis’ phrase makes more sense…

 

Adriana Tarone

Spiritist Group Apprentices of the Gospel – Baron Geraldo

Campinas Region

 

¹The other side – Joanna de Ângelis. Psychographed by the medium Divaldo P. Franco, at the mediumistic meeting of the Spiritist Center Caminho da Redenção, on the evening of April 15, 2009, in Salvador, Bahia.