Bully

Today, as I sat on my bed wondering how I would spend my day, I ran across the Facebook post of a good friend from college promoting a documentary I’d never heard of called Bully.  As a former bully and a future school counselor, I was intrigued, looked up the show times, found one two hours later and went to the movies for the first time since Toy Story 3D in Dubai 2 years ago.

I watched the film through three distinct pairs of glasses:  former bully, educator, and Christian.  Each part of me had a meaningful reaction.

Former Bully

The documentary featured the stories of three bullying victims as well as two families whose children had committed suicide as a result of being bullied at school.  As I watched the film, I felt remorse for my own past.  Though I was not guilty of physically bullying my classmates, the relational bullying so common with “mean girls” was my specialty and likely caused just as much harm as if I had been slamming kids into lockers.  I thought of individuals who were my targets in my “mean girl” days, and I wondered how much my bullying had impacted their lives.

Educator

I thought I might come away from the movie with an action plan for how to curb bullying at my little international school in Rwanda.  You might think that our tiny Christian school in the middle of Africa would be immune from such evils as bullying, but if so, you would be wrong.  We have had cases of physical, verbal, and cyber bullying just this year, and being the resident expert on cyber bullying (I both was a cyber bully in middle and high school and did research on cyber bullying in college), I was intimately involved with the most rampant case. 

The documentary often made the school administration out to be the bad guy (as documentaries are wont to do to some group of the general population).  They claimed the schools did nothing to stop bullying.  I could identify with both sides of this debate.  The principals claimed that kids would be kids and schools could not control them.  Anyone who knows any kid (and I’m sure most of us know at least one or two) knows the truth behind that.  As much as we may want to change a kid (or anyone for that matter), we can’t do it.  I also understood where parents were coming from in seeking safety for their children at school.  It is the school’s responsibility to look out for its students, and more educators do need to step in to uncomfortable situations to curb the negative impact of bullying on individuals and school culture in general. 

Christian

While the makers of this documentary were clearly just pushing the message of bullying awareness and prevention, I heard a much louder message shouting through all of the stories:  people need Jesus. 

I couldn’t help but remember what it was that stopped my bullying nine years ago:  Jesus. 

I thought of the runaway bullying victim I recently rescued and her biggest need:  Jesus.

I saw the pain in the eyes of the outcasts who could use the comfort of an even bigger outcast:  Jesus. 

I thought of the bullies and their insecurities coming out in the form of cruelty and the power to change them:  Jesus. 

I cried with the families who lost their children and thought of the best comforter of those who mourn:  Jesus.

Victims need Jesus.  Families need Jesus.  Educators need Jesus.  Bullies need Jesus. 

As I see it, the perfect solution to this horrendous problem is simply Jesus.  Jesus hung out with bullies and victims alike.  He loved them both unconditionally.  He rebuked bullies and he was a victim.  He gave us the perfect example to follow no matter what our role is in the bullying situation.