I was once a bully...

I grew up in a kind of rough neighborhood in Huntsville. It wasn't the worst, but it was not the best by a long shot. I never knew it, but I kind of remember my dad saying something about not really liking living in Huntsville after we moved out to the burbs. There was an apartment complex nearby called Jackson Square - my parents never wanted me or my sister to go there. Part of their fear [and I kid you not] was the fact that mostly black people lived there. Part of their fear, too, was the drug dealing that was going on there. Part of their fear was the violence.

To be honest, I didn't hang at Jackson Square much. I just didn't have any interest.

I did, however, hang out with the kids who lived behind me a lot. We used to always pick on this kid named Donald. I was a real jerk to him. Every now and again we would just beat on him - looking back, I can't even understand why we would put a child through so much hellish brutality or why that same child would just keep coming back for more.

The "ringleader," so to speak, was a guy named Ron. Ron was pretty indiscriminate with his blows though. I think I probably received the hardest hit from him of us all in more ways than one. I remember that he was once so mad at me that he just walked up to me and hit me in my face [really, on my chin] and then he just walked away.

There was a time when I seemed to simply thrive off of violence - whether dealt or endured. When we moved out to the burbs, however, all that seemed to change [kind of]. I wasn't as much of a jerk as I was before. To be honest... a lot of that changed when I moved from elementary to middle school. I had changed from a neighborhood bully to a band geek.

I know God's forgiven me for all that crap that I put other people through, and I'd like to think that he could give me the ability to forgive others in the same fashion. In college, I remember being overcome with conviction so much to the point that I hand wrote a letter to Donald - a letter apologizing for what I did to him. He wrote me back. He said he forgave me. He said that the whole neighborhood had changed during the decade that I was gone. He said that Ron became a Christian and that everyone was better. He talked about how good everything was now.

That was nice, but I'm not sure I believe him.
Just like the bully - always right in his own.

My wife and I were talking one day about her artwork. She is incorporating a lot of people, events and artifacts from her past in this piece she's working on now. We discussed how we are the sum of our experiences and how who we are now communicates who we were. The Christian is more than the sum of his own [or her own] experiences though. What makes a Christian is not so much this one experience with a God who swears He was once a man, but a hope of an experience that can come all at once or never in our lifetime that has it's roots in another experience that happened all at once so long ago. Even in a world that doesn't acknowledge God, there is a sense that we are more than the mere sum of our experiences.

When I loved violence as a child, I didn't necessarily love it because I experienced it. I observed it. I had knowledge of it. But I didn't experience it first hand. Is knowledge the same as experience? I would think no. I watched westerns and war movies with my dad - he had experience with violence as a soldier. He would tell me stories of some of the actors - how this man had fought in this war and what was significant about this move and the heroes portrayed. Those were men and times who were familiar with the experience of violence. So, when I inflicted violence upon others, was it necessarily because I had experienced violence?

No.

It may be hard to follow - but we are more than what we can see. We are more than what we are doing, or what we have done. A similar thought came over me last night as I was walking through a local K-Mart [yeah, they still have those here]. I looked at all the people wearing red vests. I thought about how they drone about. Then I started to wonder where they live. I wondered if the corporate heads tried to make them seem inhuman by making them dress in uniform. I wondered if there was a more devious motivation to all of it. I digress. Here again, these are more than the sum of what they do. They are more than the sum of their experience.

In a way, I guess we are a sum of all of human experience in a non-reincarnate way. As a Christian, I believe that part of who I am is built upon the experience of Adam in the garden in his disobedience. As a Christian, I believe that who I have become and who I am becoming is built upon the experience of Christ in the garden in his prayer of obedience.

So...sorry for going from entertainment to deep thoughts. Caught me by surprise too.