Music soothes the savage breast...

...but only temporarily. Tonight I heard my oldest son's high school band concert. I was ravaged in my soul, and the vibrations of the low reeds seemed to kindle a similar resonance in my very cells, calming me, but only temporarily.

My younger son had quite an ordeal today. Now I can't sleep, and need my other restorative cure besides music: writing. Prayer at this moment is tough, as I feel no mercy for the one who caused the grief. Read my heart God. Forgive me for having no compassion for this one child this night. Because I learned that when injustice strikes those distant from me I can feel horror on their behalf, maybe deep grief. But when it hits the very issue of my own body, I get angry. I can go along mild-mannered for an age, but then suddenly turn into cauldron of fury when just the right provocation comes along. Today could have been one of those days. Thankfully, I did not witness the event. But I know enough about it to be angry, nonetheless.

My son is in fourth grade. He has had trouble with another kid...the other "big, strong" kid in the class besides him. This kid, Bryce, has terrorized his classmates for years, so say the kids, but he is clever. He knows how to do his abusive work when no teacher sees him. Strangely, this kid was the first to befriend my son at the beginning of the year, when my son was a new kid. But Bryce is unpredictable. One day he's nice, the next he attacks. A while back, he was trapping two girls in the closet of the classroom. My son tried to force him away from the door to let the girls out. At that moment, the teacher entered the room (I think they were returning from lunch or something,) saw them, and assumed Elijah was acting as cohort to Bryce. My son was devastated, not because a day's recess was lost as punishment, but at the fact that no matter how much the other kids tried to set the record straight, his character was defamed in the eyes of his teacher. We had a great object lesson about walking in the sufferings of Christ, counting it an honor when you are forced to suffer such a price in the course of defending against an injustice being inflicted on someone weaker than their abuser...all that went well. The themes sounded lofty for such a minor classroom incident, but through it he learned a hard lesson, unusually hard for one who is only 10.

Since then, he has been seated right next to this boy. Apparently, Bryce has been jabbing him with a sharpened pencil in the ribs, jabbing hard enough to break the pencil. Then he laughs and asks to go sharpen his pencil again. My son didn't tell me this in so many words, he mildly referred to it once. I thought it was less severe than it is. No, I heard it from the father of another kid in the class who has been horrified to observe what has been happening to my child. My son doesn't want to be known as a sissy or a rat. He also doesn't want to be known as a bully. (Which doesn't leave much of a margin on either side for self-definition in a situation like this one.) He's learning not to be concerned by what he's "known as" at all. But this is also a lofty concept for a child.

And today, it hit the climax point of my child's tolerance. This time, the boy chewed the eraser off the pencil and struck my son in the head, 14-15 times with the sharp metal tip. A few struck his temple. A few struck the base of his skull. No marks remained, but one other student saw the marks right after it happened. My son has been taught that you don't fight back. He is at a Christian school. He wants to set a good example. He wants to follow the rules about turning the other cheek. So he did nothing. Then at lunch, he quietly destroyed his lunch--squashed and shredded it, and part of another kid's lunch, too. He doesn't remember doing this. The other children reported it. Because he thought he was "losing it," he went to the bathroom. The headache that started from the head trauma...and that is what I'd call it, considering the kid held the pencil shooting down from his closed fist like a knife and stabbed my son with it, the headache was getting worse, and he was beginning to feel pain in his throat with every breath. He doesn't remember this part, but the other kids say he was wandering the halls, just looking into classrooms, trying to breathe, pacing mindlessly. They convinced him to go to the office, because he was starting to get so dizzy (no doubt from the hyperventilating because he was going into a panic from not being able to breathe without pain,) and the office staff called me. By the time we got to the emergency room (because at that time, I thought we were possibly seeing the beginning of asthma problems) and had some tests run, no physical cause could be ascertained, and he was beginning to feel better. Then gradually, I got the story out of him about the incident at school. Even then, he related it in a flat emotionless monotone. He still has not dealt with how angry it should make him feel, how much rage he pushed down that blew like a geyser in an unexpected place and way without his being aware what was happening. We talked about it. "Your body decided you needed to get out of there, even though your mind didn't want to accept anything about the situation at the time, so your brain shut off and your body stopped breathing comfortably to send a signal to you: hey, get away from danger." He understands me intellectually when I tell him what happened to him, but he still doesn't "feel" anything about what this child did to him. A classmate called to check on him, and he learned that immediately after lunch, when Bryce learned my son had gone to the doctor, he began attempting to divide the class, claiming my son was poking him with a pencil, and not the other way around. So...tomorrow, do I make my little one go into that environment, knowing that the day after his body was assaulted, his character is probably going to be assaulted, too? Can he handle it? I don't know if I'd be strong enough to handle it. We'll be meeting with the principal before school. Fortunately, another student who witnessed the injustice of it all and whose family has made sure that the nobility of fighting against injustice is instilled in their kids...this child is going in to verify my son's "testimony."

Honestly, I am appalled that this has happened. Every day, I hear some of the teachers talk about how wonderful it is that we at a Christian school don't deal with the discipline problems that are rampant in public schools. (You see, I teach at this same school, too.) But my own experience so far is that I had far fewer discipline problems, and my children were never secretly attacked and then diabolically laughed at, when we were all public school attendees and employees. I wonder what fuels their pride in this? I find more and more not to make sweeping judgments of anything...or I will soon have to eat my words. So help me pity this child who attacked my son, and help me to protect my son, God. Show me a balance for these; because for the time being, they feel mutually exclusive.