Friday, May 14, 2004

Vengeance

I was at home on the computer the other day when my wife and son came into the room. She was marching him in like a prisoner being prepared for the firing squad. I could tell he had done SOMEthing that had displeased her greatly and she was sending him my way to reinforce her point.



Go on and tell your daddy what you did!



When she said this, I looked at how her lips curled up in disapproval, whatever our 11 year old son had done, it had gotten her pretty riled up. I looked over at my son to see an array of emotions. He was covering his slightly swollen top lip with one hand, but the muscles on his face were making those small twitches of uncontrollable anger. He actually looked like somebody had pissed him off, but he couldn’t vent his anger because mom had put him in check..hard. I looked at him with a curious yet slightly amused glance,



What’s going on G??



Nothing.



His response angered my wife even more,



No, it’s not NOTHING! Tell your daddy what happened!!



Marcellus was pushing me and Iwaspushing him and then he pushed me in the face and hit me in the lip so I tried to hit him back and I told him I wanted to hurt him.



No! That is NOT what you said, because I was sitting there looking at ya’ll out the window and I heard every word. Tell him what you said.



I said I wanted to kill him.




Since I had spent many hours horsing around with my playmates that ended up turning in to fights, I fully understood his emotion, so I guess I wasn’t really tripping.



Kill him?? Didja kill him??



No, he ran away and I couldn’t catch him.




Well, that’s good you didn’t kill him, you shouldn’t do that to anyone, that’s a bad thing to do. They’ll put you in jail for killing somebody, unless they’re trying to kill you.



My wife was ready to jump in and get some more..



And not only is it a bad thing to DO, it’s a bad thing to SAY to someone!!!



Yeah, your mother’s right. Your cousin Jessica ended up in jail for threatening to kill someone. Just by SAYING it you can go to jail. It’s what they call a ‘terroristic threat’. So don’t say that to anyone son because they can put you in jail for that.

I could tell that his feelings were in disarray. Here it is HE was the one that got hit in the mouth and the culprit not only got away scot free, but he had to deal with this verbal chastisement just for saying the word kill. After we had gotten through discussing with him how to handle himself in similar situations, I gave him a pat on the back as he was leaving the room. My wife is not much of the vigilante, she was even reluctant for him to have toy guns. I’m on the other side of the coin. I grew up playing on the same Southside streets that he plays on and I know the necessity of ‘letting them fools know’ that you weren’t an easy win. Street fame starts at childhood. Everybody in the hood knows who’s down to defend themselves and who’s scared to fight.



My family has always been big on self defense. Even though I was raised under Christian rules, ‘Turn the other cheek’ did NOT mean you’re supposed to LET somebody beat you up! When it came to fighting my dad had some key pointers:



If you know you’re going to have to fight, don’t talk about it, just fire off on em. All that stupid walking around touching shoulders in a circle? Don’t do no stupid sh’t like that..if you’re go fight a n’ga..FIGHT HIM, don’t dance. Don’t wait for him to hit you first either, make sure you get the first punch in, the 2nd, the 3rd and the last. If a n’ga is too big or too strong for you, find a stick or rock or something to pick up and lay his az out. That first lick, aim for his nose or eye, that way when you hit him, the first thing he’s go do is grab it with both hands, that’s when you start going to work on that body. Hitting him in the body will take his breath and his legs and it’s a lot safer than punching them in the face, cuz if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ll break your hand. Stand up here and let me show ya something boy…okay..yeah, cover up with your right and lead with that left jab..there ya go..jab hard, but don’t lose your balance..always keep your balance..you keep leading with that jab..see you go have big broad shoulders like mine, you’ll be able to put one of them Larry Holmes jabs on them n’gas..and then follow it up with combination..never throw just one, always throw at least 2 to make sure they FEEL ya and if you miss make sure you catch him across the jaw with your elbow. If its too many n’gas for you to handle, run home.



I have seen Southside fights get vicious before. Dudes getting hit with poles, bricks, 2x4’s, bottles, whatever weapon available. There’s been many days where we had to leave the park running because some thug n’ga got mad over a basketball game and went to get his gun out of his trunk, intent on shooting whoever looked at him cross-eyed.



Now that I have kids that I know will be out amongst the predators of the world, I find myself teaching my kids the same things my parents taught us. Most importantly, I tell them to do whatever it is they need to do to make it home safely. Revenge is definitely a deep craving that everyone has on some level. When there’s a wrong done, the natural order calls for justice to be done. If they hit you, hit them back! An eye for an eye!! I always liked that Bible verse!

One of the most controversial verses among Christians is a verse that Jesus spoke of in Matthew 5:38,39



38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. 39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.



The eye for an eye part, Jesus was quoting from Old Testament Scriptures (Ex 21:24; Lev.24:20, Duet 19:21). There’s different Christians who interpret these scriptures in different ways. Some are extreme pacifists who don’t believe in guns or defending themselves, they go all the way out on faith. They don’t own firearms and they do all they can to abolish guns. They take this literally to mean you’re never supposed to hit anyone with intent to harm. There’s a lot more Christians (especially in Texas) who take this scripture on a whole different level of meaning. I’ve been around many heated arguments (usually when bourbon and beer were involved) that centered around this topic…



How the hell you go tell ME that God wants me to just ‘turn my other cheek’ when a n’ga hits me in the jaw!!?? That ain’t nothing but some ol bullsh’t ‘calm the slaves’ mind trick the white man made up and put in the Bible to keep the slaves from whupping their az!!!



I’m just telling you what the BIBLE says mane!



That’s my problem with the BIBLE right there! It’s all well and good for people who already got money and power, but it doesn’t do anything but keep po’ folks down! All that ‘turn the other cheek’, ‘obey your master’ type bullsh’t! Ain’t nobody trying to hear that sh’t mane!



Turn the other cheek doesn’t mean that you’re supposed to ‘let’ somebody just whup your az.



It doesn’t?? Well what do you call it then??



I dunno what you call it, but I do know that one of Jesus’ closest disciples Peter had a sword on him when the authorities came to arrest Jesus. The sword was the prime weapon of defense then..that was the modern day equivalent of having a 9mm.



Peter had a heater huh??? (smiling) I like that n’ga already!



Jesus scolded Peter about cutting off one of those soldiers ears, but the key point is that Jesus’ close circle WAS armed. And when you go back and look at how Jesus got down for His, you’ll see how He went into the temple and started acting BAD on them fools who were trying to turn the church into a dope house.



Dope house?? They had dope houses in the Bible??!!



Well not exactly DOPE..but they had dudes flipping oxen, sheep and birds for money in the church.



Birds??!!



Not THAT kinda bird, doves. They were using the church as a place to conduct all of their hustling and when Jesus came and saw how they were doing the Father’s house, He got a whip and put something on that az! Knocking over tables, throwing n’gas out the church…He went agg on them fools.



(smiling) Ol Jesus had some thug in Him huh? See, THAT’S the kinda sh’t I be ready to hear, not all that ‘be scaid, be timid, don’t fight back’ nonsense! I be ready to RIDE on them fools!



Holeup now cuz..before you get TOO hyped, when it comes to plotting a way to retaliate or give retribution, God’s word is very clear.



What does it say??



“Vengeance is mine”, saith the Lord, “I will repay.” (Rom. 12:19)
That Romans 12:19 verse is too hard to swallow for a lot of people, especially those seeking to avenge a violent act perpetrated on them or their close family. The old adage is that revenge is a dish best served cold. Uma Thurman was driven by it throughout Tarantino’s latest Kill Bill movies. Anyone who let’s their emotions run rampant will easily be sucked into this swirling vortex of anger and hate. It’s a very hard aspect of Christianity to deal with. God made us in His own image, so it stands to reason that there’s a natural part of us that want’s to repay past transgressions. But the most binding attribute of Christianity is faith. We walk by faith, not by sight. There are battles being raged across the world that we know nothing about. Those that are walking in the Spirit have to know that God IS in control and when He says He’s going to get them back for us, it will be done. God’s Word is bond. Habakkuk, one of those ‘old school’ prophets had many questions about why the wicked were allowed to plunder and violate the just. God’s answer to Habakkuk applies today just as it did thousands of years ago when He first inspired the scripture: Hab 2: 4 Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith.



This is a very hard concept to grasp as a rational adult, let alone trying to teach this principle to a child. The main thing I teach my son, is that he has to be able to control his emotions and properly channel his energy toward progressive means. When at all possible, I want him to walk away from a fight and come home. But if he feels he’s cornered and his health and well-being are in jeopardy, I teach him to defend himself with every ounce of strength in his body. Some may see this as wrong, or contradictory to Christian teaching, I just see this as a required defense mechanism. Our kids are growing up in a savage world with vicious and heartless predators constantly on the prowl. I don’t believe God will hold it against any honest and just soul, for doing whatever they needed to do to protect their family and stay alive.