"But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also." Matt.5:39
Apartheid in South Africa was a blot on human history. Crime bred crime, like rats multiplying in a sewerage. In the name of racial superiority, the whites unleashed a reign of terror to oppress the blacks and crush any attempt they made to gain even a semblance of freedom. The blacks reeked revenge, but found small opportunity to carry out their plots for fear of harsh reprisals. In those times, only hate flowed like pus from a lanced boil; and the stench was nauseating. But a black woman, acting differently, showed that the flow of hate could be stemmed.
She and her two young children were walking down a street when a white man, who was walking passed the three, stopped and spat at her. Wiping her face, and with no trace of hate in her tone, she said: "Thank you, Sir. Now for the children". Hearing her totally unexpected response, the white man stood motionless and nonplussed. He did not know how to react to a woman who did not return an insult for an insult.
Do our children trade insults? Or, are they taught to be compassionate and forgiving? If they return insult for insult, they are no better than the one who started the quarrel; in no way superior to the child who is not trained well at home.
On the contrary, if they are taught to return kindness when unkindness is shown to them, they will be teaching other children silent lessons that they missed in their homes. The nonplussed ones will secretly admire our courageous children who refuse to go the tit-for-tat way.
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