Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

• Matthew 5:38-42

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
    if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

• Romans 12:17-21

Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.

• 1 Peter 3:8-9

Over the past year or so, I have made a significant shift in my reading.  I used to read about three novels to one inspirational book.  But now that is flipped and I read a lot less.  In fact, I have dipped into a storage of the classics to fill in the gaps on the fictional side.

What I have noticed is that there seems to be a fight in most of the classical literature works.  Many of the classics are set in troubled times.  Beau Geste, the Horatio Hornblower novels, and War and Peace have military battles.  Then there are the Alexandre Dumas novels like The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo.

But then, any novel of young love or coming of age, might have a fight scene.  Sure, Treasure Island and Huck Finn.  It makes sense.  But even novels like The Yearling and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn are not immune.

As if the playground bullies need more encouragement, the books that were required reading in grade school and high school had fights in them.  Sure I was beaten up in grade school.  You learned what parts of the school playground were bad news – away from the teacher acting as monitor as possible.  The trick was to stay far enough away, so that you were not the teacher’s pet, but within observation distance so that the bully was too far away.

Middle school became that type of organized fighting.  I had a crush on a girl and so did another boy.  He challenged me to boxing every Friday.  While I usually knocked him senseless, he got enough hits to my forehead that I spent all weekend in bed with a nasty headache.  Honest, I won every time with only one draw, but almost always by landing more blows with force.  The coach was sadistic, often abusing us boys – like Friday spanking because he knew we would do something that warranted a spanking that weekend and he loved leaving welts from his bull whip.  I got a welt for being the last out of the shower (but five minutes before the end of class), but my name was never drawn from the hat for the spankings.  So, organized beatings while the rest of the class cheered was welcome compared to what the coach had planned.

High school was some of the same until I reached my junior year.  The Holy Spirit had changed enough hearts that the beatings seemed to stop.  Then again, even as one of the smallest in my class at the time, I was getting close to six feet, stopping a half inch short of that and then I started shrinking.  Maybe I was too big to deal with.

But that Holy Spirit thing is something that you do not see in mainstream novels.  In writing class, they preach conflict, conflict, conflict.  So, there is a dysfunctional family here or a bully there or a gang that must be dealt with.

Having the Holy Spirit change people’s hearts does not seem to work.

Even in my fictional stories, it started with a homicide detective and his partner and expanded from there.  I even tied in a spy ring.  When Menzie sings at the Snazzy Taz and Emmett plays his sax, Sophie provides bodyguards and security.

We have conflict.  Fiction would not have a feeling of reality without it.  But, just for a moment, I wanted one story or another to be resolved without any violence.

Of course, there are a lot of commandments that can be broken to add conflict to a story, and from my growing up, schoolyard fights were part of it – once getting caught but it was clearly started by the other guy, two years older.  So, I never was paddled.  When asked if I wanted to watch, I asked if I could be excused.  I did not even want to see it.

But sax and violins seem to be in every story.  Or is that sex and violence?

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.