Yesterday, my quiet little middle child peace maker did something completely out of character. All at the same time I wanted to cheer for him standing up for himself, scold him for doing something that was hurtful to another, and throw a lunatic tantrum about how unsafe he chose to be. In the heat of the moment, I chose none of them and set my intention to know more.

My two oldest boys are extremely sensitive in differing ways. My oldest has always been hyper alert to anyone trying to hurt or embarrass him. My middle has always been hyper alert to make others happy. By divine design, the two ended up in the same first period class in high school – Wood Shop.

Because my oldest doesn’t want anyone to hurt him, he tries to take a position of power which in many instances, even from a mother’s stand point, feels like bullying to his brother. Yesterday he chose to sit on his brother’s desk in Wood Shop – even after being asked to move. His younger brother, found two sticky note pads and on one of them wrote a smiley face and the other the word “Homecoming” with a question mark behind it and placed them on his older brother’s back. The oldest proceeded through most of the class not knowing he had the notes stuck to his back. If you can imagine, the oldest is 6ft with some strength to him and the youngest is 5ft 2in just waiting to grow into a man.

At the end of the class, the younger (probably knowing he could get in a heap of trouble from the older) told his brother he had sticky notes on his back PRIOR to him leaving the classroom. The older removed the Homecoming note himself believing that was the only note and walked around through the next period with the other note unknowingly still on his back.  Even he admitted his luck in choosing the most embarrassing of the two notes.

Eventually some kind young woman that my oldest did not know, stopped him and showed him the remaining note on his back. He steamed for the rest of the day and when he came home from school that afternoon and told me about it – he vowed to get his younger brother back 10 times as bad.

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Now, whatever we believe and think about only gets stronger and manages to find it’s way into our life. The oldest who worries most about what others think about him is the one who is placed in a position of revealing his ignorance about an embarrassing note placed on his back.   The youngest who is my people pleaser tried to undo his wrong by at least telling his brother what he had done. But then there was a deeper jab, explaining he thought his brother’s friends who saw him do it, would at least say something to him. The younger hit his older brother in his most vulnerable spot with those words.

As you can probably imagine, at the dinner table last night there were threats from both sides going back and forth. There were also lots of laughs. None of us could believe the younger could be so bold and we joked that he put his life in danger, yet none of us could imagine how embarrassed the older must have been. The older, who has the most fun loving sense of humor spoke out loud outrageous acts to retaliate such as making a fool of him in front of a girl he likes. Despite him trying to make light of the situation, I didn’t like what either one did to the other but I had to sleep on it before I gave a consequence. What Would Mother Mary Do?

The younger was only defending himself in the first place. He did try and save his brother from too much embarrassment by telling him about it before he entered the crowded halls. And although the words could have been mistakenly thought to be an invitation, the only sticky left was a smiley face.

The older had a right to be angry because the act was a bit more “serious” than him sitting on the desk but in a sense after all, “He started it.”

As you can probably tell, my tendency is to protect the younger one – he is quiet, shy, can be sneaky (as he proved well) but in most cases tries to make others happy or help people get along. While my older son has a revenge type of attitude, and a perception that he is rarely responsible for the actions he takes in seeking revenge, he also has the perception that I am rarely on his side. How do I support them both and make this into a learning opportunity?

I went back to thinking about the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The most important part of reconciliation is to ask for forgiveness for the deeds you were responsible for doing that caused harm and perform a good deed in efforts to amend the hurt for the person.   I knew however if I asked them both to reconcile at the same time that neither would do a good deed for the other – they would simply call it even. Calling a truce may sound nice, but it usually doesn’t show any remorse let alone compassion or understanding of the other’s situation. A truce is an agreement to disagree. Unless there is some deed to show good will for the other, the same incidents happen over and over again.

I wanted my boys to do right by their brother so I had the younger do something for his brother first since his was the more serious of the two and the older after the younger had completed his deed.

Sure in perspective, their actions were on the lower spectrum of harmful. Sure, they are brothers and I would be fooling myself if I expected them to never tease each other. But the teachable moment came in trying to teach them how to come to peace with each other.

In efforts to protect our image, our pride, our beliefs, values, property, space and freedoms or anything else, we may put up our dukes. We may want to either attack or defend with an attack and both just lead to more attacks. The more attacks, the less we understand what started everything in the first place and it becomes more and more difficult to forgive or be forgiven.

Mother Mary taught Jesus to turn the other cheek – to prevent ourselves from ever putting any energy into our negative emotions of defensiveness when we are trying to protect ourselves from something. Find the good – find God in the situation.

In “Biology of Belief” by Bruce Lipton, it states anytime we are in a protective mode, we are weakening our body’s defense mechanisms because there are limited resources, energy and power that can be used to defend ourselves. We want to make sure to use it wisely and only if there is an immanent danger in order to remain strong. The key is to put our energy into things that can bring peace to a situation.

One of the first steps to bringing peace to a situation is as Steven Covey often said, “Seek first to understand.” When we understand the person’s deepest need, we understand their purpose behind their decisions. Perhaps there was a reason my older son needed to sit on the younger’s desk instead of any other desk. My older son claimed everyone was sitting around talking and his desk was convenient and it would include his brother in the conversation. The younger son claimed there was no other reason to ask for his desk other than he just wanted to sit in his space.

The next step is to show compassion. If either boy would have understood the intentions of the other, perhaps there could have been more compassion for one another and an attempt to be made where they could both be sitting or leaning at the desk. Compassion makes ways of communicating open to work toward a compromise if necessary.

Finally, actions speak louder than words. Take action toward peace. Set an intention for a peaceful resolution and perform a good deed that moves in that direction. Mother Mary was strongly influenced by the community of Essenes who believed that peace was men and women’s most valuable treasure and peace within ourselves should be an important part of holiness . Peace within ourselves brings peace around us. Without peace, life becomes difficult. Mother Mary taught Jesus internal peace and they spread their peace by greeting others, “Peace Be With You.”

The whole situation started me thinking about the state of the world today. The situation is not unlike my boys’ – perhaps some hyper sensitivity, some defensiveness with or without provocation, endless cycles of attacks, truces used as band-aids that eventually come apart.   Imagine a reconciliation – a forgiveness of one another, an effort to see goodness or God’s dwelling within one another, an effort to understand each sides deepest need, some compassion shown and good deeds performed without being asked. To begin peace within the world, we must start within ourselves, within our homes, within our communities.

Please take a moment to pray for peace so that the world can be transformed. “The Intention Experiment “ by Lynne McTaggert showed that multiple people praying and asking for forgiveness, forgiving and intentionally visualizing peace in a particular area can bring miraculous transformation.

DSC02740 May Peace Be With You. May peace fill your spirit within, may peace flow from your external actions and may peace fill your homes, your city, your state, your country and our world. Let us teach our children as Mother Mary taught Jesus – peace brings meaning to life.