As a social justice teacher, I am steeped in non-violent teachings of the church, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi and Thoreau. I talk to students about the implementation of non-violence throughout history and how we can do it here and now. I have rehearsed incidence of non-violence in my head, what I would say or do to a “would-be” attacker. I always figure I would use my mouth as my non-violent weapon of choice. I would diffuse the situation with a witty retort or ask a barrage of questions that would appeal to the God-given soul of my attacker. Recently, I had an opportunity to practice non-violence but my attackers disarmed me.

I was walking home on Monday night thinking about my wife, dinner, and how glad I was to be able to enjoy them both in the safety of my home. I saw three high school aged males walking towards me and they were smiling, mumbling something to me. I leaned in and asked, “excuse me.” They replied, What’s in your pockets, son?…What’s in your pockets?” Before I could respond two of them had moved behind to restrain me and the third belted me in the face. A barrage of punches landed around the left side of my face, chest and shoulders while my arms were caught in my backpack straps. I could not get those humorous words or pointed questions out because of the repeated blows to the face. The words were trapped in my head and I began to panic.

My mind conjured up a picture of an acquaintance that received a similar beating. He raised his hands and told the attackers that he refused to fight with violence, but if I lifted my hands I could not say a word. Non-violence became a tremendous challenge when the scenarios considered were inadequate but eventually I was able to recover my weapon. I was able to shake my arms free to cover my face. I could no longer hear what they were saying to me but I unleashed a thunderous cry for help. I repeated this one word one syllable alarm and a sense of fear entered my attackers. They knew the injustice they were delivering was shameful. They knew that if they couldn’t silence me they would be discovered. They threw me to the ground and began to kick me in the face, legs, and ribs and they did this to the sound of my continued cry for justice. In a moment of true dehumanization I was dragged a few feet through a mound of dog feces left on the sidewalk and a few more blows to the head were delivered before the three attackers fled.

I chased these three scared young boys while dialing 911 on my cell phone. I told the police officer where they were headed knowing that the chances of their capture were slim. While telling the story to the cops I was bruised but not in need of medical attention.

When I reported this attack to friends and family the common response was “Were you able to hit them back?” “Man if I were there I would have had your back!” Were you able to kick their asses?” The message of returning violence with violence has been so ingrained that a five-year-old relative of mine prayed for his Karate teacher to find these guys and return the beating.

Where would this have gotten me? A headline that reads, “white male high school teacher beats up a black sixteen-year-old on his way home from school.” Jesus calls us to respond with love. Now I know this in a real sense rather than the historical or theoretical sense. This is not to say that I would have been able to land a punch on my attackers but what would this have accomplished. I am trying to be creative in my non-violence and my pursuit of justice.

I was encouraged by the spirit through the following Sunday in listening to the Gospel reading about Jesus wiping mud on the face of a blind boy so that he could see. The public wanted to know if it was the parents who sinned or the boy to bring God’s wrath of blindness upon him. Jesus uses an unconventional way of showing God’s love by spitting in the dirt, making clay, and smearing it on this boy’s face. Christ used unconventional ways to show love and bring justice. It is time to follow Christ and use these unconventional ways. We need to make these unconventional ways conventional.

I was fortunate in my experience in that I was not hospitalized or murdered. I continue to wrestle with the unconventional ways of Jesus and how important it is to study them. Violence is a convention that has not worked and may have been a cause of my own attackers belief that this was acceptable.

I have always wanted to be good at dancing without practicing. Maybe non-violence is like dancing. It must be practiced, studied, visualized . . . but you never know when it will be time to perform.