Killing the Gospel

Catholic New Times, Oct 5, 2003 by Charlie Angus

It takes a village to raise a child says the old African proverb. It stands to reason, that if a child dies in this village, the whole community will feel that, somehow, it was their own child who has been lost. Certainly this was the feeling in our little "village" during the funeral for 16-year-old Mark.

It seemed as if the entire town was assembled at the church that morning. The immediate family and their relatives were in the front. Behind them were neighbours, friends, school mates and the teachers who had known him since grade school. The mayor was there, its were blue collar men from the local mill and garage. All were weeping openly.

The church was full--Catholics, Protestants, nonbelievers. We sang the old standby "Just a Closer Walk With Thee," as the priest came up the aisle. There was something comforting in the familiarity of the music and the location. After all, this is where Mark had been an altar boy and active in our Youth Group. We had watched him grow up here. He was one of four boys--Matthew, Mark, Luke and John--from a local blue collar family. Of the four "gospels," Mark was the sensitive one.

In the lead-up to the funeral, we asked ourselves, how could this have happened? How could Mark have been allowed to die in such a seemingly unloved manner. His manner of death was utterly tragic. One school morning, while his brothers were packing their lunch kits, Mark went and hung himself--death seemingly preferable to another ride on the yellow school bus to the high school in the town up the road.

And after his death, we learned about the constant harassment and bullying that Mark had endured during his three years at high school. Our children told us about the threats Mark received at the locker and the taunting in the cafeteria and on the bus.

Throughout the funeral, my thoughts were fixed on the last image I had of Mark. It was a chance meeting that had come at the end of his last schooldays. I had come by the high school to pick up my daughter. He was making his way through the hall, seeming so out of place amidst the hockey jocks, the puck bunnies, the geeks and the cool kids.

He didn't notice me but I was smiling at him as he came down the hall with his oddly angelic face. I didn't know then about the bullying, but nonethelesss, wanted to call out to him, "Hey Mark, never mind today. In another year or so, you'll be free and able to go wherever you want." But rather than potentially embarrassing him, I chose not to say anything. I watched him pass by me--right out of this life.

Mark's funeral was the second high school suicide funeral I have attended in the last three years. I remember coming out of the church after that first funeral and seeing the mother standing on the church steps weeping inconsolably as the cold, spring rain pelted the ground. Rachel weeping for her children, for they were no more. The mother had apparently told the school authorities, "I hope that out of my son's death, you will watch out for the next kid who doesn't fit in."

There are those--politicians, trustees or educators--who would claim to be enacting this mother's plea. Bullying has become a 'hot button' education issue. And there's never a shortage of promises for stricter behaviour codes and more cops in and around the school. But few politicians are promising to enact the main message in this mother's plea--to watch out for the kids that don't "fit in."

Zero tolerance doesn't change bullying. Bullying can only be defeated when schools teach greater tolerance. You can see it being weeded out of the schools where respect is not just the one-way obligation from bottom to top, but a practice that runs throughout the system.

Ending bullying means taking on the corporate or school structure that allows the winners to win and the losers to lose. It means challenging the structural belief that a few broken "widgets" is an acceptable cost on the assembly line of success.

Maybe Mark saw himself as a misfit on the "widget" line. If only he could have known that he was more. He was loved. He was a child of our village. He was the Gospel of Mark.

Charlie Angus is a musician and writer in Cobalt, Ont.