Discover the real meaning of putting the other cheek.
My mother’s 64th birthday is today, and since early this morning, she has been receiving calls from family and friends.
Everything was going well until one of her brothers called while my mother finished her make-up in the bathroom to go out for her morning walk.
My mother answered the call and put him on speakerphone so she could finish getting ready while talking to him.
Suddenly my uncle’s words came out of the speaker of my mother’s smartphone like rabid dogs trying to infect my mother with rage by biting her.
“Congratulations! Another year closer to the end!”, “Still on the two crutches? Forget about walking without them again.”, “I’m calling you from the townhouse; remember your children’s crib in the storage room? I threw them in the trash; your sons won’t make you a grandmother.”
My mother didn’t flinch; She thanked him for the call and hung up the phone. I brought her two crutches, and we went for a walk.
“To him who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other also” — Luke, 6:29
My mother had behaved like the old Buddhist fable that tells of when a guy insulted Buddha in front of his disciples, and when he did nothing, his disciples asked him why he had not defended himself, and Buddha told them, “Insults are gifts, if you don’t accept them, they go to those who wanted to give them to you.”
My mother worked a lot until her degenerative illness prevented her from continuing to do so.
She worked sewing coats and clothes to order (that’s why I’m always so well dressed) and as a senior assistant in a home for elderly nuns, the Daughters of Charity.
There she learned the secret so that no one ruins your day. And that is to turn the other cheek, naive as it may seem.
Turning the other cheek doesn’t mean that you don’t care about everything; it means that you don’t allow insults and disrespect to penetrate inside you and rot your heart.
As my mother says, “I put on my wetsuit and spread butter on it so that everything bad people say to me slides off :-).”
I won’t fool you: it’s not easy to be unaffected by insults and criticism. But it’s a skill; like any skill, it can be perfected over time.
Something that helps to turn the other cheek is understanding why someone rebukes us out of the blue for the sole purpose of hurting us emotionally.
“I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” — Mt 18:22.
This is what Jesus answered Peter when he asked him, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother for his trespasses against me? Up to seven times?”
Encoded in Jesus’ answer, there are two messages.
- You, too, will need to be forgiven when you have wronged.
- When a loved one hurts us, he does it because the evil no longer fits inside him, and it burns so much that he brings it out through his mouth.
Do not forget that, as we can read in Matthew 15: 19, “What comes out of the mouth comes out of the heart, and this is what defiles a man. For out of the heart proceed evil desires…blasphemies.”
That means that my mother’s brother — to continue with the initial example — has a heart full of hatred. And all the evil he cannot contain and eating him up inside has to come out through his mouth because it burns him.
Why is that?
- My uncle is lonely; he left his wife after more than 30 years of marriage.
- Neither of his two daughters wants to hear from him.
- He has grandchildren but has to ask permission to visit them.
- He has a messed up shoulder and is starting to suffer from the same symptoms my mother did when she started with her bone problems and is scared.
That’s why she gets into it with my mother, who lives with me, although she has no grandchildren. (And my brother calls her every day on the phone 🙂
What happens to my uncle is that nobody loves him. As sad as it sounds.
That’s why my mother can turn the other cheek. Deep down, she knows her brother is screwed up, and the more he tries to make her feel bad, the less he succeeds because the more she pities him.
Application to your life
Turning the other cheek is not about allowing yourself to be abused. Turning the other cheek is about not getting attached to the negative vibes that others try to contaminate you with because they can’t stand to see you happy.
It is easier to turn the other cheek by feeling empathy. But not a naive empathy, but a well-founded one. Whenever someone wants to hurt you with their words, think, “What is this person’s life like?”
If it is someone close to you, by analyzing their circumstances, you will discover that what they are trying to criticize in you hurts them inside.
It won’t be easy to turn the other cheek and forgive. But it is worth practicing because it is the basis of a happy life free of resentment.
A virtual hug
AG
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