If you bring a suit, a legal action, against someone through your attorney, the papers go to that other person and they get an attorney. And the matter, before it goes any further, goes through a period of what’s called “discovery”. Discovery gives you the right to ask questions of the other party within a certain time period, and they have to answer the questions, and if they don’t answer them there are certain sanctions. But the point is; there’s a period of questions and answers prior to anything else going on. Why is that? So that you can have a better idea of what’s going on before you react.
In a negligence case, for instance, if somebody has a broken leg and you file suit the next day, you don’t start settlements negotiations the day after that. First, you have to gather all the medical information, and the other side has an opportunity to also take their own medical expert and have them look at the situation. Again, why? So that everybody knows what’s going on before you act.
In the world, it’s not quite like that all the time. People are very emotional, and so what happens is, somebody says something to somebody, they say something back, and everything begins to escalate without an opportunity to truly understand what’s going on.
Jesus said when someone hits you; you should turn the other cheek. In a bullfight, the bull dies because the bull reacts. Imagine, if as the bullfighter is waving his cape, the bull decides to just sit still in the middle of the arena. What would happen? Eventually, they would drag him out because he wasn’t of any use, and there was no entertainment there. So the way for the bull to survive is not to react. But what the bull does, is reacts like crazy because he can’t control himself, and maybe he also doesn’t understand what’s going on.
Well, there’s a story about Abu Bakr and the Prophet (Peace and blessings be upon him). Abu Bakr was sitting in a small circle of companions with the Prophet when some Arabs walked in, sat down, and started complaining heavily to the Prophet about Abu Bakr. And Abu Bakr was getting twitchy, but the Prophet was smiling the whole time. And then Abu Bakr began to defend himself, and the Prophet stopped smiling. Then the Arabs started to complain again, and the Prophet began to smile again. And then Abu Bakr began to defend himself again, and the Prophet began to frown. This went on for a while, and finally, the Arabs left and Abu Bakr was left with the Prophet, and he said to him, “When the Arabs were complaining about me and telling lies about me, you were smiling. But when I started to defend myself you frowned. What’s going on?”
And the Prophet said to Abu Bakr, “While you were quiet the angels surrounded you and defended you. When you began to defend yourself the angels left. So I was frowning because the angels left. There was no need for you to get involved; the angels were taking care of everything.
Well, there’s different ways to handle every situation…
