#23: Let me dissipate rage

I was on the playground with my son the other day when we saw one kid jump from a great height on top of a younger kid, intentionally. When the younger kid started to wail, the older kid got right in his face and yelled "Well, it's your fault for getting in my way! It's your fault!" and ran off.

I helped the younger kid get up while a couple of other moms tried to locate his mom. The kid hurt his arm and hit his head and just wanted his mom and was wailing. The older kid came back, saw me standing next to the hurt kid, and ran off again. The mom came over and carried the little kid off. I didn't see the older kid again.

Over the course of the day, I felt angrier and angrier at this kid. One, I felt bad for my own kid, who was confused and upset by the whole thing and asked me to explain what happened about five times and acted the whole thing out a couple of times. But I was angrier about the kid telling the younger kid that his getting hurt was his own fault. The reality of that situation was the younger kid was "at fault" for being anywhere near this enraged, angry, out-of-control kid.

And I became completely infected by his anger. I became obsessed with what had happened. My own anger got wrapped around this kid and this incident, and it paralyzed me for the rest of the day.

As I was falling asleep I envisioned speaking with the kid. The first few times, I wound up screaming at him. The last couple of exchanges went kind of like this.

"So what happened out there on the playground?"

"He was in my way! It was his fault!"

"I think you were angry before that. I noticed when I walked in that you were mad someone else had teased you. But you were really really angry about that, and that was a pretty small thing. I think you've just always been angry, and I don't know why. I'm sorry I can't help you."

Annie Dillard wrote in "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" a passage about how when you chop wood, you need to look at the chopping block and not at the wood you're cutting. I think people are sort of the same. When their behavior is insane, you have to look right past what you see and what they tell you, to what makes sense underneath. That's usually a wounded animal who doesn't even know where the wound came from anymore or how to fix it, so they attack you.

I'm not going to let other wounded animals turn me into a wounded animal anymore.

On another note, I'm listening right now to the podcast interview of the director of the National Institute for Play on the value of play and how it positively shapes our human character and socialization. Very interesting stuff.

http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/play/index.shtml

See you later.