Giving Rage a Place

Some phone calls end right on time.

This one did not.

After thirty minutes, I could tell we were not finished. A man we will call James had spent most of our conversation describing everything that seemed to be coming apart.

He is serving a life sentence. He is also serving time in a facility in which his son is also incarcerated at. Not only that, they are bunk mates.

James runs a program called, A Pathway to Peace, where a group of men join a few times weekly to practice forgiveness and seeing the world differently. His son recently joined the group.

Then a crisis came.

Something happened involving his son. Questions were asked. Accusations ensued. James’ son ended up in solitary confinement. James found himself caught in the pressure of it too, with staff looking closely at the situation and with his own mind moving quickly into defense.

By the time he called, it was not sadness I was hearing.

It was rage.

Not the kind of rage that wants to attack externally. The kind that comes from believing you can see exactly how things should have gone.

He kept returning to one conviction.

“I’ve already lived through all this. They should listen.”

Every time we circled back, the certainty remained.

“I know I’m right.”

“A hundred percent right.”

There was not much for me to do except stay with him and ask the questions that were given to me. Not to argue. Not to correct. Not to make the anger disappear. Just to let it have enough space that we could begin to see what it was he was protecting.

Eventually, something underneath it appeared.

He was not angry because he wanted to control people. He was angry because he loved them.

He had watched too many young men walk roads he knew too well. He knew what certain choices could lead to because he had lived through the consequences himself. He wanted to help. He wanted to spare them. He wanted his life to become useful in a way that might keep someone else from learning everything the hard way.

That love was genuine.

But somewhere along the way, love had become attached to an expectation.

They should listen.
They should choose differently.
They should learn from me.

And when those expectations were not met, love became frustration, and frustration became rage.

We stayed there together.

Other fears surfaced too. His health. The investigation. The feeling that ever since he had become serious about awakening, everything around him had started falling apart.

I have heard some version of that many times before.

Sometimes when we become serious about freedom, everything we built our identity upon begins asking for attention. Old fears get louder. Old defenses get stronger. The mind starts arguing for the life it has always known.

Not because something has gone wrong.

Perhaps because something is finally being questioned.

By the end of the first call, neither of us felt complete. So I asked him to call back.

During the second conversation, something softened.

There was no sudden breakthrough that solved every problem. Only a little more willingness.

At one point, he apologized for unloading everything he had been carrying.

I told him not to apologize.

“This is exactly what these conversations are for.”

We all need somewhere we can tell the truth before we know what the truth means.

By the time we hung up, the rage had not disappeared. But it no longer seemed to own the room.

A few hours later, a message arrived.

James wrote that the situation with his son had changed in a way he had not expected. Then he told me about a church service he attended that evening. The guest speaker had talked about identity, and one image stayed with him. Right after Jesus was baptized, the temptation came. Not before. After.

That spoke to something James had been wondering.

He had been asking whether he was going the wrong way. Whether getting closer to spiritual truth was somehow causing everything to unravel. But now he saw another possibility. Maybe the resistance was not proof that he was moving away from truth. Maybe it was appearing because something in him was moving toward it.

He had been certain his world was collapsing. Now he was asking a different question altogether.

That is often how peace enters.

Not when the circumstances suddenly make sense or when life seems to finally cooperate. But when our certainty loosens just enough for another possibility to enter.

Perhaps that is what relationship is for.

Not to convince one another.

Not to rush someone from what they feel.

Simply to remain present long enough that fear is no longer the commanding voice in the room.