A Prayer for Jumpin John

Jumpin John was not one of the murderers in the Quaker Meetinghouse last weekend. Nor was I.

Nor did I name him Jumpin John. He named himself, reflexively, as we circled the room adding positive, alliterative adjectives to our names. We were also asked to invent gestures that pantomimed the names and to say the name and give the gesture throughout the weekend. It was the first exercise in an intense, 20-hour, Alternatives to Violence Project workshop.

Trust the Quakers to find a disarming way to begin a difficult topic. I should probably mention, since most people won't know, that the Quakers won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947 for their work against the Nazis.

Jumpin John's brief introduction didn't mention the mandate that sent him to an anger management course, but as a cab driver with an enormous chip on his shoulder, it was quickly evident that this could be a scary man to have drive you home late at night.

My conflict issues quickly paled next to John's. I was there to see if I could really address the questions advertised on the workshop poster, like "Do you find it difficult to say 'No'?" "Do you avoid people because of unresolved conflicts?" "Is it difficult for you to let go of grudges?" To which I can answer "yes, yes, and oh definitely".

I named myself Gentle Jessica. Not because I think I'm especially gentle, but because it is the quality I'd like to bear in any conflict. And because I believe that if I can't find the most gentle place in my heart regarding some recent and very difficult personal conflicts, I will be destroyed by lingering anger. It's sink or swim time for me.

The two murderers, the actual convicted killers who had both served hard time in prison, were two of the workshop facilitators.

Honestly.

But think about it, who is more intimate with the heart of violence, and with all of its outward forms, than someone who has committed the ultimate violence, and then had every opportunity to think about it for years on end while living in the most violent prisons in the country?

From these men I learned that in order to deal gently with conflict, we start with a gentle prayer. Transforming Power is at the heart of this idea, and it starts in our own hearts. We pray for someone who disagrees with us, who scares us, who violates us, and consciously turn prayer into the words we speak. It transforms us, and it can transform a potentially difficult situation.

It helps to understand that "Hurt people hurt people." So when someone is hurting us, we identify that they may be working from their own fears, anger, pain. We accept their feelings, hear their thoughts, and are careful not to meet anger with anger, fear with fear, pain with pain.

Jumpin John injected loud angry humor into any conversation he could. He posed questions to the group that reaffirmed his right to be angry at the assholes, fruitcakes, freaks of the world. He really was enjoying himself, although his fear and pain surfaced like that of a small child hoping to be soothed in his outburst.

It was really instructive how quickly anger becomes cartoonish in the lack of any real resistance.

He became a group project: A lonely old man who had drunk away most of the people who mattered to him, and who alienated and scared the people who paid him to drive them home. It was hard, finally, not to turn to Jumpin John and ask "What part of your brain do you want to live in? What part of your heart? It's totally up to you."

I haven't spoken with Jumpin John this week, but I really think he got it. And I have a little prayer for him: to befriend the people he meets, and to become the sweetest, most popular driver in his little town.

I actually believe this could happen, but it's the same for any of us, we have to actively release, actively give up our cherished right to be mad.