The One Where We Talk About Feelings

I buried a young man recently who was perhaps the angriest person I have ever met — his rage knew no bounds. He hadn’t had a father who abused him; his father simply didn’t care. I sat with his children on the day of his funeral and saw just how much he had loved them, how hard he had worked to interrupt the cycle he had been caught in. I wish I could have hugged him in that moment and let him know just how much he had achieved. His own pain consumed him, yet his beautiful smile and cheeky grin live on in his children.

Is there anything more painful than the betrayal of one you love? The cuts seem deeper and easily re-opened. The roller-coaster of emotion becomes a wilder kind of ride as it takes dips and turns through anguish into anger and everything in between. The vengeance has contours more pronounced.

Surely this is something familiar to us all — or perhaps I am revealing too much of myself here. Love is the greatest risk we will ever take. I say as much whenever we review our company risk register here. If we eliminate the risk, we will eliminate the love, so we have to learn how to sit in the tension and be open to exposing our hearts to the ache of betrayal.

That young man’s life has stayed with me because it illustrates something many years of men’s work has taught me: what so many of us label as anger is really unprocessed sadness. His boundless rage wasn’t really about the world around him, it was the only language he had for the deep sadness of a father who simply didn’t care. Anger easily identifies enemies and heroes to lay blame for the state of the world, our relationships, and our souls. It gives us a focus and locus of attention, a way to avoid the raw ache underneath.

To sit in sadness isn’t natural for most of us, yet it is the very place where spiritual energy is stored: in the grief, in the tears, the loneliness and the boredom of it all. I wish there was a shortcut to the other side of that, but there isn’t any substitute for doing the work and owning up to where you may have been a contributor.

This brings me to Sunday’s Father’s Day — once again a vexed day for our community, one of grief, sadness, and even gratitude. It all happens around here, usually every minute. Our volunteers and team are phenomenal in how they navigate these choppy waters, creating a safe harbour in the midst of the chaos that surrounds so many lives. It’s in the quiet word in private, the cup of tea they shout that becomes an act of love rather than charity for someone who just needs one thing to work out right that day. Every act matters.

Discussing the upcoming Father’s Day in our sunny horseshoe yesterday, I was looking for ways to mark it. “How about…” one of our guys asked, “instead of Rev, I call you Daddy for a week?” I told him that whilst I appreciated the sentiment, if he did, I’d have to start charging him rent — and frankly, neither of us could afford the arrangement!

Thank you for being part of the Inner Circle,