When Others Get In the Way

I went, today, to go drop off a book at YCC, a youth alternative-corrections house. One of my boys has had serious depression lately, mostly tied up with the fact that he's stuck in a youth alternative-corrections house and the woman he loves is in the outside world. So I bought him When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron, since he's not going to be getting out of his situation any time soon and he needs to learn how to be comfortable in that situation, how to handle all that fear and anger and sadness and put it to good use.

I began walking up to the house, when a guy, who obviously worked there, came up. He said that we shouldn't just stop by any more, because it disrupted the schedule for the kids who were in there: their days were highly scheduled, and when we stopped by it caused all sorts of problems.

I said "OK", and then explained that I was just stopping by to drop off a book. He told me everything had to be screened, which I said was fine; I didn't want or need to see my boy, I just wanted to drop off a book. It's not like I was looking to smuggle drugs or something else in to him.

Just then a larger-looking black woman came walking up hurriedly, purposefully, angrily. She then said, in a low but furious voice, that we were not allowed to come back, ever. Not just to not stop by, but ever - at least, that's what it sounded like, though I'm hoping such is not the case.

This seems to be a theme, lately. I find myself in situations where I'm just looking to be helpful. To the best of my knowledge I'm being quiet, kind, polite. I'm not being gruff or stepping on anyone's toes, I'm just there, trying to help, be helpful, aid others to live their lives. And I'm greeted with anger, intolerance, bitterness, usually not by the recipient but rather by someone peripheral, someone indirectly involved.

My training, what I've been taught, is to look for causes, to move as quickly as possible towards compassion. Responding to anger with anger, to intolerance with intolerance, only exacerbates the situation and causes it to escalate into something bigger, more annoying. In this particular situation, the best I could come up with is burn-out. Most of the people working at YCC seem to be suffering from massive burn-out, which is understandable: I wouldn't want to work in that sort of capacity, with young criminals, all the idiocy of teenagers with all the stupidity of criminal behavior with all the cretinism of drug-and/or-alcohol abuse.

But lately I seem to have difficulty dragging up the required compassion, or at least understanding. I look around, and it seems as if people make heavy going of life, make it heavier and more of a pain-in-the-ass than it truly needs to be. And this goes especially when someone is trying to help - I'm trying to help a kid to get along better with others, encouraging him to cooperate with and respect authorities, to lead a better life.

I still don't know how to handle such situations. I know that, at some point, a situation will arise where I need to help, but someone is in the way, angry. Do I put my foot down? Do I become more forceful? Or do I back off?

I don't know.