Dream Journal: The FEAR of Responsibility

Last night, I was a riot control officer assigned to an unruly high school. I was stationed at the southeast elbow joint of a school hallway. The problem was that there were two exits and only one of me. I positioned myself directly in front of one of the exits and aimed my state-issued shotgun at the other. We were told our weapons were loaded with live ammo, which seemed pretty unnecessary to me. Especially since the students were armed with paint-filled water balloons. We were commanded to open-fire on any student that threw a balloon at us or tried to exit the school building.

All at once, 30 students stormed my corner. I shouted commands at them, but their body language was still very aggressive. I quickly determined which students I would target first based on whose eyes were searching for the doors instead of being locked on the barrel of my shotgun.

For the very first time in my life, I felt the fear of being responsible for the control of a situation [others] and feeling completely inadequate. I'm sure every parent feels this same fear to some degree. If you can relate, now multiply that fear x100. Some of you still may feel like you're with me. I don't think you are; unless you have served, active-duty, in the military or on a domestic police force. There is nothing a parent can experience that can be compared to preparing to slaughter hundreds of innocents.

I really don't know how to best express this feeling. It's weird. You are responsible for saving people who don't want to be saved; in fact, they are fighting against you. You see them face to face and realize that if they would just lay their weapons down, everything would go back to the way they were. Then, at the same time, you know that if just one punk starts something stupid, you have been charged with the responsibility to put them down.

The spiritual equivalent of this temporal fear would be best portrayed  by the Book of Mormon family story of Alma and his son Alma Jr. in Mosiah 26-27.  Alma and his wife loves their son and are torn-up  by his choice to fight against God and his people.  Despite his best efforts, Alma, the prophet, was forced to witness his son's spiritual death.

The difference between Alma the Older's fear and my riot-control fear is that Alma the Older wasn't the direct opponent of his son like I was for the rioting students.  For Alma Jr., his opponent was subconscious. Although, he was rebelling against his father indirectly, Alma's father wasn't the physical manifestation of his son's ire.

The way the high school students looked into my eyes made me felt like I was the problem.  I was "the man."  But in this case, "the man" cared about them and wanted the best for them. I don't know. Maybe Alma the Older had it worse because he had to watch others suffer because of him. Let me just say, I don't recommend feeling that way.