The campus police officers escorted the wild man to my office. He’d just exploded in a fury outside the Financial Aid Office. Screaming, thrashing about, and spewing threats of violence.

Lauretta Hannon

I was the college conduct officer, so they just needed my OK to take the student to the Fulton County Jail. A routine process in a case this extreme.

Picture it: here was this 6’4” figure with massive dreadlocks down to his waist. Face and neck shrouded in gang tattoos. Whereas I am 5’1” and you might say a tad puny looking.

The sight of him made me want to duck for cover. But you know when that small voice inside tells you to do something even when you want to do the opposite? Well, that happened, and the voice said to listen to him.

I told the officers that I’d meet with the student alone in my office. I further asked them to close my door while they waited outside. They thought I had lost my ever-loving mind. I suspected they could be right.

The instant I made eye contact with the man, he lunged across the desk and bellowed words too vile to be printed here.

The little voice then whispered: “Don’t show fear.”

So, I leaned back in a relaxed manner, clutched my costume pearls, and said, “Sir, do I look worried to you?”

This utterly disarmed him. He convulsed into tears. I sat beside him and did what the voice said to do. I listened—for a good while. He described the unimaginable pressures he was under, and I understood the raw desperation.

It turns out that the financial aid staff person wrongly told him he was not receiving any aid the next semester. And the person said it with a nasty attitude. The student’s only way out of his situation depended on that financial aid coming through.

About two hours later, we emerged from my office to find the hallway lined with additional police officers. They were aghast when the student and I hugged—not a safe, sideways hug, but a real hug.

“Can we please take him to jail now?” the head officer pleaded.

“No, you may not. First, he has to go and apologize. Then he has to get to class.”

ADDENDUM

The usual de-escalation strategies would never have worked in this situation. I’d learned by trial and much error that radical love was the only antidote in such a case. Thankfully, when you shift into loving mode, it’simpossible to remain afraid.

As Scripture assures us, those two things cannot co-exist. The years I spent in this role also taught me over and over again that to listen is to love. And that starts with listening to what the Holy Spirit directs you to do, no matter how irrational, ill-advised or plumb crazy it might look on the outside.