Ruth had her mother pressed up against the refrigerator and was pushing a large knife against her Mother’s throat.  Strung out by vicious crystal meth withdrawal, Ruth was screaming, “Where is your money!?”  The mother was screaming back, “No!  I’m not giving you any money!  I gave you money for the last time. You just spend it all on drugs. I would rather die than give you any more money for drugs.”

It was a loud unrelenting standoff.  And getting worse. The neighbors had called the cops because you could hear them out in the street. It was called “a domestic dispute”.  It was about to become the worst sort of violence imaginable.

I was in Ruth’s kitchen watching the whole thing go down.  I was in a bad part of Oakland.

I was on a “ride-along” with an Oakland police officer because I had been asked to deliver communications classes to the Oakland Police Academy to help prepare new recruits for the human drama they would soon face on the streets. Since all my experience had been in the corporate world, I was doing a ride-along to gain experience with the types of real communications challenges they would be dealing with in their world.

In one intense week, I joined officers in investigating a homicide, chasing drug dealers, interrogating a stolen credit card suspect who swore she didn’t do it, responding to sexual abuse, talking young prostitutes off the streets and the scene in this kitchen that I will never forget.

Rich, the officer I was with, was calm. So calm, he actually created a powerful calming presence.

Rich walked into the kitchen, not too far from Ruth and just stood there, not too close, but definitely making his presence felt.  Ruth and her mother both turned away from each other for a moment to glance at him.

He spoke to Ruth.  His voice was calm and filled with understanding.  Rich said, “I know how you feel. It’s a feeling so horrible ripping you up inside, it would make you kill your own mother.”

Ruth sagged ever so slightly.  She turned to Rich again, letting up a little pressure on the knife and said, “She won’t give me any money.  I need it right now.”

Rich said, “I know how you feel. You feel if you don’t get that drug into you right now, you’re going to die.”

Ruth said, “I AM going to die if I don’t get that money, I need that money!”

And Rich softly said, “Yeah, I know.”  And calmly looked at Ruth with great understanding. By now Ruth was starting to make consistent eye contact with Rich, her eyes pleading. Her focus was shifted more onto Rich than on her mother. 

There was a moment of quiet.  A change was happening.

Rich turned to her mother and said, “I completely get it, I completely understand, you’d rather die than have your little girl strung out on drugs.”

The mother lost it and started weeping, “I’ve lost my girl, I’ve lost my little girl.”

Rich, with great understanding and simplicity, softly said, “There’s nothing worse than that, than losing your little girl.  It breaks your heart and you’d rather die than see it go on.”

The mother, gently weeping, said, “I’m just ready to die, my little girl, I lost my good little girl.”

Ruth, suddenly calm, turned to her mother and said, “You didn’t lose me, I’m still here.”

The mother said, “But you’re not my little girl anymore.” 

Rich said, “Why don’t you put the knife down on the kitchen table and let’s talk about it.”

Ruth’s arm went limp, and she dropped the knife. Rich picked it up and they sat down.

They sat, they talked.  Rich kept acknowledging and letting them know he understood, each one, one after the other, Ruth and then her mother.

The understanding he poured out was a soothing balm. It calmed everything.

It was over in less than 20 minutes.  

What I was witnessing was real power.  The power of understanding.

To say understanding is transformational is to sell it short. The power of understanding is well beyond some catchy phrase.  

Is understanding more powerful than a weapon?  Yes.  It lowered the knife and averted a very bad end.

You’ll never see this kind of situation in a corporate setting, and most probably not in your own home.

But if understanding and acknowledgments work to calm down this level of conflict, and enable two people to have a dialogue instead of a no-win violent screaming match, just think of what power understanding is capable of when it makes its presence felt anywhere.  

It’s a reliable miracle.

The world of Ruth’s kitchen may seem like a very different world from that of a corporate conference room.  But I’ve witnessed the miracles created by the power of understanding in both, and in all the many different worlds I’ve visited, regardless of where, regardless of who, and regardless of what.  These miracles know no borders.

The power to understand another human being is one of the most underutilized abilities we humans have.  It’s always there at our command when we summon it.  And always, one person is enough to make a difference.

Be the cause!