(Click HERE for last Sunday's readings)
Earnestness means willingness to live with energy, though energy bring pain. The pain may be pain to other people or pain to one's self - it makes little difference; for when the strenuous mood is upon one, the aim is to break something, no matter whose or what. Nothing annihilates an inhibition as irresistably as anger does it...It's hard to imagine William James losing his inhibition. Or breaking anything. In his elegantly detached way, James suggests that our experiences accumulate in our selves as 'energy', and that if we're willing to live with that energy things may get broken.
- William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience
Anger is an exotic emotion to me. I think I've long harbored some envy of boisterous, passionate Italian families. What would it have been like to grow up yelling across great bowls of pasta and bottles of wine at my siblings? What if I had learned to comprehend immediately the depth of every sleight or insult so that I could take my rightful offense and have the nerve to slap the offender as duty requires? The tearful reconciling embrace seems worth the trouble. (I can't wait to hear Clem's response to these blatant stereotypes.)
Maybe part of the reason that a more colorful emotional life seems appealing at times is that James was right. We do carry around energy that isn't meant to be inhibited. Not entirely at least.
On the other hand, I've had a few encounters recently with people exhibiting symptoms that suggest an autistic disorder like Asperger syndrome. One of the characteristics is a lack of empathy. And anger seems close to the surface, ready to spring forth at any time. The intensity of their reactions and their lack of inhibition wasn't just a glimpse of a mental disorder. I was reminded of the energy that all of us carry and the struggle we all share to express that energy in healthy and life giving ways.
Somewhere between my too-strong inhibition and an almost total lack of it exists a healthy spectrum of expression. And it may be that part of developing a healthy spiritual life or emotional life is learning how to be angry. Learning how to "live with energy, though energy bring pain."
There weren't any angry people mentioned in Sunday's gospel. We heard about Jesus' baptism by John. And we heard of a voice from heaven and the Spirit of God descending like a dove. God's energy seemed to be in the air, and mysteriously in Jesus as well. His struggle too would be how to live with that energy, though energy bring pain.
Fortunately for us Jesus learned to live faithfully with the energy he carried. He wasn't so inhibited and fearful of anger that we never got access to his gifts. Nor was he so uninhibited that his anger consumed him, and the people around him.
I think I'll try to start seeing anger not as a gift, but as evidence of a gift. Evidence that I have an urge toward goodness and justice that this world needs, but an urge that I can do damage with if I don't learn to express it faithfully. Maybe I can be careful but not fearful when the "strenuous mood" is upon me. And maybe only what needs to be will get broken in the process.
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Anger, The Dubious Luxury
I have to confess that I am a little disordered when it comes to anger. I am like the people Scott describes as having anger close to the surface, ready to spring forth at any time. Growing up gay in a world where Matthew Shepherd was beaten, tied to a fence and left for dead, anger always came easily and seemed justified.
Like Kathleen Norris, I understand why “the desert monks of the fourth century regarded anger as the most dangerous of human passions, far more destructive than greed or lust.” There is a little daily reading book I like called As Bill Sees It. Bill says, “If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the sudden rage were not for us. Anger is the dubious luxury of normal men, but for us … it is poison.”
When I think about all the friends who died of AIDS before there were drugs, all the gay men who were baited and beaten, the persecution heaped on he head of ++Gene Robinson by fellow Anglican bishops, or the thousands of Americans who have died in the “wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time”, I can feel the rage rise inside of me like a boiling caldron.
And then I remember, “the dubious luxury of normal men.” For me it is poison. In another book I like to read over and over, the same Bill says, “We realized that people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offended we said to ourselves, ‘This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done.’”
Later in the same book, a friend of Bill’s shares a story in which he says “And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation— some fact of my life—unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment…I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes.”
This is serious business! I spent many of my younger years, being angry and ineffective. Reflecting on anger and its counterproductive power, an old priest told a young man who was full of rage that “it” doesn’t get better. We get better. Maybe Reinhold Niebuhr said it best when he taught us to pray:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”
And, by the way, blogging seems to help.
I did not know until this day that Reinhaold Niebuhr was responsible for what some may call The Serenity Prayer....I didn't know who Niebuhr until I Googled him...the things you learn on a blog...
Lally Brown
Hey. Can I join on here? I've been taking advantage of the wisdom of this blog for quite some time now, reluctant to become a contributing editor. It could be fun, though.
I've found anger to do nothing but drag me down. Here's a brief summary: Mom and Dad gave me away ( I was mad for years), Oh great, I'm Gay (this really ticked me off), Adoptive parents reject me for being gay (great, what's next); and the list goes on and on.
So, I've committed to trying to live a life of utter honesty to myself and forgiveness. It's hard at times but thankfully my faith is helping me out.
Trying to remain angry seems so detrustive. How can we knock down divisive walls, if we can't even forgive those who have wronged us. I've found forgiveness to be key to attempting to find peace in my life.
Welcome, Lally and Dave. The more the merrier.
Okay, Scott, I won't let you down.
Anger is most definitely exotic and especially to Italians. You can't stereotype Italians. They just are. It's a principal ingredient for making claim to the cultural background along with pasta and garlic. However, in reading the blogs, I get the distinct feeling that Anger is being addresses as a bad thing. (except when Scott states that "developing a healthy spiritual life or emotional life is learning how to be angry.")
That's it my friends. Expressing anger leads to a healthy life. Holding anger back causes stroke and heart attack. This is something Italians learned long ago. But there is a time, place and way about doing this so no one is hurt.
As a child growing up with two Italian immigrant parents, "freedom of expression" took on a whole new meaning. My brother and sister and I called it the "great debate hour". It always happened at dinner time. (and we never got indigestion) My parents believed that it was good to express your beliefs and opinions about everything; Teachers, friends, the news, religion, you name it and it was discussed. Especially, politics! Man, we had some big ones over politics. I was the only democrat and a libral one at that. It was me against them. We yelled and screamed at each other, called each other idiots, fools, fabricaters, and a load of other things not mentionable here. My husband can attest to this quite willingly.
But you know, my parents never became angry at us for being, (what others would have interpreted as) disrespectful. This was because we and they knew the difference between releasing anger over things that bothered us or that we had an opinion about and using the "great debate" to test their patience and honor. You simply didn't mess with my parents when it came to respecting them. So, we kids learned how to vent our anger, enter a good debate with facts in hand and learn from each other. I always felt so much better after dinner and we never got mad at each other over the discussion. In fact, we laughed a whole lot.
It wasn't until many years later that I learned how healthy that nightly experience was for your mental stability and, it wasn't a bad ingredient for a stable marriage. Marriages today lack communication. Anger builds up inside of one or the other in a relationship until a problem can no longer be corrected. I always tell my daughter that to have a good marriage you need four things: Love, Trust, Respect and Communication. You lack one of these and it won't work. My mother told me that communication was the most important. Releasing anger by discussing or fighting about someone or something that bothers you brings the problem to the surface and solves it. My husband can attest to that one, too.
My earliest book memory of how Jesus approached the accussers of Mary Magdaleen is relevent here. I pictured Jesus angry as hell that these men were preparing to pick up stones and start throwing them at this poor woman lying in the dirt scared to death. So he, too picked up a large stone and looked at all of the men with angry eyes and said, "He who is without sin cast the first stone," Or, some words to that effect. Anyway, he was angry at what he saw and didn't hold back for a second. That's when I knew my parents were right!
I think releasing anger is a good thing especially when you get angry over the things you believe are the morally correct thing to do.
So, here's a little lift for Trey and Dave: You're at the right church. It's a place of love. I won't speak for any of my fellow parishioners but I know there are many who feel the same. Being Gay is part of who you are. As Scott said today in his sermon quoting Martin Luther King, you look at the "content of a man's character not his color" and I will add sexual orientation to that,too. There are a lot of fools out there who just don't understand but there are many who are smart and learning. So get angry and emotional. Let it out, I do. Debate the hell out of the issue. I'll listen! I've got experience, believe me. The forgiving will be easier and as for faith, we are ALL GOD'S children. Let God deal with Matthew Shepard's batterers in his own way. That's something else the fools can't get straight. (No pun intended.)
James is right and so were my parents. We should inhibit the anger that may lead to violence or hurt and learn to be uninhibited with anger as a great and healthy emotion for each of us to use to our advantage. I wish I had a video of the energy released at our dinner table each night. It solved the world's problems and ours, too.
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