Hud McWilliams

“Thou shalt not skim!”….1 Hud 3:2
It’s been a while. I do miss these little chats. ~ I hope this finds you touching joy in your pilgrimage. Since we haven’t talked for a time, maybe you could have a cup of coffee (or coke), and take a moment ~
Wrestle with this, and share some feedback. I think this subject is long overdue for a challenge!

Thanks for your time… I have been musing on the subject of anger for the last few months. In fact, some of you have heard me speak on this, and yet I muse on…
So, this is an effort to put some of these ideas on paper. I would like to further this dialogue by challenging you with what I believe, is the accepted tendency with anger - to make the assumption that it is natural! Well, of course it’s natural, you say, everybody has it, and it has always been with us…maybe like taxes and death. Well, I’m not so sure. Follow me for a moment while I tell you about my journey.

When you are let in on others lives and you hear their stories, (like I have for 35 years), then you begin to wonder whether or not these things are in fact, ‘natural”, or if they are a partial result of the messed up state of the world. (Well, at least I wonder, and I believe you should too).

It seems to me that when God gave us a choice in the beginning, it was ideally to give us the freedom to cooperate with his way of design, or to assert our limited power and attempt to be independent. Since we do live in a cause and effect world, it was obviously a temptation to choose control over submission. Our angry feelings then, result in a sense that what is, is “natural”.
Here’s my ever so tenuous offering. There is such a glut of material that implies or says that anger is the most normal and natural state for us, that to suggest otherwise, flies in the face of convention.

Consider this:
Anger, I believe, is not something that the human was originally designed to deal with. I suppose that fear falls into that category as well. Throughout scripture, we are repeatedly told that we are to “fear not”. In the same vein, we are told that vengeance is God’s, and that our anger, righteous or unrighteous, is not able to produce the righteousness or justice of God. So, what do we do with this obvious trait that we all carry around? The Psalmists often refer to anger as a way of expressing their frustrations with God’s apparent lack of ready vindication of the injustice done to them. How long must they wait for a “fair” and due end to this obvious wrong that they are suffering?

Here are some observations:

1. We remember more wrongs done to us than rights.
2. When we have worked hard with the best of motives, and life does not repay us fairly, (cause and effect) our ire is raised, and we will protest, if only for an audience of one.
3. Bitterness, for perceived or real wrongs done against us, can with very little effort last a lifetime, and generate a distorting power in the human soul that will obscure large portions of life, and distort relationships.
4. The most consistent error in parenting is the use of anger in managing children. It is one of the most ineffective ways of attempting to influence human beings of all ages.
5. Anger is found to have many faces:

• Some people avoid anger through fear of it;
• Some are passive-aggressive, learning to frustrate others by simply doing nothing. These people usually don’t have any idea what they want in life;
• People with “distrust based issues”, project their anger onto others, believing that people are against them;
• Others are the “short fuse,” impulsive variety, and are the mainstay of anger management groups;
• Some individuals convert shame into bouts of rage. This needs to be separated because much domestic violence is resident within this pattern;
• Others have learned to deliberately intimidate, (bullies are found in this group);
• There are those who use anger to keep from being bored. They feel more alive, and are often most at ease when in a conflict;
• For some, anger is merely a habit based on the premise that others are stupid, useless, bad and wrong;
• One of the most common distortions in religious circles is the use of anger, motivated by moral reasons. It produces a sense of superiority and as in all anger, results in distance relationally;Hate fuels the longest lasting form of anger and is tied to forgiveness.
  We could go on, but I think you get the point.

When James talks about the anger of man, and when the Psalmist talks about the strong feelings of anger or fear, we can began to see how we cannot avoid this emotion. In order to understand why we also cannot redeem them, however, here is a reflection on scripture, which can give us some hints.

At the beginning, man chose, I believe, to opt for a sense of control by choosing knowledge over life. (The two trees in the garden story). Now, we are prone to continue to believe the lie that we “can know”, and thus are blinded to the reality that none of us make good judges. Have you ever been sure and then had the opportunity to face the evidence?

Oops!

The sum of this in James seems to be that the only real antidote to anger for us is, to develop the humility that every creature is called to by God. Still, our desire to be god rather than to bow is the constant default in our own mortal systems. Humility, James says, is comprised of three things.

1. To truly evaluate ourselves by knowing our limitations and walking in that truth. Here is one of my favorite musings: We are most like God in what we think and least like Him in what we can do. In Eleonore Stumps The Mirror of Evil she notes hideous examples of wrongs done to people, taken from the newspaper, and she writes: “This evil is a mirror for us. It shows us ourselves….We ourselves—you and I, that is — are members of the species that does such things.” Different responses to this fact are: Some people quickly look away; some can’t shut out the sight; some labor at obliviousness; some become global reformers; some react with anger—loathing at the world or loathing at themselves. Yet to hating this evil is to bring us to mourn and weep!

2. Not judging others is another prime ingredient in humility! We say some awful things when we are angry. Yet, none of these words bring us the reconciliation for which our hearts were designed.

3. Comparison is another signal that we have bought into the deception that we ‘know’ and can therefore evaluate the relative value of people and thereby boast in our position. James continues to challenge us with this component of humility. Truth and arrogance do not stand together.

All this to say, I am becoming convinced that our anger is truly worth little and most usually does harm, either to us or others, or the environment. I do believe that we can be sad at the mess this world is in. How quickly we resort to some kind of power or control to try to mediate our anxiety, yet the bible seems to counsel another way….the way of humility. That is not highly esteemed in our world and is tricky to develop.

I told you, you might not like the answer.
Blessings, By His Grace, Hud.

Posted on February 13th, 2008 under THINKLINGS • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback