Angry Threads

So I've been in a lot of places where the subject of anger has come up. I'm not sure what to do with the disparate meditations, thoughts and conversations, so I thought I'd put the various threads here and see if some sort of bigger picture develops.

1. Anger seems to be an appropriate response to world that is full of wrong. God is angry in Amos--the people of Israel are exploiting the poor. Some of my students get angry at injustice. Anger is the right response to not-right-ness. It is a good and useful tool that moves us beyond our usual self-protective shell to engage in the fight where it is good, right, and necessary.

2. Usually, however, anger does not seem to be used or experienced in this redemptive way. Most often we get angry when we are overlooked, taken for granted, feel snubbed or overworked. In other words, anger seems to play out most consistently in regards to the need to be propped up, applauded, approved of, respected, and having our own needs met.

In some cases, our anger in regards to something that has happened to us is justified and right under condition number one: we have personally experienced a wrong that needs to be righted somehow. But often in our culture, anger is self-serving rather than making-things-right-serving.

3. Anger is a serious impediment to the spiritual life. The conversations we have in our heads, the ways we self-justify and work up our self-righteous diatribes, the ways that anger most often compels us to act impulsively, hastily, in over-reaction rather than in right measure all impede a life of the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Henri Nouwen talks about this in his book The Genessee Diary. That his anger and the resulting stew-pot of internal-world churning is often grossly disproportionate to the actual offense. What this reveals, he proposes, is that we are such insecure and deeply needy creatures that even the most insignficant slight raises the specter that we are unimportant, not loved, and alone. In other words, that all our worst fears about our lives and circumstances might actually be true.

Scripture talks plenty about anger--I mentioned Amos already, but perhaps most famously in the New Testament: "in your anger, do not sin." This resonates with me. It leaves room for a Jesus-clearing-the-temple kind of anger that is rightly prompted by something that is wrong...but it doesn't let me off the hook to love the Lord and my neighbor, even in the midst of my anger.