Soul sickness and anger redux...

For a long time I was confused about anger:  sometimes I was afraid of it, sometimes (as a man) I found that my fears came out looking and sounding like anger, sometimes anger felt destructive and sometimes it just felt right and true and just.  As I noted earlier this week, I have come to affirm what M. Craig Barnes wrote about anger and soul-sickness: "The primary symptom of a soul that has become sick is that it becomes blind to the poetry of life."  This blindness is often caused by an obsession with anger - it intoxicates us - while training us to become victims.  And "victimization is a waste of our suffering."

Once we take on the identity of victims, we are allowing nothing redemptive to occur, and since we have idolized anger, how can we be open to such divine gifts as healing, forgiveness or the gravitas that can emerge through adversity?

Clearly, there ARE victims, yes?  It would be stupid and cruel to argue otherwise; "but no one," concludes Barnes, "has to make that the defining mark of their identity."  As one of my favorite real-world monastics, Joan Chittister, writes:  "If we are really seeking God, we have to start in the very core of our hearts and motives and expectations. We can't blame the schedule or the finances or the work or the people in our lives for blocking our progress. We have to learn to seek from within ourselves. We have to stop waiting for the world around us to be perfect in order to be happy." (Wisdom Distilled from the Daily, p. 57)

I sometimes find myself arguing this point with colleagues who seem out of balance to me
around our call to social justice.  Their anger about Wall Street greed or famine in the Horn of Africa usually feels oppressive and controlling to me - almost a theologically acceptable form of bullying - and I run as fast in the opposite direction as possible.  Not because I disagree with the issues - I don't - and not because I'm afraid of a fight - I'm not.  It just seems, as they sometimes say in AA, "that if your only tool is a hammer, soon everyone starts to look like a nail."  And being bullied - or guilt-tripped - or shamed or pounded into a response is not of the Lord.

That expression of anger doesn't feel holy to me:  it feels like a public temper tantrum of a sick soul in need of refreshment, rest and healing.  Don't get me wrong, I know about rants and all the rest - they have their place.  But not at the expense of wounding others in order to feel momentarily relevant or powerful.  No, better learn from the example of St. Paul who after being touched - and healed - by the Spirit of Jesus spent 17 years in quiet apprenticeship in the desert.  We don't know for certain what he learned, just that when he went public he was speaking about a love that is patient, relentless and transformative.  He wasn't interested in stoning anyone anymore - just inviting them to the open banquet of the Lord.

If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

At the same time, there IS an expression of righteous anger and I think it  looks something like this: brilliant, clear, inviting and challenging all at the same time.

No shame - no bullying - no passive/aggressive bullshit either just a call to action born of compassion.  Joan Chittister amplifies this when she explores understanding - and then accepting - the will of God in our complex lives:

When circumstances persist even though I bend every effort to eliminate them, then clearly those are the will of God for me. There is something in them that I must learn to deal with. There is something about them that is essential to my growth. There are, at least, other ways and other answers and other plans than mine that obviously bear recognition if I am to grow beyond myself and come to appreciate the beauty in others... (For) the fact is I do not have unlimited freedom (and I would add wisdom). Obedience to God's will sets limits.

This is what Barnes meant when he wrote about missing the poetry of our lives: when our wounded and sick souls are so angry that we lock out redemption, healing and the chance to grow deeper and more humble it is time for some serious inner work.  Silence rather than words- spoken out loud or shared electronically - solitude instead of sharing - counsel and listening instead of temper tantrums.

St. Lou Reed once sang what it feels like to be assaulted by someone who refused to let the Spirit of Jesus bring rest and healing... it continues to be a prayer for me in the most upside down way.

My other favorite real world monastic, Richard Rohr, brings it home for me in a recent email about the Cross:

Jesus receives our hatred and does not return it.  He suffers and does not make the other suffer.  He does not first look at changing others, but pays the price of change within himself. He absorbs the mystery of human sin rather than passing it on.  He does not use his suffering and death as power over others to punish them, but as power for others to transform them.  He includes and forgives the sinner instead of hating him, which would only continue the pattern of hate.  Amazing that people cannot see that!  It’s interesting that Jesus identifies forgiveness with breathing (John 20:22-23), the one thing that you have done constantly since you were born and will do until you die.  He says God’s forgiveness is like breathing.  Forgiveness is not apparently something God does; it is who God is.  God can do no other.