Inside Out: Anger

We have long misunderstood anger, villainised this emotion, focusing on its outright appearance. Granted anger definitely is not a pleasant emotion, but very often we focus on this aspect, and fail to examine and analyse the motivation behind all the raised voices, the reddening huff and puff looks. As compared to other more subtle unpleasant emotions (e.g. pride, envy, greed), actually anger may not be as vicious, as what you see is definitely what you get, and when you examine the motivation behind them, one may actually have some sympathy for the cause, leading to another beautiful emotion, namely graciousness.

We need not look too far, we can see that even our Heavenly Father was quite an angry God, be it with His very own chosen people, or those who oppressed His chosen people (so many examples in the Old Testament). Also, many renowned Old Testament prophets were very angry people. The best example would be Moses, who got so angry with the Egyptian slave driver to the point he murdered him (I’ll get back to this example later). Oh yes even in the New Testament, one of the most famous apostles, Paul, was a firebrand, be it whether it was before or after his conversion. Just have a look at some of his fiery letters, he publicly told Peter off for discriminating against the Gentiles.

All anger stems from the reaction to a very simple premise. That something is not right, in fact it is horribly wrong, and we cannot stomach it. In fact, this anger at all the wrongs in life is amazing proof that we’re made in God’s image, that we have inherited God’s thirst for justice. However, though we have indeed gotten God’s desire for righting wrongs in this world, we have not gotten that same full wisdom of judgement, and that is where complications start arising.

Most of the time, when we suffer severe indigestion over the wrongs of life, we are suffering it in the identities of ourselves, with ourselves being THE best judge over right and wrong, not in the identities of disciples of God, who question what God would have wanted. This is a very big struggle of mine, considering I have an extremely high J streak, and I have to consciously jack up my P to counter this, to give others the chance to explain themselves.

And even if we have assessed correctly over whether it is a right or wrong situation, we may not necessarily be equipped with the wisdom to think of the best alternative course of action. Here I’ll bring in the example of Moses. Definitely the Egyptian slave driver was doing wrong with the bullying and such. However, Moses’ reaction of murdering that slave driver there and then is definitely not the best solution. The fact that he was not yet ready with wisdom and courage is further evidenced by his later reaction of running off when confronted with his act. I believe God let him stay in the outlands for forty years, not so much as a punishment, but more for him to spend time reflecting on his past brash actions, in turn training him up with tact in the future for leading the Israelites out.

At the expense of sounding like an Once Upon a Time drama character Regina fanatic, I’ll bring in the drama example of her again. For those who have followed the series since its inception, you will know the motivation behind Regina’s fuming anger with Snow White is not the vanity as depicted in the traditional fairytale or Julia Robert’s Mirror Mirror film version (we shan’t dwell into accuracy of depiction as it is not the aim of this blog entry, though for those who are interested in having a talk with me on this, please feel free to drop me a message J). Granted, her anger was definitely justified, considering that Snow White’s naïve action had resulted in the tragic death of her childhood sweetheart. However, the course of Regina’s subsequent actions, generally summed up in her famous one-liner “I’ll destroy your happiness even if it is the last thing I do”, was what made her branded as “evil” (thankfully she is steadily on the road to redemption from the way the drama is proceeding).  

I guess apart from the obvious question of asking ourselves why we get angry (this filters away a lot of the pride, greed, envy masquerading as anger), it is much more urgent to ask ourselves the “what next”. More often than not, after we ask ourselves this, we will sense the anger giving way to something else. In season 3 of OUAT, Tinkerbell questioned Regina’s wisdom in clinging onto that anger, trying to convince her that the act of letting the anger go would grant her happiness. Regina however was fearful that by relinquishing that anger, she would be left with nothing, which to her was weakness. Quite often we struggle to retain this control over our lives, taking it as a sign of power and strength. However, life was never ours to control, we only control ourselves. Moreover, as the Beatitudes passage in the gospel showed, this weakness be a blessing, a yearning for solace with God (in the OUAT drama’s example, I would think it is symbolized by Regina’s love for her stepson Henry). As my spiritual director mentioned earlier during my sessions with her, it is not “react” but “respond”.

I had watched the play Off Center on last Sunday afternoon, leaving with the piping emotions of a volanco awaiting explosion. I guess I was reminded of many hurtful memories with regard to my medical history of mental illness. All of a sudden, the buried anger of the past years towards everyone (family, friends, colleagues, adversaries) seemed to be like resurrected zombies rising from their graves, threatening to inflict World War Z. Thankfully out of desperation, I quickly prayed for the indication of something bigger in life and He let me see them just before I turned in for bed. 

If anger for justice is like the majestic sun beating down upon us as we toil daily in the fields, then gentle mercy is something else, just as beautiful, though in another unique method of its own. It is like the stars peering out of the cleared up night skies. During the gloom of the night, sometimes they are not visible, though they are just as constant as the sun, just much more tender in brightness. The astronomy theory is that stars are “burnt out” versions of the sun, and that the fate awaiting our sun is that similar to the stars. In the similar way, after experiencing the burning intense anger towards the wrongs inflicted by us in life, we ask ourselves “what next” and we quell ourselves into these specks of little brightness waiting patiently to let the ultimate source of light to do all that is necessary. That may be what God means by not letting the sun go down while we are angry. Only then do we notice the stars that accompany us during the night before the daybreak.

In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.

Ephesians 4:26-27 (NIV)