What about ANGER?

“I am gonna STRANGLE you!” gesturing with his hands as if squeezing them around my throat, with a grimace of wrinkled brow and scrunched up lips and nose.

The twinkle of laughter in his eyes immediately following this angry display brings on a fit of laughter for us both. The intense energy is quickly dispersed through the laughter and we both feel free of the tension once again.

Have you ever noticed how dogs handle their intense emotions after the initial outburst of barking, growling or other shows of aggression? They shake their entire body usually starting at the head and working down to the tail. It is as if the moment has passed and they realize they have this residual emotion to dispense with. The shaking helps them to get past it and move on. My dog does not have a long memory for events that created ill feeling or anger.

Life is full of anger evoking moments. I have heard it said that anger is meant to motivate us to action. We each have our own method of dealing with emotional situations. What action do you choose when struck with anger?   

I have been known to hold onto my anger and let it fester. I am sure, none of the rest of you out there have ever done that. It takes a lot of energy on a daily basis to keep that festering puss pocket from spewing foul smelling noxious ooze on innocent bystanders.  

Some people, that I know but who will remain anonymous, find anger a call to pouting! It is quite an art to perfect. While I have tried it many times I found it took way too much energy to maintain the pout and had an unsatisfying result with most situations. 

I have noticed that for most of my life I practiced and perfected the art of Denial!

“Are you angry with me for something?” would come the opportunity to express myself.

“I am not angry” I calmly reply, while simultaneously taking notice of the anger and stuffing it into the bubbling cauldron of unforgiven offenses. “Ignore it and it will pass” was the modus operandi.

I am having what my old hippie self calls a “psychedelic” moment as I type this. My husband, sitting here working next to me, started spontaneously expounding on the power of speaking the truth out loud.

“Speaking the truth about the thing most quickly makes it go away” he states adamantly. No, he was not reading my screen, though that was my first thought. He was looking through a microscope and expressing his frustration about having lost a package of labels we recently received.

“The more I like something the faster it goes away” he expounds looking for agreement from me.

“Perhaps if you stop saying that, it will change” I offer to his quandary, to which he instantly retorted with his personal wisdom regarding the very subject I was attempting to pontificate on. I made this statement to him just as I had finished typing about my propensity for denial!

It is my thinking, that the spoken word has great power.  Speaking the “truth” brings it into the light where purification and cleansing can occur. This is something I have known and tried to practice for many years. I am always amazed to find my own need for further refinement! I sometimes go for long periods of up to two days without being seriously confronted with my true self. Those days are joyously blissful moments of rapture engulfed by self-righteousness.  It requires a well developed skill in the art of denial to maintain self-righteousness.  

To verbally acknowledge my anger gives me the opportunity to evaluate the situation more fully.  Am I angry because I simply am not getting “MY Way”? This is a great call to pouting!  Am I angry because I have been injured or worse yet a loved one has been injured? I am a fiercely protective mother, wife, daughter and sister. Am I angry because of perceived injustice directly or indirectly perpetrated on my world by outside forces? Non-violent protest is my favored response to social and environmental injustice. 

Often I am angry because something has triggered a serious boiling over of the cauldron of Unforgiven Offenses. Perhaps it is a lack of sleep, lack of food or an urgent need to find a bathroom in the mall. It takes a lot of energy and focus to keep the cauldron at a slow simmer and deep enough that fumes are not wafting out and affecting my day. Suppose you said something that reminded me of some long ago Unforgiven event of which you had no knowledge and probably had no part in. This could precipitate a major spill leaving you severely blistered and wondering what this crazy woman is thinking.  

Having been confronted with this part of myself countless times over the years, I have managed to empty much of the contents of the cauldron by practicing forgiveness. For years I thought I was forgiving, when in reality I was denying my hurt and feeding the cauldron. True forgiveness allows me, as per the Oxford English Dictionary, 'to grant free pardon and to give up all claim on account of an offense or debt'.  This type of total forgiveness in my world comes only by the grace of God. While God’s grace is abundantly available it requires asking. If I am practicing the refined art of Denial then I see no need for that grace. I am above anger. I don’t hold a grudge! I am just tired or hungry or I need to use the bathroom and that is why I am acting like a raving lunatic.

My husband and I tried shaking from head to foot like our dog does to avail himself of God's grace. We saw that each of us had areas where we did not find our bodies shaking as well as we would like. Observing ourselves we saw that we were stiff and lacking free movement in the areas of our bodies where we tend to “hold stress”(unforgiveness?). I was stiff in my shoulders while he was stiff in his neck. We decided as therapy we should work at getting more limber for one month. Loosening the areas we have allowed to stiffen may well dislodge interesting emotional resistance. To test our success we will have a limbo contest to see if we have achieved our goals and can shake off our anger with the total forgiveness of our dog!

What about beggars?

“Wait! Order me a $1.29 burger!” she demands as she rushes up to my car window from unseen parts of the parking lot. She is wearing a knit cap shorts and a tee shirt. Appearing fairly clean and healthy she stands out of view of the drive-up window camera but close enough that moving my car forward requires attention to her position. “I am not asking for money” she pipes in when I don’t acquiesce to her demand to order her a burger.

“I can’t help you” I reply resolutely.

“But I am not asking for money” comes the repeated justification. Believing that I must recognize her as an addict looking for cash, my denial is an affront to her. The expression changes from one of confident boldness to a menacing hostility. Feeling glad to be in the truck with electric windows and air conditioning, I roll up the window and move up toward the pick-up window. The lack of any other cars in the drive-up window line or even in the parking lot, suggest desperate pressure on the sole prey that I had been.

Had she merely asked for some spare change I might have been more receptive to the plea. The tactic, that she was asking me for food not for money, disregarding the cost of the food, was not one that went over well. I would say she was a bit too desperate and over played her hand.

I admit I am not the most generous person with street beggars. Outside the grocery store where there are a lot of shoppers coming and going the pickings are more abundant. I will give spare change. Depending on the look and feel from the person with their hand out I have parted with paper money on occasion.  

My husband is much more generous and sympathetic with street people. He relates to them as Jesus would, as an equal. He first engages them in conversation. He will even offer unsolicited assistance if he sees a need. Had he been in the car with me last night at the drive up window he would have tried to make her smile or even laugh first and then drawn her into conversation extracting her story from her. Oblivious to the time required for this, my dearest better half would then decide whether buying the burger was what he wanted to do or if buying a full meal would be the ticket.

I feel more inclined to help the less desperate. I think I am not alone in this. It is a curious thing. Those in greatest need meet with the greatest resistance. I have a myriad of reasons for my lack of compassion and my supreme self-righteousness.  Excuses for my hardened heart is all they are.  Availing my abundance to people far away in parts of the world that I have never seen is much easier . The starving children in war torn countries prostituted in the media pull at my heart strings. I feel guilty for their plight as I see the terror inflicted upon them. 

The situation here in my home town is no less tragic. I saw the desperation in her eyes last night. She is not alone in this city. I felt her pain and wanted her to go away. There are hundreds, probably thousands of others like her close by. Poor choices on her part? Hard work on my part? Deserving and undeserving? Sinners and saints?

I separate myself making myself believe that I am different than “them”.  The question is am I so different that I would starve rather than beg? Would I be willing to beg for my children or grandchildren?  I would likely work up a touching commentary to generate hand outs.  So the difference is merely in tactics?

Do I trust that my heart will be touched by those that I am intended to connect with? Or should I respond to each request with an open hand?  Just say NO!? Give money to alcoholics and drug addicts? Tough love?

Compassion is from the Latin word meaning co-suffering.  Feeling the suffering of another, moves me to attempt to alleviate that suffering.  Compassion as a virtue does not require the alleviation of the suffering. Compassion requires a willingness to share the burden of suffering.  Now that is a different story.  Interesting what I learn when I read the dictionary and learn what the words I use freely really mean.

I don’t want to see the suffering let alone share in it. Throwing money at the suffering is the American way. I call it compassion, but the truth is, it is a lack of compassion. Make it go away is what I really want. I separate myself from the suffering that is around me so as not to feel or share in it. Perhaps if I am willing to sit with the suffering and share in it with true compassion, then I will hear more clearly what if any response is required of me.

What about the day after tomorrow?

My favorite day of the week to schedule chores is always “the day after tomorrow”.  You might ask, “Why?”  I would have to say that today is here and I have things already going on. Tomorrow is too soon and ever pressing in on the events of today. The day after tomorrow is perfect!  It is not today or tomorrow. It is too far off to press in on today. Since tomorrow turns into today we never really get to the day after tomorrow. This makes it the best day to schedule anything you really don’t want to do.

No matter how we label it, time is ever pressing in on us. We can slow the process a bit by focusing on the ticking seconds.  I remember too clearly sitting in high school classes watching the clock tick off each second waiting to be released from the “blah blah blah” coming from the front of the room. I don’t enjoy waiting.  Like many things, waiting is a matter of perception. Having a limited allotment of time here and so many things on my agenda, I feel disgruntled with time spent waiting. In reality the time I think I am “waiting” is time I am spending worrying about what other things I “should” be doing. 

 

While I am absorbed in the moment, time passes unnoticed.  Waiting then becomes the activity of sidestepping the present moment, or attempting to, and focusing on some unattainable future moment. If as a teenager I had understood this, I could have focused on any number of things that were going on in the classroom beside the ticking hands of the clock. I could have moved effortlessly through the torture that was my history class and released myself from the prison of time. 

Now a mature adult, I find it much easier to stay focused on the moment. It truly is all I possess in life. It is a constant attention to time that restricts my ability to do and be.  Life seems short when I think about how old I am and how quickly the years pass by now. Life seems to drag on much too long when I consider the possibility of being infirmed and unable to get out of bed unaided, as I have seen happen to others. I remember Job and his sufferings. I remember my father’s last months suffering in the intensive care unit. Both were pushed to the edge and I saw what they were made of.  To avoid the trap of time in the midst of such travail, to hold onto the moment, embrace God’s grace and trust , is what I saw happen in Job and my father.  When I can no longer “do” I must be comfortable enough with myself to just “be”. 

Life does not come with a guarantee…well it is pretty certain that these physical bodies will eventually quit on us regardless of our best efforts.  I am not ready to die today, tomorrow is too soon but perhaps the day after tomorrow!?

What about turtles?

Well armored, slow moving, long lived ancient reptiles of the order testudines.  Prized in many cultures for their meat, I have never eaten it. Science suggests that the turtle is a more ancient species than lizards, snakes or crocodiles. It has recently been noted that the organs of a turtle do not age and deteriorate the way most animals do. This has sparked scientific interest in the genetic composition of these creatures that live to be centenarians. 

How long do you want to live? Would you want to live to be two hundred if it meant growing a shell? Perhaps science can find a way to extract the longevity of the turtle for our use without having to grow a protective shell. Do you want to be one of the first to try it? Will it be something that is added to our water so we don’t notice it? Little by little each generation lives longer and longer until we are snapping at flies and moving ever so slowly for hundreds of years. I do hope there is a cure for cancer before the longevity water is perfected.  

I can not even imagine what the next fifty years has in store, besides longevity water in bottles of course because the municipal water supply is no longer drinkable. Will we be mutants of some sort from all the radioactive particles in the water and the vegetables here in California and other parts of the world due to the Japanese nuclear disaster? Will we be living in a world that has undergone extreme climate changes and whole areas of the world are no longer inhabitable while others that were once uninhabitable have emerged as new frontiers? Will we be moving forward with sustainable fuel types and sustainable housing? 

Part of my wants to see the future and all that it holds for my grandchildren and their children.  That part is optimistic that indeed we will solve the problems that confront our opulent lifestyles and find sustainable means of co-existing on the planet. That is the future I want to participate in!  The turtle in me wants to pull in my head and hope I can live out my life quietly unnoticed moving slowly toward my end in the world I am accustomed to with no further change. Most days I am still wanting, willing and able, thank you God, to participate.  I think I should get pet turtles for the grandkids and teach them how to care for turtles so my grandchildren will be ready when I need them!