Monday, October 3, 2016

Anger, Destructive Masquerade of a Soul’s Sadness

“Anger doesn’t solve anything. It builds nothing, but it can destroy everything.”
 Lawrence Douglas Wilder
I once knew of a man who gave up his whole life in a flicker of rage. He murdered somebody. In a fit of fury, he destroyed a life. He devastated several lives. He certainly demolished his own life. Prison time, however, was a time for recollection and recovery. He refused to be characterised by what was, quite definitively, his worst moment. He was able to do that in an encounter with the Spirit of the living Christ. He was a changed man, though all his days would ever be tainted by that one moment of madness. Yet such was the grace that this man had received, he knew he was no longer judged. He no longer judged himself, and he had learned to turn his regret outward into purposeful restitution.
He learned something else about anger.
Anger wasn’t all there was. Much deeper down something important resided, as if there was an alluvial quality to his emotions that he had not yet tapped. He discovered something in the peace of God. In the tranquil waters of his own soul he was introduced to a pool of sadness ever present in his material identity. There he found such empathy for himself, led there by the Lord’s Presence, that he forgave himself those horrific behaviours. He saw the fear generated sadness for what it was. It made sense, and acceptance was enabled.
Anger was merely the masquerade for a deep-seated irreconcilable sorrow that ran irrepressibly within and incessantly throbbed as an undercurrent in his life.
The moment he agreed to take a pilgrimage to his sorrow was the moment he was healed of the need of anger.
***
Anger needs safe expression, and that is through honesty expressed as sadness or fear.
May God bless you in your anger, as it invites you deeper into your sorrow, so you might journey with it, into a vast and deep emotional healing.

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