Tag: anger

Hidden Beauty

On By Charis PsalloIn nature, Photography, spring, UncategorizedLeave a comment

For the Scriptures tell us:

Whoever wants to embrace true life

and find beauty in each day

must stop speaking evil, hurtful words

and never deceive in what they say.

Always turn from what is wrong

and cultivate what is good;

eagerly pursue peace in every relationship,

making it your prize.

(1 Peter 3:9-11 TPT)

I’m a stomper. When my anger is triggered by injustice toward myself —or especially toward vulnerable children— I go outside for a stomp. I go out whether it’s raining, or snowing, or if I’m in pain and limping heavily as I shove my walker through four inches of gravel. (Really! Who advertises handicap accessible trails then covers them with thousands of little wheel grabbing rocks?)

I don’t take my camera with me on these jaunts because I am busy composing defensive responses to obtuse accusers (absent from my side but repeating insults in my head) or writing imaginary posts to corrupt authorities (who will probably remain totally unaware of my important opinion) I’m too busy to notice anything photo-worthy. I’m snapping, but not in a sensitive creative way. Sometimes I walk away from a tense situation to avoid saying something to someone I will later regret.

I didn’t realize until these past few days of rumination following an excellent seminar on healing traumatized churches led by Ron Wean of Florida, that my habit of stomping out my rage is a way of getting out of the fight mode of the infamous flight/fight/freeze trilogy of survival responses to trauma (or the triggers of unprocessed memories of trauma stored in the body). Movement renews connection with the body and the logical/creative brain God gave us. I know I’m back when I can feel more than my own emotional pain and can see more than dark ugliness.  The expression, “blind rage” was probably created by someone who was familiar with it.

I’m not anti-emotion. Not at all! Anger can be a useful emotion. It lets us know that all is not well like the check engine light on the car dashboard. The discomfort of angry feelings can let us know that something is not right in ourselves. It can motivate self-examination and change. Anger modified by self-control has been behind many reforms from freedom from slavery to the end of entrenched genocide. We are told: “In your anger, do not sin,” (Ephesians 4:26) and “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.” (Romans 12:9) I’m not talking about becoming an emotionless doormat. I’m talking about choosing to not return evil for evil (with compounded interest) or seek revenge.

This morning I read this scripture passage in 1 Peter about finding beauty. I had never noticed before that speaking hurtful words in retaliation and neglecting to pursue peace can keep us locked in a world without beauty. Beauty remains hidden in the places where ugliness and darkness demand all the attention. 

I thought that an intentional search for beauty would bring peace, but what if it is the other way around? What if a lack of peace hinders our ability to see beauty? What if peace improves our vision?

What if the pursuit of peace means letting go of wrathful words and unconscious tit-for-tat exaggerations and lopsided partial truths formed whilst in survival mode? What if the pursuit of peace means leaving our own devices and turning to the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ, who entered our trauma out of love and compassion to bring us his peace, the peace that passes understanding?

Lord, remind us to turn from what is wrong and cultivate what is good. Open our eyes to see beauty again as we pursue peace in every relationship. Heal our hearts and renew a right spirit within us.

Finding Peace in the Middle of a Contentious Atmosphere

On By Charis PsalloIn Trees and forests, Water, Winter2 Comments

pond frost ch rs DSC_0627

I fell for it. I didn’t really notice until I asked myself why I felt so agitated. I heard myself snap at my husband over some trivial matter. Later he (and a few others) had to listen to my rant about the way corrupt people with money and power are lying to the vulnerable and gullible. I picked up the nastiness in the atmosphere and, forgetting to get cleaned up after reading about systemic corruption in my country, I ran with it and added to the division.

I lost my peace.

One of the most important things I have learned in the past few years is that when I pray I need to remember who I am, to rest from striving and have confidence in the One to whom I pray — and to tune into His peace. In His presence I am content to trust. Covered by His righteousness, surrounded by His love, and secure in His goodness I can join in the way Jesus prays for a situation.

On my own I become angry. I rant about injustice, cover-ups, the abuse of power, the manipulation of people through fears and half-truths. On my own my best efforts contribute to the kind of division that delights the enemy of our souls. My own emotional reaction doesn’t work.

I thought about attitudes that counter anger and contention. I thought about peace and contentment as neutralizing weapons. But first I had to get cleaned up.

The essence of confession is this: Oh God, I was wrong. I’m sorry.

I was wrong to pick up the weapons of the author of contention. (I once heard in a dream, “You can contend without being contentious, you know.”) I was wrong for applying outrage instead of stepping into the place of confident security in The Truth and The Way.

My scheduled reading yesterday in Psalm 94 made me stop and think. So much of the upheaval we are experiencing comes down to the question, “Who is in control?”

You will be relieved to know it’s not me, nor can I tell God what to do. I can confess, get cleaned up, and step back into alignment with him though. Thank you, Lord, for forgiveness.

The scripture says the purposes of God are not achieved by the anger of man. My dearest brothers and sisters, take this to heart: Be quick to listen,[o] but slow to speak. And be slow to become angry, for human anger is never a legitimate tool to promote God’s righteous purpose. (James 1:19, 20)

Prayer is more powerful than any demonstration of anger. God’s plan of revenge is first a heart transformed by love, but he will not tolerate forever those who hurt his children.

The Lord has fully examined every thought of man
and found them all to be empty and futile.

Lord Yah, there’s such a blessing that comes
when you teach us your word and your ways.
Even the sting of your correction can be sweet.

It rescues us from our days of trouble
until you are ready to punish the wicked.

For the Lord will never walk away from his cherished ones,
nor would he forsake his chosen ones who belong to him.

Whenever you pronounce judgments, they reveal righteousness.
All your lovers will be pleased.

Lord, who will protect me from these wicked ones?
If you don’t stand to defend me, who will? I have no one but you!

I would have been killed so many times
if you had not been there for me.

When I screamed out, “Lord, I’m doomed!”
your fiery love was stirred and you raced to my rescue.

Whenever my busy thoughts were out of control,
the soothing comfort of your presence
calmed me down and overwhelmed me with delight.

It’s obvious to all; you will have nothing to do
with corrupt rulers who pass laws that empower evil
and defeat what is right.

For they gang up against the lovers of righteousness
and condemn the innocent to death.

But I know that all their evil plans will boomerang back onto them.
Every plot they hatch will simply seal their own doom.
For you, my God, you will destroy them,
giving them what they deserve.
For you are my true tower of strength,
my safe place, my hideout, and my true shelter.

(Psalm 94:11-23 TPT)

 

mountains sun snow contrast ch DSC_0153

 

Anger as a Gift of Grace

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography, Sky4 Comments

 

Sometimes, like storm clouds that roll in in the middle of a perfectly lovely day, my anger seems to come out of nowhere and crashes and booms in the most embarrassing way. I don’t want to feel it!
IMG_9581

Yesterday’s blog on angry critical words as verbal assault weapons stirred up discouraging feelings for some people who wrote to me privately. I realize we need to talk about the other part about the words that flow out of our heart without piling on more “shoulds” What do we do with feelings of anger?

I get really mad at myself when I lose my temper. I’ve heard it said that depression is anger turned inward and perhaps that is true, but you don’t want to be in the line of fire when it’s turned outward. What do we do with anger when it boils over and spoils our carefully constructed version of ourselves? What do we do with feelings that fuel not-nice verbal assaults aimed either at ourselves or at others?

The Bible tells us, “In your anger do not sin.”

What?!?

For a long time I didn’t realize that God gave us a sense of anger or righteous indignation or personal miffification (my word) for a good reason. Anger is like the indicator light on the dashboard of a car that lets you know there is a problem with the engine. When my dad taught me to drive he emphasized the necessity of paying attention to the dashboard information. Don’t let the RPMs get too high and never, never ignore the low oil warning. Stop and deal with it right away.

Anger can be a gift of grace. Anger allows us to admit there is a problem. Who we blame for the problem is the problem.

Anger is a secondary emotion. It’s like a warning light that lets us know something is wrong inside somewhere. Yes, there are false alarms and overly sensitive alarms sometimes. No one is thrilled to see the warning light suddenly glowing red. One time it cost me $87 to find out that I had only turned the gas cap one click instead of three after I followed my dad’s advice and drove directly to a mechanic’s shop when the engine light turned on. (That triggered my personal anger indicator light.) It’s tempting to ignore warnings after such events, but ignoring them can lead to nasty or expensive consequences later.

I’m suffering from ignoring a warning I was given a few weeks ago. It was just a toe. My doctor said I needed to have minor surgery to deal with an over zealous toenail that turned on me. When he mentioned recovery time I thought about my busy schedule and procrastinated. Last week I ended up having to get antibiotics to deal with  painful infection. My toe (little thing that it is) screamed at me like a street full of car alarms set off by an rebellious teenager at 3 a.m..  Yesterday, my adorable three-year old granddaughter was asserting her newly discovered independence over whether or not she needed to wear a hoodie (which she calls a “heady”). In the  process she expressed her opinion with a vehement stomp. Unfortunately my toe was under her stomp.

Now I love this child dearly but had it not been for the grace of the Lord in teaching me a bit of self-control by this point in my life I could have let loose some pithy words that carry emotional weight.

When we lose it and our tempers over-ride the mouth gate control, or when other people unload their verbal semi-automatic assault weapons on us, it is often because issues were not dealt with while they were still minor. Sometimes minor offences fester like a sore toe we have ignored for too long. Woe betide the one who brushes against a sensitive spot.

Some of the things we ignore are minor wounds that occur when people make demands that require us to give more than we think we can afford. This can feel like someone is stealing our time, attention, money, dignity – all sorts of things. One of the hardest I find to deal with is the implication, “You are a Christian. You are required to love and forgive so I expect you to forgive me immediately no matter what I do.”

Gayle Erwin talks about the problem of relating to people who say, “So you want to be a servant. Well, I’ve always wanted one of those.” There is a difference between being a servant of God and a servant of a person who wants you to indulge their selfishness. Since when does love mean enabling poor choices?

Boundaries discussed and established early in a relationship can help avoid misunderstandings later. Love must be voluntary in order to be love. If I lay down my own needs to meet yours it must be because I choose to, and not because you have removed my options. The joy of giving is stolen when it is coerced.

Sometimes ultra-sensitive unhealed wounds caused by painful past events are protected by anger. (I wrote about that here.) Prickly people use anger to keep anyone from getting too close. Right now I am very wary of anyone who comes too close to my toe. This has nothing to do with you but if it looks like you might drop that armload of firewood I might yell at you to back off.

There are many triggers for anger – fear of lack, fear of being out of control, fear of being left out or unloved, fear of being deceived or taken advantage of. (There are also physiological conditions that produce feelings of irritation and anger.) I’m not going to join the accuser of the brethren here. He has enough helpers on the internet. But sometimes the accuser is owned himself when God allows satan’s nastiness to point out an area that is not working for us. Sometimes unpleasant feelings of being overwhelmed by anger, like feelings of pain,  can be the thing that points to something God intends to heal next. If we seek the Lord to understand the reason behind our upsetting reaction he will be there waiting.

Yes. I need healing -inside and out. But who doesn’t in some way? The humble person who is aware of their weaknesses as well as their strengths, who knows their need for grace, who has known what it is to be forgiven, is in a place to offer that same grace when they see someone else boil over. They get it.

I’m making an appointment with my doctor to address the problem with my toe when I get back home – but I’m also praying for divine intervention in seeking healing not only for my toe, but for other little wounds of the heart I have ignored for too long.

If you find yourself in a place where you realize you need healing for something, but are not sure what, don’t be afraid to ask God. He loves you dearly and he is relentlessly kind.

 

 

 

Bitter Fruit

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography, Trees and forests9 Comments

Bitter plums
Bitter plums

I often wondered what “Be angry and do not sin,” meant. I hate feeling angry. I don’t like me when I’m angry. But sometimes rage just rises up and I don’t know what to do with it.

Sometimes anger flares up over seemingly trivial things, and I’m embarrassed by it. It’s like some poor soul accidentally stepped on a buried land mine from a forgotten war. I thought I had dealt with that, but I guess there was still something nasty there.

Anger is a secondary emotion. Anger is like a shockingly annoying siren screaming that something is wrong. A shameful weakness or secret  is about to be exposed, or somebody is demanding something I don’t want to part with, or something is removing my ability to choose how I will spend my time or resources. Sometimes the anger looks like righteous indignation on behalf of another person, often a child, but that’s because an incident triggers a memory of past hurts when no one seemed to notice or care about me either.

Anger can be an agent of grace when it signals an area that is still infected and still needs healing. Anger is an agent of grace when it motivates change for the better. It’s like the engine light flashing on the dashboard of the car. We don’t always know what’s wrong, or how to fix it, but we know it needs attention.

The problem with not attending to the real issue is that after time anger begins to congeal and solidify into bitterness. Bitter people are hard people. The Bible calls them stiff-necked, because they become stubborn in their resentment. Any endeavour we embark upon that has bitterness at its root is bound to produce bitter fruit. The quality of the fruit is dependent on the quality of the seed that is sown and the type of tree that grows from that seed.

We have a tree in our garden that starts off beautifully every spring. The blossoms that completely cover this plum tree draw attention from passers-by. It looks marvelous! But this time of year it draws complaints (especially from me) as it drops its inedible fruit and attracts vermin that don’t seem to mind its bitterness. I was just out there sweeping more bitter plums as they rolled, like on-top-of-spaghetti meatballs, down the sidewalk and onto the street.

fallen
fallen

Jesus warned his disciples about false prophets who would show up like ravenous wolves. They would look good at first -just like the other harmless sheep, but eventually their true nature would become evident. He said we could identify them by their fruit.

The fruit of bitterness shows up in words, bitter words. Anger leaves room for hope of change. Many crusades for justice in the world have been triggered by anger toward an incident that causes people to unite, rise up and say, “No more!”

Bitterness says, “What do you expect? It’s always going to be this way. They have all the power and influence. I am a perpetual victim of injustice. The rich get rich and the poor get poorer. It’s hopeless and God is either impotent or complicit in the whole thing,” or, “People are not obeying the rules! They should not be getting away with this. I’ve had to obey the rules all my life and nobody has ever rewarded me for it. But that’s way it goes, I guess.”

The bitter “prophet” loves to point out what is wrong, but cannot offer hope for change. They might talk about “should” but they have a harder time talking about “how.” They cling to the deeds of the law even though they resent the law themselves. Galatians says these are some of the fruits of that thinking: enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions and envyings.”

These are the things that cause people, some of them with great reputations who have been entrenched in churches for years, to reveal ravenous aggressiveness that would devour those who live in hope of changing into the likeness of Jesus Christ. They have lots of words to offer about why something won’t work, and what’s wrong with anybody who follows God zealously and does things differently, but they have few words of encouragement that urge the next generation to stretch and to pursue a relationship with God that goes farther than we have gone or to see greater works than our generation has seen.

Sometimes it’s the very folks who tell us they are the shepherds guarding us against all possible heresy who themselves attack the sheep with harsh words, criticism, gossip, disputes and slander. (And like ravenous wolves they tend to join up in packs and go after prey bigger than themselves.)

Our words need to be full of the same grace we have received from God. We need to give people room to grow and not condemn those who are still learning and not yet perfect. We need to gently correct with a humility that comes from willingness to be transparent about our own struggles, and build up and equip those coming behind us to be greater in the kingdom than anything we have imagined. Only by letting go of our own disappointments and bitterness through forgiveness, only by entering God’s presence through gratitude and praise for all His goodness, only by letting his healing light reveal those dark corners where hidden time-bombs of shame and pain and guilty secrets still lurk -and bringing them to Jesus for healing- can we be kind, tender-hearted, encouragers full of love.

Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity. He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need. Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:26-32)