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Janis Kliphardt (Emery)
Anyone with a beating heart, and capable of empathy, is alarmed when others are harmed or threatened; when someone we love is in the company of insult, injustice, injury, degradation - anger awakens to address the threat.
In the face of dramatic wrongdoing and hate that permeate our society, it is easy either to overreact or to just ignore what's going on in our world. For better or worse, anger prompts us to action, if only to twist ourselves into a moral pretzel to defend and justify some really awful things and people. With time and patience, we can let the reflexive reactions of anger pass, and with practice, make space for creative actions prompted by anger. A constructive response need not lose its bite.
"So, yes, you bet I'm angry. It's a source of my creativity. It's a vaccination against apathy and complacency. (Anger) can be abused---or widely used. Yes, it's a temptation, but it's also a resource and an opportunity, as unavoidable and necessary as pain. It's part of the gift of being human and being alive." -- Brian McLaren
Why not, like Brian McLaren, see anger as an opportunity and resource to take us down a much better path?
When we're perturbed and anger rises, how do we respond?
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