Comfortable With Anger

Anger is everywhere.

In our politics.

On our screens.

Around our tables.

Sometimes even in our churches.

We see it,

hear it,

listen to it so often

that we no longer notice

what it is doing to us.

When did we become

a people so comfortable

being angry?

When did anger become

something we carry with us,

something we return to so easily,

without ever asking

what it is doing to us?

Granted, there are things

that should make us angry.

Injustice.

Violence.

Poverty.

War.

The innocent who suffer.

The forgotten and the afraid.

Anger can alert us

to the fact

that something is wrong.

But long-term anger

can also change us

while we are not looking.

We may begin by opposing an injustice

and end up despising a person or group.

We may begin by defending truth

and then discover that winning

has become more important

than loving.

We give people labels.

Liberal.

Conservative.

Immigrant.

Unborn.

Illegal.

Poor.

Enemy.

And sometimes the label

becomes so large

that the person disappears.

Jesus knew anger.

He confronted injustice.

He challenged hypocrisy.

He spoke truth

when truth needed to be spoken.

But his anger

never became contempt.

He never stopped seeing

the person before him.

Perhaps we should ask

the same of our own anger.

Does it move us toward courage

or contempt?

Toward compassion

or blame?

Toward prayer and action,

or simply toward more anger?

Can we defend what is right

without hardening our hearts?

Can we care for the immigrant

and listen to the concerns

of our neighbor?

Can we pray for peace

and remember the frightened families

on every side of war?

Can we deeply disagree without forgetting

who stands before us?

Truth matters.

So does love.

They were never meant

to become strangers.

Jesus asked us

to love our neighbor.

Sometimes our neighbor

is the person

across the political divide.

So before we answer,

before we judge,

before anger settles

too comfortably in our hearts,

perhaps we should look again.

Past the label.

Past the argument.

There is a person there:

A mother afraid of tomorrow.

A soldier far from home.

A family fleeing violence.

A neighbor struggling

to pay the bills.

A prisoner carrying

the weight of what he has done.

A stranger

whose story we do not know.

And perhaps the next time

anger finds us,

we can pause

before making room for it,

and ask

what kind of person

it is asking me to be?

If you found this read enriching, you may also enjoy: Which Side is Jesus On?, a reflection on the political lines drawn across our country and the question of whose side Jesus is on.