You’ve experienced it. I’ve experienced it. The kind of anger that seems to come out of nowhere, the frustration at the most seemingly ordinary thing that becomes pure rage. People seem to be angrier today than before; they are. And over the most seemingly ridiculous things.
This transformation of people shouting and being angry over petty stuff has been brewing for a long time. Even before the pandemic shut us down, anger became an acceptable form of expressing dissatisfaction. As one writer noted, anger is the one of the densest form of communication. It conveys more information, more quickly than any other type of emotion.
But anger is also destructive. It can keep us from seeing the other side of an argument, especially in politics. There is a difference between the kind of anger we have been experiencing that includes everything from road rage to assaulting someone in a store because that person still wears a mask and moral indignation, a real difference between the civil rights marches of the 1960s and attacking buildings with Molotov cocktails. If we are to survive as a society, we need to corral the anger into useful change.
Prayer for the Day
Fill our fearful hearts with the faith that transforms lives,
Bringing us into your presence through overcoming our despair;
Free us from our old doubts that dampen our spirits,
Expanding our vision of what you are and what we can be So we walk in your ways of justice and righteousness;
Sharing the vision of a better world for all.
We ask this in the name of the One who opens a new world,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen
Thoughts for the Day
Angry people are not always wise.
- Jane Austen, British writer, from Pride and Prejudice (1775-1817)
Anybody can become angry — that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way — that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.
- Aristotle, Greek philosopher, from The Art of Rhetoric (384-322 BCE)
Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding
But one who has a hasty temper exerts folly.
A tranquil mind gives life to the flesh, but passion makes the bones rot.
Proverbs 14: 29-30