Buechner: Anger
“Of the seven deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back—in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you. “ Originally published in Wishful Thinking and later in Beyond Words
I have eaten at this banquet. I can be energized by the delicious food until I finally realize that if I stay with the energy of anger, it is destroying, devouring me, literally eating me alive, turning me into a bitter, negative skeleton of a person. The situation, the person that has brought on this situation is still hurting me.
Anger also blocks us from the God of our understanding as our world centers around us and how we have been harmed. There is not room for God at this table. We think God let this happen. God did not come and protect us. We lose our connection. The person or situation has now become our higher power as we start to plan revenge or just bask in the harm done to us. We become the victim rather than the heroine.
We all know the answer to anger. Anger is like putting our hand on a red hot burner on the stove. It is a sign we need to stop and pay attention to something in our life. Anger produces a huge amount of energy in our minds and bodies. The answer is transforming that energy into something that is helpful rather than hurtful to us and others. We look for God in the situation. What can we learn about why this was so harmful and hurt so deeply? We pray for the person who has harmed us as we also pray for ourselves for healing.
We come to realize that our God also was wounded and knows so well what we are going through. We pray to become a wounded healer. We reach out of ourselves with our presence and our prayers to and for others who also have been wounded. We pray we can forgive ourselves when we have been the cause of anger and pray to forgive the one who has harmed us.
Two words are the prescription for this illness, prayer and forgiveness. These wounds are only healed when we make an appointment to visit with the great physician.
Joanna joannaseibert.com