anger — Blog — The Christian Institute

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Have you noticed how many different idioms there are about anger in the English language? We talk about bristling with anger, being blinded by anger and hoping the sun won't go down on our anger, not to mention blowing our tops, unleashing our fury and experiencing road rage. Each of those idioms is immediately understandable because anger is something that impacts the whole of humanity. And that's true across both space and time; one of the above idioms actually comes from the Pauline letter to the Ephesians, meaning we've been trying to control our tempers for thousands of years.

No doubt we've all had moments where we've found ourselves angry. Maybe we're driving somewhere in a hurry, but we missed a freeway exit so we have to unexpectedly figure out how to double back. Maybe we're on a team project, and we realize we're doing all the work. Maybe we suddenly notice that some precious keepsake of a cherished past has been destroyed while we weren't looking.

Getting angry is a part of the human experience—one of the less pretty parts but certainly not abnormal. However, letting anger run unchecked can lead to us to being exhausted from our outburst, isolated by anyone we lashed out at, and no less frustrated than we were before we blew our tops. How we deal with our anger is what makes the difference.

In fact, we can start dealing with our anger before it boils over into something we'll regret. It begins with recognizing when we're getting angry. Even if anger seems to happen in a flash, directed at something in particular—whether it's on the road or in the workplace—there can be a dozen smaller things that frayed our tempers up to that point. When we know ourselves, we are better able to recognize when we're getting angry; and if we can recognize we're getting angry, we can better keep ourselves in check as we get closer to a breaking point.

When we catch ourselves getting angry, or even if we've started to seethe, we still have time to get ourselves under control. We have to create a space—through deep breathing, through visualization, through stepping outside of and away from the situation if we can—where we can let ourselves cool off and reflect on what's really making us mad. It could be something directly in front of us, or it could be something else and we're just looking at a convenient target. Either or both could be true. What matters most is creating that abstract space where we can see what's truly going on; the 12th century Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi (also called Chu Hsi) reportedly put it this way: “When one is angry, if one can directly forget his anger and examine the right and wrong according to principle, then right and wrong will be clearly seen.

Then comes a very hard part: recognizing if we have any culpability in our rage. That's not supposed to humiliate us. Instead, it's a chance for us to recognize if there's anything we can control. We know we have little control over outside forces, but over ourselves, there we have some authority. However, we lose that authority completely when we get angry. We instinctively know that we don't make our best decisions when we're mad. It can cause us to behave unfairly, without a consideration of consequences. It's when we step back from whatever is making us angry that we have enough space to figure out how to respond in a way that's appropriate, even constructive, rather than senseless and violent.

If we create that space, we have an opportunity to refocus our anger. Anger is energy expelled into the universe, but nothing in the universe is ever lost. The energy we expel in anger has an impact on reality, and when we take the time to examine its trajectory, we likely recognize it as negative. The 20th century Southern Baptist minister Billy Graham noted that, while the energies of anger could be rightfully channeled by humanity, more often than not it was just senseless wrath. “Righteous indignation,” he said, “is usually one part righteous and nine parts indignation.”

Spiritual virtues help us through the process of quelling our anger and refocusing our energy. Perception helps us know ourselves; reflection helps us recognize the source of our anger; compassion helps us process that source, even if it's ourselves; and positiveness helps us channel the energy into something useful. Through spiritual training, anger can transcend its base direction and become clarity, understanding, forgiveness, right action and progress.

Ultimately, the goal is to return to a state of calm. Calm is equilibrium. It doesn't mean the source of our anger has vanished or our capacity for rage is gone. Rather, it means we have returned to a natural state, because calm is the natural state of things. Everything in the universe ultimately seeks balance, harmony, destiny, divine presence. Further, calm grants us the greatest perspective, since it is neither too much nor too little, giving us the most objective view of all things. Calm is the space we create through spiritual practice where we foster clarity, insight, creativity, innovation and healing.

We call it “getting angry” because letting our rage get the better of us, letting it control our focus and energy, is a building action; we call it “calming down” because that is a release, allowing us to control our anger instead of the other way around, to see clearer and do what's actually in our best interest. We should remember that while there are many idioms involving anger, there are just as many for peace and calm, and they speak to our universal capacity for forgiveness and redemption: after the storm comes the calm; to calm the waters; to be cool, calm and collected; to make a peace offering; to have peace of mind; to be at peace.

Let us pray:

Dear God,
Forgive us when we display the worst of ourselves
Through ignorance, selfishness and anger.
May we instead practice our better selves:
Perceptive rather than restrictive;
Wise rather than petty;
Harmonious rather than reckless.
Still human beings,
But striving toward the Christ within.
Amen.

“The deeds we perform are sown in the garden of life. The soil is rich, the sunshine and the seasons are harmonious. Our deeds dominate our souls, before they affect others. If our deeds are good, constructive, and based on higher realities, we reap goodness and wealth and enjoy peace, harmony and freedom. We establish a true commonwealth in the world. If our deeds are wrong, we reap bitter results, before marketing this fruit of the fallen man. Nothing is lost in life Divine order and law fill the universe and dominate the life of man.” - Hanna Jacob Doumette, “Psalms For Today”

How do you feel right now? Are you OK? I hope so, because there's a lot of anger out there today. And you don't have to take my word for it. The evidence is everywhere. You can turn on a television set or locate a newspaper or do some man in the street interviews, and you'll find that people are angry.

When people are angry, they spread it around like influenza. They spread it through fear. They spread it through violence. They spread it through subtler ways as well. Politicians, national and local and on all sides of the aisle, frustrate and alarm us with their rhetoric or policies or failures to act. The eternally talking heads of the news keep us engaged in states of hot rage and cold concern.

It doesn't even have come from large, overarching social structures like politics or media. Anger has a way of trickling down into our daily lives, putting us on edge and pushing every little problem into a big, dramatic event. Those little things can make us just as disturbed as the big things, especially if we're already living in an anger zone.

It's not good for us to live with all that anger all the time. We know it's not. It doesn't feel good. It's bad for our blood pressure. It's exhausting. It drives people away. And yet, we have seemingly become a constantly outraged society. What can we do about all the anger that's out there?

There are some suggestions in religion and spirituality. Even though it seems like anger is a particularly contemporary issue, we have to remember that it's been around for a while. Religion specializes in issues that have been around for a while because it's also been around for a while. In fact, one of the pet peeves that some critics of religion have is that it's based on ancient texts that are too old and out of touch to have anything worthwhile to say to the modern world.

What those critics don't seem to realize is that that's exactly what gives spirituality its strength. It's timeless. It deals with timeless themes: the infinite cosmos and our place in it; birth, life and death; how to live a good life. These are things that mattered the ancients and they matter to us.

The issues that religion deals with are as old as the species, but its solutions to those issues and ways of dealing with them have a unique perspective precisely because religion is so old. It's a human creation, there's no doubt about that, but it's far older than anything else we've created to deal with eternity.

The insight that religion offers has a perspective that comes with time. That's why the age of sacred texts, as well as the temporal distance of the words and actions of holy women and men, are all so valuable. They have weight of something that matters because it's lasted. So what do the world's religions say about anger, about dealing with it where we find it.

Unsurprisingly, they have a lot to say. The Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hahn said that Buddha viewed angry feelings as knots in your consciousness that blocked you up, tied you down and poisoned you with cravings and confusion. The Greek philosopher Aristotle and the Catholic scholar and saint Thomas Aquinas both cautioned that anger could strip you of reason, cloud your thinking and even rob you of your humanity.

Medieval Japanese swordsmen sought a state of mind called “mushin,” which means “no mind” or “empty mind.” For them, it was an ideal state of consciousness, free of the attachments of anger or fear or prejudice. The mythologist Joseph Campbell, on an episode of the 1988 PBS documentary series “The Power of Myth,” illustrated it with a story.

He said: “Let me tell you one story here, of a samurai warrior, a Japanese warrior, who had the duty to avenge the murder of his overlord. And he actually, after some time, found and cornered the man who had murdered his overlord. And he was about to deal with him with his samurai sword, when this man in the corner, in the passion of terror, spat in his face. And the samurai sheathed the sword and walked away. Why did he do that? Because he was made angry, and if he had killed that man, then it would have been a personal act, another kind of act; that's not what he had come to do.”

There are two things we can learn from that story. The first is how to deal with our own anger. It takes time, something that timeless religion can help us see. The book of Proverbs says in the 15th chapter: “Those who are hot-tempered stir up strife, but those who are slow to anger calm contention. The way of the lazy is overgrown with thorns, but the path of the upright is a level highway.”

Combating our anger takes time that is time taken out of being angry, the slowness that we call patience or calm or inner peace, the control which the samurai neatly exhibited. Combating anger also takes the time that is the effort we put into practicing that control, the time it took for the samurai to walk away from his own ego and rage.

It might not be easy, but we can do it. The age of religion indicates that we have been doing it for thousands of years. Religion has tools like prayer, meditation and ritual, which are meant to give us pause and put things into perspective, to make sense of the world, and to see more and lose our tempers less.

When we get angry, we can lose more than our tempers. Like the philosophers feared, we can lose everything that makes us who we are—our perspectives, our sense of judgment, our families and friends. The sharp-tongued American writer Ambrose Bierce once said: “Speak when you are angry, and you will make the best speech that you'll ever regret.” We all have seen that there are some people who are not satisfied to merely speak in anger; they are willing to do much worse.

But we know all that. Unfortunately, everyone knows that. Anger is bad and we have to hold our tempers in check or terrible things can happen. But what do we do when we encounter all the anger that's out there right now, the anger without as well as the anger within? The second thing we can learn from Campbell's story is this: We cannot control someone else's anger. The samurai couldn't control when the killer spat on him. All he could do was walk away.

When we're angry, when we're in a state where everything about us has been stripped away by rage, what makes the situation better? Is it someone else getting even angrier at us? Someone shouting right back in our faces? Does that comfort us and make us feel better? I don't think so. What we need is someone who defuses us, who removes rather builds up our fire until there's nothing left to burn.

The rules of religion guide us toward a personal spirituality, toward the tools that help us deal with the everyday as well as the eternal. What tools work for you? What calms you down and comforts you? Is it silent prayer? Mindful breathing? As a spiritual seeker, it's your responsibility to find out and to bring it to bear in your daily life.

Anger is something that will pass. Anger always passes. We can all boil over with rage, but we run out of steam eventually. That's the nature of the beast. Again, the 15th chapter of the book of Proverbs begins: “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” You might not be the one who started the anger, the violence and fear, but you don't have to be the one who keeps it going.