Standing Around with a Bag Full of Anger

I have come to the not-so-enjoyable conclusion that I have gotten really good at shoving anger deep down into my system. I thought I was getting rid of it or letting it roll off my back. But anger doesn't work that way. You have to deal with it. But I didn't want to deal with it. I thought it was wrong to deal with it.

I'm not supposed to feel anger, right?

I love the Sermon on the Mount. God, I wish that I could live out that beautiful dream of three chapters more fully in my life. But I took the wrong message when Jesus said that if you are angry with someone then you are liable to judgment. In the framework of "all sins are the same" (which I now realize is a dubious framework), anger equals murder. I don't want kill people so if I feel anger, I must avoid it. Engaging with it would mean acknowledging it was real and that would get my hands dirty. My wires got crossed. I neglected the reality that Jesus got angry multiple times. I began to think that I can't get angry. I shouldn't get angry.

I also worried that people wouldn't like me if I expressed a hint of anger. And that terrified me because I already believed that I was playing with a short deck socially. For reasons that I have discovered in various seminary classes, counseling sessions, and private reflections, I struggle with feeling like there is something fundamentally undesirable about me. So I feared that if I got angry or sad or basically anything beyond being good ol' regular, even-keeled Chris then no one would want to be with me.

So I stuffed all the anger down. I didn't deal with it. I pretended like it didn't exist. All of which is an obviously terrible idea.

I am trying not to do that any more. But the problem is I don't know what to do with anger. So I feel like I am holding this bag and it stinks to high heaven. I need to deal with it, work through it, whatever. I do not need to wield it in a way that will hurt others, but in a way that is healthy. 

But I don't know where to start. So when I am hurt or when...well virtually anytime the president is a horrible person and lots of Christians who voted for him just shrug or even outright defend him, I don't know what to do. I know the anger is real. I'm not stuffing it down. But good grief, I don't know what to do with this stinking bag and the foul odor gets on me. So I just get angry at myself or I feel helpless.

I know that some of that paralysis stems from the reasons I stuffed anger down in the first place. I'm terrified of letting that anger turn into some raging inferno that is actually sin (not the murder kind, but still sin) or that the anger will lead to no one wanting be around me. I know in my head that both are lies, but sometimes there is a long distance between the head and the heart.

I want to love God with all my heart. I want to love my neighbor as myself and love myself so I can better love my neighbor. It's hard to do that when I stand around with that bag. So I'm going to try to figure this out, try to get a better picture from scripture than what I had, try to move forward. And I have but there's still a ways to go. So this is kind of a vulnerable place to end on. Pray for me. If you have any good advice, I'd love to hear it.