By Denise, 1990s
“God is a righteous judge who expresses his wrath every day. If he does not relent he will sharpen his sword, he will bend and straighten his bow. He has prepared deadly weapons he makes ready his flaming arrows.” Psalm 7
I used to take great offense at Old Testament readings that were violent and called upon God to trample upon enemies and destroy alien tribes. However, as I in my middle-age crises have discovered my own dark side, I come to realize that there is a dark, aggressive, angry element in everyone’s soul that needs to be acknowledged, though not acted out. I think the Old Testament a book of the people as well as a book of God, reflects that dark side in those readings acknowledges the human element but even the good people the chosen people sometimes feel rage. There is an existential rage in all of us, a recognition that the things of this world always promise more than they deliver. Life can be wonderful, is can also be very painful, friends can be loyal and caring, they can also be hardhearted and deceitful in their own human weakness.
Goals can be accomplished but it will be lasting or meaningful in the long run? Human love is limited, human memory short, human life ultimately fragile. No matter how we struggle for self-expression we can never make ourselves truly known to one another. Creativity often becomes subordinated to pragmatic purposes.
We are all angry and we all have a good reason. Very few have had such idyllic childhoods that they do not wish that they had more attention or affirmation more time with parents who died or left. Men are angry because the full burden of battling the economic system to support the family has traditionally fallen on them, and because we are told that opportunity is unlimited in America – anyone can become president – so anyone who is not a millionaire or president feels that he has fallen short. Women are angry because traditionally they were taught if they were a “little ladies” or good cooks, or pretty enough, they would be happy, fulfilled by their homemaking chores and children and cherished for their whole lives. Often having done what was expected, they find instead that they are bored, their talents and abilities are denigrated, and their families do not value their being or their contributions. Life is not that simple. We have all been taught by popular culture that it should be, that all problems can be solved, that bad things do not happen to good people, that good deeds are always rewarded and bad deeds punished. And because the world is not that simple, or well-ordered, we are angry. We struggle and struggle to bring order to our lives, to shrink reality down to a size we can manage. But as God told Job out of the whirlwind, life is essentially disorderly, and only God can make it meaningful. Only in union with God do we find peace, do the walls of hostility break down (Eph 3:14-17) and we are able to make sense out of our lives. To think that we can bring about peace without God, by being nice, or liking people or never disagreeing and pretending we are never angry or hateful, is to ignore our total and absolute dependence on God for all that is good. Only in the kingdom is life without anger possible. So how do we use our anger while we still have it? Anger recognized and integrated does not have to be destructive or hurtful. Anger is a form of energy and as such can be used to speak the truth when that is difficult, assert our own needs for dignity, freedom, and personal growth, oppose those forces that oppress and destroy the human spirit, and fuel the actions that build the kingdom.