A is for Anger

A is for 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.'

from 'Wishful Thinking: A Seeker's ABC' by Frederick Buechner

Anger is an emotion I've struggled with most of my life. It always takes me by surprise when I think I couldn't be angrier at a particular moment in my life - and then the next moment comes and proves me wrong. It's as if, sometimes, circumstances that leave me clenching my fists. shaking with fury and flooding my eyes with tears compete with one another to see what can send me over the edge. It's an event that has stolen my joy on many occasions.

At the same time, it's the thing that has helped me become a fighter - no, a warrior - when I needed to be. Someone told me it's highly overrated, anger. Maybe it is. I certainly don't want to be the main course of a feast I'm 'wolfing down'. I think anger is something that can be used as a springboard to something better depending on the situation and where it's directed...how it's controlled.

A recent event has helped me witness how this can be. When I thought the circumstance would probably send me into a blind fury, something else happened.

I remembered who I was.
I remembered I was loved with an everlasting love.
And I stopped before I began to feast.

I turned around and decided to use my anger to fight the things that wanted me to forget who I was, to believe I was unloved, and to give up. It was (and is) a turning point. And the fight goes on. Anger - fun? I don't know. Useful - maybe.