ANGER

A Sermon by Kenneth W. Phifer
Delivered at First UU Church Ann Arbor
9/21/03


Twenty-five years ago, Peter Finch leaned out a window in the movie 
NETWORK and screamed, "I'm mad as hell and I won't take it any more."
Since then, it seems that everybody has found a window from which to yell 
their rage at the world.

Politicians shout at each other. Demonstrators hurl insults at the targets of 
their protests. Reality TV features family members, friends, and strangers 
blowing their tops at one another. Letters to the editor are filled with bitter 
denunciations. Radio talk shows allow ordinary citizens to vent their hatred 
of the way the world is. 

Even the most mild-mannered of us can grow quite upset over telemarketers 
disturbing us, Spam filling our e-mail boxes, and the frustration of trying to 
reach a live human being when we call almost any business or institution, 
most particularly the phone company itself. Men are angry with women, 
women are angry with men, and children are angry with both of them just as 
adults are fed up with children. 

And this does not even speak of the anger that helps to fuel wars, terrorism, 
and violent acts of all kinds.

There is a lot of anger in our world today. 

There always has been. Our western cultural traditions make clear that anger 
is deeply a part of the human spirit.

It is anger that fuels the tale told in THE ILIAD. There is anger at Helen for 
running off with the Trojan king's son. Achilles is enraged by the death of 
his friend Patroclus. The gods and goddesses who manipulate the mortals 
often do so out of feelings of rage.

The words anger and wrath appear some 700 times in the Bible. God often 
has his wrath kindled. Moses angrily smashes the first set of tablets 
containing the Law. Jesus storms through the outer courtyard of the Temple 
overturning tables and upsetting the normal business conducted there.

Anger is nothing new. Anger is part of our humanity. It can be seen as a 
reaction against a threat to our survival or the survival of that which we 
value. It can be seen as a way of responding to irritation or frustration.

It is partly a biological response, as when a baby cries angrily because it is 
hungry. A recent review by Jane Brody of a number of studies of the 
relationship of anger and heart disease suggests that anger, expressed or 
repressed, can increase the likelihood of a heart attack, even more so in 
women than in men.

Anger is also psychological, that is, anger can be understood as a kind of 
defense mechanism to ward off threats to our psyche whether that psyche is 
healthy or damaged.

There is another dimension to anger, the moral dimension. This dimension 
has been less visible in discussions of anger over the past century. We now 
prefer, as one wag put it, to think not of the Seven Deadly Sins but of the 
Seven Deadly Syndromes. In a time of collapsed theism and much 
corruption in religious institutions, this is not to be wondered at.

Still anger has a long tradition of being recognized as a sin, that is, as having 
a moral aspect to it. Psychologist Carol Tavris even calls anger a "moral 
emotion." 
 
Looking at anger from a moral perspective, there are two questions that are 
of importance. First, what are some of the dangers associated with anger? 
Secondly, what are some of the ways in which we can deal with it. 

The first danger is that anger causes us to lose control.

We scream or we are unable to speak at all. We strike back or strike out at 
whatever we perceive is the cause of our anger or whatever is close to hand.: 
an important but unpleasant document that we rip to little pieces, the face of 
our loved one that we slap or the face of a friend that we slug, a door or a 
wall that we kick in, a glass that we hurl across the room, a child who 
innocently happens to be in our presence at whom we yell.

It is not just two year olds or teenagers who can be contrary or sulk or say 
NO to everything. Sometimes it is the two year old or the teenager in our 50 
year old body.

Mary Gordon writes of a hot August day when she was in the kitchen getting 
ready for a dinner party.. Her two small children and her elderly mother 
were in the car waiting to be taken to the pond to swim. They leaned on the 
horn and shouted for her to "Come on!"

Gordon writes: "I lost it. I lost myself. I jumped on the hood of the car. I 
pounded on the windshield. I told (them) that I was never, ever going to 
take any of them anywhere, and none of them were ever going to have one 
friend in any house of mine until the hour of their death, which, I said, I 
hoped was soon. I couldn't stop pounding on the windshield "

" I had to be forced to get off the car and stop pounding the windshield. 
Even then I didn't come back to myself. When I did, I was appalled. I 
realized I had genuinely frightened my children. Mostly because they could 
no longer recognize me. My son said to me: "I was scared because I didn't 
know who you were."

Anger can cause us to lose control so that we do not know what we are 
doing or who we are.

A second danger is that anger clouds our judgment.

Montaigne observed once that "there is no passion that so shakes the clarity 
of our judgment as anger." Clouded judgment affects us whether we are 
dealing with things of little moment or important matters.

The Newark airport was closed due to high winds. All of us who had flights 
were unhappy about the closure as we were all busy people who needed to 
get where we wanted to be. But most of us accepted that it was certainly not 
the fault of the airline that the winds were blowing 100 miles an hour, so we 
waited as patiently as we could.

A few people were unwilling to accept that the planes could not fly. Loudly 
and angrily they berated the ticket clerks for the stupidity of the decision not 
to fly. They threatened lawsuits and even physical harm. Our eight-hour 
delay was made considerably more unpleasant by these people whose 
judgment had obviously been befogged by their anger. The ticket clerks had 
not made the decision not to fly nor could they reverse it. Those who had 
made the decision had an appropriate concern for the safety of passengers 
and crew.

Clouded judgment led to anger that changed nothing but the atmosphere in 
the waiting room. 

A more fierce and ugly example of the clouded judgment that anger can 
cause in us is that of Medea. Medea betrays her father, kills her brother, and 
flees with her great love, Jason. In time he wearies of her and takes up with 
another woman. 

Medea's anger leads her to murder Jason's new partner in love and then to 
murder her own children by Jason. She does so because he then will have to 
live with a grief even greater than hers. Disaster is the result of Medea's 
anger, an anger that distorts her capacity for rational and moral thought and 
action.

Anger can cloud our judgment.

The third danger in anger is that we like it. Liking it, we easily turn to it.

Donna Britt has noted that "getting mad is effortless; being fair requires 
work." Being angry means being filled with a sense of our own importance. 
It is the thwarting of our will, the denial of our pleasure, the indifference to 
our need that arouses anger within us. If we did not feel that our lives were 
at the very center of the universe, many of the impediments we encounter 
would not elicit such angry responses.

Anger confirms our sense of self-worth.

Sometimes this is appropriate. When we have been cheated, denied 
opportunity, oppressed, or abused, we have a right to be angry.  But so much 
of our anger is at a much more petty level. 

To take a personal example that I am trying to improve on, I cite as a petty 
instance of anger my dealings with computers. Because I know very little 
about computers, I am frequently baffled, buffaloed, and befuddled by what 
happens, apparently without my having any contribution to its happening. I 
have learned and this has helped me to deal with these terrible/wonderful 
machines that knowing how these things work can reduce anger at them, 
anger that is disabling and stupid. My anger is really at my own 
technological incompetence, not at a lifeless machine. The way to correct 
that is by learning, not by screaming, stomping, or swearing.

I'm trying.

Why do we like getting angry? Anthony Storr suggests a connection 
between anger and other states of physical arousal that may help explain 
why anger can be pleasurable. He points out that the physiology of anger 
differs in only four ways from the physiology of sex.  There are fourteen 
ways in which they are the same, including elevation of blood pressure, 
increase in pulse rate, and an increase in muscular tension. 

Being aroused makes us feel alive, so we go to a horror movie and scare 
ourselves into such aliveness. Being aroused makes us feel alive, so we 
engage in sexual play to produce the same feeling.

Being aroused makes us feel alive, so we allow the rise of anger to swell 
even higher and often find that we enjoy being alive like this.

Frederick Buechner speaks of anger this way: "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 is a Feast fit for a 
king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself."

The worst danger is that some people literally cannot come alive without an 
object of anger. If that which we rage against disappears, we must find 
something or someone else against which to rail. 

That is precisely what has happened to some of the most virulent Cold 
Warriors. Denied the pleasure of hating communists and communism when 
the Iron Curtain turned to Velvet and the USSR collapsed, these people 
dependent on anger turned their fury on homosexuals and other sexual 
minorities. For the past two years many of them have been caught up in a 
rage against terrorists and anyone who looks like they might be a terrorist or 
anyone who is suspected of providing support for terrorists or anyone who 
does not have the blinkered view of reality of the Cold now Hot Warriors.

There are people who cannot live without the anger that opposing people 
because they are Evil Incarnate arouses in them. Such self-righteous anger at 
first makes us feel good. Then it makes feel GOOD!

Anger can be fun, and that is very dangerous.

Anger can be dangerous because it can control us, it can cloud our judgment, 
and it can be such fun that that it becomes the motive force in our lives.

What can we do about anger? 

There are a lot of little things that we can do.

Thomas Jefferson's advice is still sound: "When angry, count to ten before 
speaking; if very angry, an hundred."

Have a mantra to say when anger arises, like "I am not going to be angry," 
or "Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers, a Peck of Pickled Peppers 
Peter Piper Picked." Repeat the mantra till the anger cools.

We can take a walk or a run around the block. We can do something that 
requires intense concentration, like sewing. We can go punch a pillow. If 
safely in a room where no one can hear, we can scream and shout. We can 
put on some really swinging music and dance, dance, dance. In other words, 
we can do something physical to release the anger from our system. 

We can try to avoid situations that make us angry. If Rush Limbaugh makes 
us mad, turn him off or never turn him on. We can change jobs if that is 
possible. We can not go to parties where we are likely to run into someone 
who upsets us. We can, in other words, reduce the times when we are likely 
to get angry.

We can write down what we are angry about and then tear it up. Or we can 
send it to a friend or a counselor and ask them to read it or not to read it but 
in any case to destroy it.

Solomon Schimmel tells of yet another stratagem, that of making a vow. In 
THE BOOK OF THE PIOUS, a 12th century Jewish tract, there is a story of 
a man prone to violent temper tantrums that were disturbing to himself and 
to others. A rabbi told him to take a vow to donate to a charity every time he 
lost his temper. It worked!

Schimmel suggests a stronger version of the vow. Tell someone we trust that 
if we lose our temper that we will donate a set amount of money enough to 
hurt us a bit but still within our means to an organization whose goals are 
not ours. Knowing organizations whose values are deeply at odds with 
ours the Christian Coalition, for example-- would benefit every time we 
got angry should have a restraining effect for sure!

We can do a lot of little things to deal with our anger. There are also some 
big things that we can do.

One of these is to look seriously at what it is that has made us angry. We can 
keep a journal of our anger, looking at it later to clarify what it is that got us 
so upset. Or we can just sit ourselves down in the wake of a blow-up and 
sort out what was going on.

Is what happened something worth getting angry about? Is it the rain that 
spoiled our picnic? Is it a child's sickness that cancels a night out for us 
parents? Is it a rape reported in the newspaper? Is it someone else taking 
credit for our work? Is it a driver who cuts us off? 

We can ask ourselves if the person with whom we are angry is really 
deserving of our anger. If we perceive that another person is really being 
malevolent towards us, is there some other possible interpretation of their 
actions? 

Living or working with other people is never simple and sometimes 
maddening. We can drive each other nuts with our daily habits. One of us 
hangs up every bit of clothing or deposits it in a hamper if dirty while the 
other drops whatever she is wearing virtually where she is when she 
removes it. One of us puts ketchup in the refrigerator while the other wants it 
nestled close to the stove.  One of us arranges a toilet paper roll so that it 
unwinds from the top and the other does it so that it unwinds from the 
bottom. 

Most of these kinds of things, however annoying they can be, are not 
personal attacks on us but simply a different set of habits that in the grander 
scheme of things really do not make a lot of difference. That is why it is 
healthy if we can take time to think about the larger universe and the stars in 
their courses when we get angry. Often that is a path to finding humor in the 
situation.

Ogden Nash did, in a delicious little poem about marriage in which he 
observes that  " ...marriage is a legal and religious alliance entered into by a 
man who can't sleep with the window shut and a woman who can't sleep 
with the window open " 

He then goes on to note that
" ...marriage is the alliance of two people one of whom never remembers 
birthdays and the other never forgets them.
And he refuses to believe that there is a leak in the water pipe or the gas pipe 
and she is convinced she is about to asphyxiate or drown.
And she says Quick get up and get my hairbrushes off the windowsill, it's 
raining in, and he replies Oh they're all right, it's only raining straight 
down "              (I Do, I Will, I Have")

Reflection on just how important our grievances are can help develop in us a 
loving tolerance, or at worst a grudging toleration, either of which is far 
preferable to a state of anger.

And sometimes what has made us angry is something for which no one is to 
blame. Sometimes life just does not work out. Sometimes harsh words are 
spoken because somebody is tired or sick. Sometimes we are not invited to a 
party because of an oversight, or because the invitation was lost in the mail. 
Sometimes we don't get appointed to a committee or get a raise or get the 
house we want for reasons unrelated to us personally. Life is not known to 
be fair at all times. Getting angry about that fact is foolish and wasteful.

Whatever it is that makes us angry, it is helpful to think carefully about that 
in a later, calmer moment, deciding upon more dispassionate reflection if our 
anger was justified. Where possible, if we still feel our anger was righteous, 
it is worthwhile sharing with the one who made us angry the pain of that 
experience without sharing the bitterness. In that way, the anger has less 
chance of becoming a permanent part of a relationship and more chance of 
becoming a tool of learning.

It is wise to stop and think about our anger.

Wherever possible, convert anger into good. This is another big thing we can 
do with our anger. 

Converting anger into good means being ready to forgive someone who has 
wounded us when they repent of their bad deeds and ask to be forgiven. In 
doing so, we can also better appreciate our own need to atone for things we 
have done that have brought hurt to others. To try to understand anger and 
then move towards repentance and atonement and forgiveness and 
reconciliation is a moral process. It is a way of creating new hope for the 
world.

I see that group of remarkable people who formed Peaceful Tomorrows as 
exhibiting just such forbearance and thoughtfulness. These are family 
members and close friends of men and women and children who died on 
9/11. Rather than seek revenge, they seek understanding. Rather than 
wanting to hurt anyone else, they want to heal wounds. Rather than war, 
they work for justice. They have announced to the world that violence done 
to repay the violence of September 11, 2001, is violence done not in their 
name.

It is not that they have not been and surely in some moments still are angry. 
It is that they have chosen a different path of dealing with that anger than our 
government and most of our citizens. 

Anger re-channeled into good can change the world, at the very least the 
small world of a relationship, which in turn will ripple out into the lives of 
those who are friends and family members of the people who are part of 
such a relationship.

May Sarton wrote a splendid novel called ANGER. Anna, the main female 
character, has been angry for a long time. Her mother tells her that her anger 
may arise from the fact that she tends to react to frustration too quickly. 
Maybe, her mother tells her, she wants things too intensely. 

Anna is married to Ned. Ned is a quiet, reserved man. When she throws a 
pillow at him, he simply pats it into shape and lays it carefully on the couch. 
Anna is enraged by this, as though if he really loved her he would fight with 
her.

Anna, a singer, leaves shortly after this scene on a concert tour. Unknown to 
her, Ned flies to one of her concerts. There he observes what she does with 
all her anger. "All the anger had been transposed into this supremely 
disciplined art. That is what she could do, poise herself in the midst of acute 
conflict and from there sing like an angel."

Anna turns anger into beauty. Ned turns anger into understanding. Together 
they make a marriage, not an easy one for love is never easy, but a marriage 
that endures and has moments of wondrous happiness.

Converting anger into something useful, beautiful, good is a very big thing 
indeed.

Anger is with us to stay. That seems to be a certainty.

It can be dangerous. Anger can cause us to lose control. It can cloud our 
judgment. We can come to like it too much.

Anger can be dealt with by a number of little things: delaying a response, 
repeating a mantra, doing something physical out of the way of anyone else, 
evasion, pouring it all out on paper, even  penalizing ourselves for getting 
angry.

Anger can be dealt with as well by reflecting seriously whether our anger 
really is merited. 

Best of all, it can be dealt with by channeling that anger towards the good: 
the good of forgiveness, the good of beauty, the good of justice.

Maybe 25 years from now or even sooner some noted actor in a feature film 
will lean out a window and tell the world, "I'm mad as hell, and I am going 
to take that anger and think long and hard on it and then do something good 
with it."

Such a sentiment could help all of us to use anger to brighten rather than 
darken the world.


Copyright 2003, Kenneth W. Phifer, All Rights Reserved