The Darkness Within Anger

A responsive essay  based on Learning to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor

The Darkness Within Anger

   Just now, anger engulfs. It swallows whole. The weight of it. All alone. To carry the burden, others could carry, if they would. Fear: they won't ever. And what will be at the end, will be. Alone.

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   When the anger engulfs and threatens suffocation, "can I learn to trust my feelings instead of asking to be delivered from them?"* Will I choose to face the conflict within? Will I embrace my anger? I am much less likely to be hurt by what I embrace; its lashing blunted. The anger is not me, yet within me and real. Too real to ignore.

This is not a fight or flight situation, but every fiber says, "flee."

Anger is not my enemy.

It is neither friend, nor foe.

It is.

    Do I accept the truth of Miriam Greenspan's words: “There are no dark emotions just unskillful ways of coping with emotions we cannot bear.” I struggle with this because I believe evil is real. Some thoughts should be banished forthwith, forever. Yet, her words ring true when it is my own anger I entertain. Anger is not darkness, though often we respond darkly.

    My response to anger determines the outcome. Slowly, I am learning to navigate the hurt, and be more prepared for the riptide of anger when it rears its head. Most often, an angry riptide is preceded by a wave of fear or surging tide of expectation. I'm learning to get out of the angry cross current. Face the fear. Release expectations: of them, me, us. Wrestle the dark. I want to respond to anger riptides with truth, light, and hope. I have a ways to go. That wave washes out to sea, often with me in tow. But navigating my anger correctly helps heal humanity. I sit up and take notice. Better angry, than anesthesized. In anger, my apathy to human suffering might just abate. I respond. If Jesus shared much on anger, we aren't privy to it. But when the Son of God displayed his anger, it was to defend a vulnerable humanity. His anger offered an alternative to both the world's anger, and the world's apathy. 

Love justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly.

And remember, none of us outruns anger.

    It's tempting to run from conflict. I'm one of those who screams inside while my feet are on fire, an internal implosion. Others explode. Neither works. Get angry if you must, but respond rightly. Esau's anger had a manipulative Jacob running, and rightly so. Jacob knew Esau's explosion was imminent, and so he fled.  Jacob surely knew his actions had provoked Esau's wrath. The anger of "always second best" having overcome him.

     Did he regret his actions? Maybe. Maybe not. But with his heart ready to implode, he put on his running shoes. He ran from the consequences of his provocative actions. In the Old Testament, anger and provocation are closely linked. And the same seed of anger would haunt his own sons one day.  (What we do not resolve and repair with God, we teach our children to repeat.) Jacob fled, hunted by anger, Esau, and the Angel of the Lord.

Anger hunts us, but so too, the Angel of the Lord.

    The question is, "will I choose to wrestle the dark angel all night long in order to break free? How tempting it is to use religion to dodge the dark emotions instead of letting it lead us to embrace those dark angels, as the best most demanding spiritual teachers we may ever know."

~ Learning to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor

    The darkness within Jacob caught up with him, as did Esau. But first, he had a wrestling match with the Angel of the Lord. Courage wrestling. Courage working. Rising at dawn, a blessing bequeathed. Only by facing his darkness could Jacob wake into his future. A life, forever after altered, all because of a little anger.

Anger hunts. 
So too, the Angel of the Lord.

Work it out. Wrestle.

But remember, the Angel always wins.

And the Angel always has the last Word.

* Learning to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor