Angry people

Ahhhh….take a deep breath and inhale the aroma of our culture:

“Don’t touch my rights!!!!! How DARE you…

“…take away my guns!!!…”
“…not let me marry who I want!!!…”
“…take prayer out of schools!!!…”
“…kill old ladies and the poor!!!…”

“What do you think you’re DOING??? How could you…

“…vote for that communist??!!…”
“…vote for that fascist??!!…”
“…support a war about oil??!!…”
“…not support our country??!!…”

“Of all the stupid ideas, you’d have to be an IDIOT to…

“…let the criminals be the only people with guns!!!…”
“…let anybody run around armed like a terrorist!!!…”
“…continue to spend more and more money we don’t have!!!…”
“…continue to let the poor and disadvantaged suffer!!!…”

“We are doing what we can, but it’s…

“…THOSE Republicans who can’t agree to anything!!!…”
“…THIS President who won’t compromise!!!…”
“…THOSE crazy Jesus freaks with their outdated morals and small minds!!!…”
“…THOSE secular heathens who have no concept of who we’re supposed to emulate!!!…”

***cough*** ***cough*** ***hack*** ***wheeze***

Well, that’s a breath full of fresh toxic fumes. But we hear these sorts of things every day, don’t we?

I think it’s safe to say the American, uh, “zeal” has stayed with us culturally from the groups of folk who planted the cultural seeds in this land.

There are of course protests and people screaming at each other all over the world.

And anger is definitely sometimes an appropriate response to certain situations.

It seems, though, our particular American tendency is to feel like EVERYTHING that doesn’t go our way is a grave injustice, and EVERYONE who doesn’t agree with us is naive at best or an enemy at worst.

Being a lover of history, this last presidential election gave me the willies. Do you realize how close some of the rhetoric being tossed around by BOTH political parties was to that used by the Nazi? “We are working for the good of the German people, but there are those amongst us who are only interested in themselves and not the nation!!”

We all know what eventually happened as that talk progressed.

So let’s take a step back in our own lives. Anger can blind us to what is actually true.

Anger hidden within manifests in different ways – it can seem to be obvious to those of us looking at someone from the outside, but it can also be hidden by a facade of serenity.

I have been the raging fool but I have also been the person who seemingly loses it out of nowhere when everything seemed like it was fine. To some extent I think that’s what happened at that Bible study I wrote about a few posts back: my friends and I were innocently discussing the theology of the cross when all of a sudden the conversation wound around to me cursing at God if He wasn’t the way I thought He should be…where’d that come from?

So, my fellow Americans: are you harboring anger within you in some way, shape or form? It’s really hard to find out if a proposition is true if you feel like you might beat someone over the head if it is or isn’t.

Additionally, when was the last time you made someone more sympathetic to your beliefs by screaming at them, literally or figuratively?