The Good Girl’s Guide to Anger Part 3 : Listening to Anger’s Lessons

by whentherubberhitstheroad

Recently I became very angry very quickly when a friend criticised me via email. I had the luxury of venting my rage in private without her hearing my response as I didn’t reply straight away. How dare she accuse me of a, b and c when she is so clearly guilty of d, e and f all of the time? How can she be so blind to all of my many and varied virtues? Who does she think she is? I composed several emails in my head and fantasized about explaining my excellent points to her in a forceful yet balanced, calm way, imagining her repenting on the spot and seeing the error of her ways. My first feeling was anger.

My initial response is also anger when I get knocked off my bike by a car. I am angry at the driver which I express by turning the air blue. I shake with rage at the fact that my right to be on the road was not respected.

So, why was anger the feeling that came first in these situations? Anger is often a defensive emotion. It’s the quick default that raises our proverbial fists to keep us safe. It protects us from the enemy outside but it also protects us from the dark things within. It shields us from the more complex things inside us that we don’t want to feel.

A couple of days after reading the email from my friend, I realised something. My friend was right. I was guilty of a, b, c and probably even d. I deserved that criticism. I had hurt my friend and I needed to repent. So in this case, my initial angry response protected me from shame. I didn’t want to feel that horrible aching sensation of guilt so I drew my fists up against my own self and tried to shield myself from it.

In the cycling scenario, the feeling underneath my anger is the far more vulnerable and uncomfortable feeling of fear. I get angry in order to defend myself against the fact that I am really frightened. It feels safer and makes me feel stronger to be cross.

So, in trying to understand what your anger is teaching you about yourself, often you’ll find it is asking you to look beyond it, and see what it is protecting you from. If you have the courage to lower those raised fists, what is the scary feeling behind them? Maybe it’s shame, or fear, or envy. Maybe it’s a feeling of being less than. Sometimes anger is masking these very different, very uncomfortable feelings.

So anger doesn’t have to be scary. It can be your teacher. Your red flag notification that something else is up. Your kick up the butt to galvanise you. Learn to harness it, and anger can be the Good Girl’s new best friend.

The Good Girl’s Guide to Anger Part 2 : Good things come to those who wait

by Whentherubberhitstheroad

Many people are afraid of anger because they feel that it controls them, rather than the other way around. However it is possible to welcome the feeling, but still take charge of it with a little understanding of how it works.

Anger, when it first arrives, is a very primal thing. Literally. It comes from the part of our brains whose function is survival. It’s the fight or flight bit. It’s not the part of the brain that is any good at thinking or reasoning. So when it’s still inhabiting that primal part of the brain, it’s probably best not to listen to what it has to say as it will sound very much like a cavewoman. It will suggest physically or verbally hurting someone in order to protect us.

We know when our anger is inhabiting that part of our brains because our whole bodies join in with it – we shake, we sweat, we clench our fists. Or if you’re me, you burst into hot, humiliating tears. When we are in that state, our thinking brain is snoozing. We are not likely to make rational choices. We are likely to say things we don’t really mean. Our fight or flight brains though, are designed to keep us in that state for a finite amount of time. We are not designed to be perpetually alert to mortal danger and for most people, this part of the brain goes back to sleep after a while, and the thinking part takes over again. The anger doesn’t go away, but it inhabits this other, more rational part of our capacity to think. This is the time to harness the anger. This is the time when the hot tears can become articulate arguments. This is when you can tell someone they’ve hurt you, without having to hurt them back. This is when you can manage to use words instead of your fists. It’s this anger – anger that is living in the thinking brain, that can be a force for good.

Because that’s the thing about anger. It doesn’t have to be destructive. It doesn’t have to be frightening. Anger can be mobilising. It can be the voice that calls out injustice and makes you do something about it instead of glazing over with indifference. It can be the voice that shouts NO, when something or someone is seeking to violate. It can be the voice that gives you the courage to change, when without it you’d be too afraid to challenge yourself. It can be the voice that dares to question. The voice that says am I the only one? And the voices that join it saying, no, I am angry too. It’s the voice that breaks the silences, the taboos, the shackles of the shoulds and shouldn’ts. It gives courage to the downtrodden, the little person, and throws over the tables so the bullys and the abusers of power can topple. Anger is an engine, it has force, it drives us out of our complacency, it pushes us to speak when it would be easier to stay silent, but when silence would paralyse us.

So please, let’s not be afraid of our anger. By its nature, it won’t just go away quietly. When we ignore it or push it down, it doesn’t evaporate. It sits in our bellys like a stone and grows toxic. It transforms into bitterness, the numbness of depression, or the spikey barbs of irritability. But it does not go away. The only way to harness anger is to listen to it. Wait, and then hear what it has to say. Find out what it is telling you about you, and find out what it wants you to do. Let it cool down so its impulsiveness won’t lead you to sin. But listen to its urgent wisdom.

Maybe yours is the voice that can change something.

Part 3 will explore how to discern what may our anger may be telling us…

The Good Girl’s Guide to Anger:Part 1 by whentherubberhitstheroad

This is the first in a 3 part series written by whentherubberhitstheroad. Parts 2 and 3 will be published on the 20th and 27th May. 

Should Good Christian Girls Get Angry?

I became a Christian as an adult which means that I didn’t grow up immersed in the evangelical Christian subculture. I am often glad of this. There are some things that get passed down through Christian families that as an outsider, I find very odd. One of these things is the idea that Christians shouldn’t get angry. Perhaps especially that Christian women shouldn’t get angry. What a strange and baffling concept that an entire primary emotion should be out of bounds.

Ironically, when I hear Christian women say they think they shouldn’t get angry, it makes me angry. I want to know who told them they shouldn’t. I think that shoulds and shouldn’ts always have an origin. There is always a voice behind the should that has been internalised. I wonder whose voice is saying you shouldn’t, and why you are still listening to them.

Sometimes asking yourself whose voice is whispering these shoulds in your ear is enough to identify it. You can hear the clear accent of your mother, your father, a teacher or a church leader perhaps. It’s a familiar nagging voice but now it’s taken residence in your head. Perhaps your mother’s voice is saying you should eat your greens, and now you just can’t bring yourself to leave a pea uneaten. Maybe your dad is saying you shouldn’t go out dressed like that, and that has now been distorted into a sense of shame about your own body or your sensuality. Or it could be that little Johnny snatched the plastic Jesus from your hands in Sunday school (remember, I wasn’t a Christian child – I’m filling in the gaps as to what goes on in Sunday School…) and when you hit him your teacher told you that good Christian girls shouldn’t get angry. Now, that echoes in your head every time you feel that same biting sense of injustice as an adult. Sometimes it’s that simple, but often it’s more subtle or complex than that. Each should may have multiple origins. It may be hard to pinpoint exactly where it came from. But the should is firmly there, with its claws firmly gripped to the inside of your skull.

The other thing about Should is that Should is a bully. Should doesn’t offer you any choices. Either you obey Should, or you pay for it with her equally bullying sister, Guilt. But when it comes to anger, Should is already too late for the party. By the time someone is saying “I shouldn’t feel angry”, they are already feeling it. It’s too late to make a choice – you are angry. Should is already irrelevant. So now that you are feeling it, how can you understand it? It’s helpful to work out where it may have come from in order to work out what it can teach you about yourself. With that information, you may be able to work out what your anger is asking you to do…

Part 2 will start to unravel how do that.

You can find more from whentherubberhitstheroad  here 

Some angry women are angry lesbians …… by DaughterofGod

First you.

I am not addressing every reader, but some of you need to hear this. The you I am thinking of is not every christian. You are not every evangelical. But you are one of them. There are many of you. I have heard your voice many times.

And now me.

I am not every gay woman. But I am one of them. There are many of me. I am the woman sitting beside you in church. I am the quiet one, the one that’s hard to get to know. I am hard to get to know because I am guarding a secret that I feel ashamed of here. I feel free to voice it outside of church, where I receive a freeing indifference or acceptance, but here, in church, my secret is cloaked in shame – the very place where I am meant to be freed from that. Here, I am silenced. And inside I am angry.

I am angry that in 2015 the place where I am most afraid to say I am gay is in the church; that the church is the place I feel least safe from homophobia. Here, you see my sexuality as an issue. You do not see the person behind the passage. Here, I feel ashamed of my attractions, of my need for touch, my need to belong. So often you are horrified or embarrassed if I express attraction to someone of the same sex while I must listen to your casual lust over Poldark, George Clooney and other men who are not your husband. These double standards seem invisible to you.

I am angry that you tell me I must be celibate (which I am, by the way. Not that it’s any of your business), while you elevate marriage and family. You strive for and celebrate your autonomous family units while telling me I can’t have it, but without giving me any alternatives. You tell me I must be celibate but you don’t help me to know what to do with this body. This body that is alive and human, that feels, that wants and yearns. You tell me don’t. You tell me about my sin, but that is where you leave me. You assume it is OK to ask me about my sex life, my sexual history, whether I watch porn, when you would never dream of being so grossly intrusive to a straight person. It’s important to make sure I am sticking to my don’ts. You intrude upon my privacy, but you do not help me.

I am angry that whether or not I am sexually active is seen as a marker for the status of my soul.

I am angry that so many of you put so much energy into fighting against gay people having equal rights, while enjoying all of those rights yourselves as married people without seeing the hypocrisy of that. You talk about the ‘gay agenda’ like it’s some kind of mass sorcery designed to corrupt your children. You do not understand this group of marginalised, shamed people who have been discriminated against for their entire history, trying to gain a voice, equality and recognition of their fundamental humanity. You have never got to know us. There is little understanding of heterosexual privilege within church walls – the idea that your automatic haves can make you blind to those who have not.

I am angry that you go to gay pride marches to pray, even if you are not so extreme that you would hold up a placard. Why have you gone there to pray? Do you assume that these people who are open about being gay, who are protesting for human rights, who are daring to say no to shame, are intrinsically further from God than you? Have you considered how much more powerful it would be to get to know one of these people? To have a real friendship? To find out why they have to fight to be proud? Perhaps then you will see how you are just the same. Just as far from God, or just as close.

I am angry that many gay evangelicals feel shamed into rejecting the label of gay or lesbian, because, we are told, our identity is in Christ, not our sexuality. Why then is it OK for you to name your identity as a man, a woman, a wife, a teacher, a dancer, a lawyer, a mother or any other facet of personhood, without that negating your identity in Christ? Instead we are told to describe ourselves as ‘having SSA’ (same sex attraction) as if we are afflicted with a disease. We are not diseased.

I am angry that even within the church, it is a constant battle for me to believe I am acceptable to God because of all the years of receiving the message that I am unacceptable just by being me, whether or not I act on my secret feelings. I have to work hard to remember that Jesus is not like this. Jesus loves the outcasts and the marginalised. Jesus has always welcomed those that others rejected. Jesus is a rebel, a radical, a rule-breaker. He loves people passionately and extravagantly and in wildly unexpected ways. I am angry that so often I have to get past you to get back to Him.

I am most angry that when a non-Christian gay person hears the word evangelical, they assume they will be rejected. I am angriest of all that often they are right. Jesus’ love is hidden and shrouded in the cloak of this scapegoating, and because of this obsession with one sin, millions of people will never look to the church for love and belonging because of their sexuality. About this, I am livid and broken-hearted.

Finally, I am angry with myself that I am a coward. That I am too afraid to voice these things. That I am too afraid to speak up and so I perpetuate the culture that keeps people like me closeted.

I am angry that I do not have a voice.

But here, today, I do.

Angry about the narrowing of the Narrow Way ….. by an anonymous angry woman

I’m angry that I spent 7 years in a church where the narrow way got more and more narrow until it was suffocating. Where my closest friend actually said that she wondered if our church wasn’t growing because there were too many strong women, and that we needed to settle down and let the men step up and lead. Where sadness about the state of my marriage (to an apathetic man with aspergers) was immediately diagnosed as me hoping in my husband or my marriage, and I was admonished to hope in God alone (but never told what that actually looked like – apparently not having emotions?).

I’m angry that I spent 5 years in the land of biblical (or Nouthetic) counseling, where any hurt or grief from the past was swiftly identified as sin – usually bitterness or anger against God. I’m angry that my counselor actually said “Boundaries? That isn’t biblical! We’re called to turn the other cheek!” It took MONTHS of being out of the system before I dared to even whisper the question to a safe friend “Do you think ALL emotions are sinful?”

I’m angry that God was so clearly conveyed to be vindictive that when disaster befell our (very small) dream house as it was being built that my immediate first thought was “I must have wanted it too much.”

After conventional medicine had no answers for my young daughter’s health, I threw myself wholeheartedly into a special diet that could possibly help her. I was accused of idolatry multiple times, accused of hoping in the diet, hoping in my own wisdom, etc.

I am most angry that my worth and value as a person was determined by how well I submitted to my husband. Did I drive when he was in the car? Do the finances? Interrupt him (ever)? Disagree in public (which could be seen as disrespect)? Complain about him in my mind? Complain about him to others (WAY worse)? Ever not have sex when he wanted to? Not submissive.

My perception of God was so affected that I was wary and skeptical of blogs or books about God’s love. My deep-down thought was always, “Yes, he loves us. But that’s not the whole picture. What about the other stuff???”

I’m angry that at the spiritual abuse I experienced at the hands of a biblical counselor. My sin was not being submissive, and he was determined that I would confess it. But I wouldn’t because I wasn’t refusing to submit (and I believed in all that garbage at that point). And he spent an hour wielding Scripture as a weapon, trying to break me down. And while I never confessed the sin he decided I was guilty of, it did break me.

I’ve spent the last 8 years saying that I was grateful for awful things that happened because I felt like I had to, but I’m actually grateful for that awful counselor. It brought me a place where I decided that if what I had experienced was really what following Jesus was about that I was done with the whole thing. I bought the kindle version of “Jesus Feminist” by Sarah Bessey and felt UTTERLY SCANDALOUS. Then I loved it so much that I bought a paper copy. Two months ago, I started attending a Lutheran church (in secret, on Saturdays), and I walked out of the first service in tears. The pastor asked if I was okay, and through my tears I said, “There just wasn’t any wrath. I don’t even know what to do with that.”

Last month we left our church that has also narrowed the Narrow Way. Last week I went to a friend’s house and I burned all of my materials from biblical counseling. (It was wondrously cathartic.) I am seeing a professional counselor who is actually licensed and doesn’t judge my worth on how well I submit. In counseling, I can be angry. I even use profanity.

I don’t know how to be around the Super Narrow People. I act nice around them (because I’m tired of defending/explaining myself), but find them to be massively triggering. And infuriating. Not them, but what their convictions and lifestyle say about God.

It feels like I’ve left a cult. I’m both drunk on my new-found freedom and totally unsure of what this new life looks like.

There’s way more anger than I expected, but it’s oddly freeing – which is 100% the opposite of what I was always taught about anger.

It is thankful anger. Hopeful anger.

You chose the bullies ….. by Ellie Ava

I attended your classes and worked in your alumni program for years. I interned with you, taught for you, campaigned for you. I encouraged others to join. I gave up my college breaks, those rare weeks I had home from England, to make your events a success. I contributed my editing skills, my writing talent, my creativity, the best my soul had to offer.

And I was grateful for the opportunities you gave me. I wrote and directed five plays thanks to you. I had an outlet. I solved problems. I developed programs. You told me how much I was a part of your DNA. You told me you were grateful, even if my needs weren’t always respected and my contributions were sometimes minimized (until they had proved a rousing success).

I believed in you. I wrote your mission statement. I rewrote your dress code. I believed you when you said you were growing and changing away from the unhealth of my upbringing, of the community you were founded in. I believed in you and supported you. I gave my time, my flagging energy, my reputation, and my last vestiges of faith.

And then it was over.

I tried to bring in a speaker to one of your events. She was one of my favorite authors, one who espoused all the things you said you believed in—a Christian who was open to conversation, listening to those who were different, and welcoming others with open arms instead of cold shoulders. She built bridges instead of burning them. She modeled for me a faith that could bring life and love into the world instead of death and hatred. She actually modeled and lived out all the things you said you were striving for, the things that had breathed new life into my dying soul.

I asked her to speak, she was going to come, and you said no. Your people weren’t ready to handle such radical ideas, or at least, the walking out of such truth.

I know your story has its own side. I know change takes time and my experiences pushed me along faster than the rest. I believed that for a long time. But now I see another side of the truth.

You chose the bullies over me.

Because you know who wasn’t ready for radical ideas about love and grace? The people who will never be ready. The people who believe that their definition of right and wrong is more important than loving others. The people who were ready to abandon you if you stepped even a little out of line. The ones who weren’t ready to face the consequences of your message. You chose the people who would reject another Christian for befriending people who were different, for daring to question Conservative politics. People who would reject a woman who was genuinely, honestly, compassionately facing the hard questions of her faith because she spoke about things that the bullies couldn’t even tolerate having a reasonable discussion about.

You called yourself a missionary to the close-minded, to those still trapped in an isolated worldview. And that was honorable. But in doing so, you sacrificed the people who had been hurt by that very movement. In trying to reach them, you gave up on the values and ideals you told me mattered more than anything.

And in that moment, you chose to honor the needs of the bullies over me. You did have a choice, as hard as it would have been. You had a choice to move forward, to honor the things you said you believed in, and to honor the people who were invested enough in your message to give their lives to your cause.

And you chose to placate the bullies instead.

It’s said that those of us who preach tolerance are willing to show tolerance for everyone except those with strong opinions. That’s a lie. I’m happy to discuss any opinion, but I won’t be bullied anymore. And when you chose the bullies, you chose to abandon those of us who loved you. And that is a thing I cannot forgive.

Ellie Ava can be found on tumblr 

If we stopped being afraid ……… by Jamie Wright Bagley

The world has not made itself a safe place for me, as a woman, to put my big feelings. Not all of them, anyway. The anger especially. Even as a child in elementary school, people had a lot of unkind things to say about my passion for justice. I learned early on that my big tears brought big discomfort, and since a basic fear of mine is rooted in loss, I guess I latched on to the notion of stuffing my feelings as a survival mechanism, so I would not lose friends or face. The sad reality is, if I made people uncomfortable, I would no longer be thought worthy of their time. It’s scary to lose out like that.

It is not much different in womanhood. Winning respect involves playing cool­as­a­cucumber, especially with the opposite sex. My hurt has been dismissed with the speed and annoyance with which you’d swat a fly. Nobody wants a crying (read: irrational) woman on their hands!

The solution is obvious: I keep my big feelings at home. Especially the anger. Hide, hide, hide! Where there is fear, there is self­protection. (Is it protection if it leads to implosion?)

Feelings Allowed

Here is a reference list for proper public display:

1. Laughter. Feel no shame in throwing the head back and laughing heartily. A fit of the giggles is fun, too, though more of the time people like to be appreciated with the good ol’ l­o­l. It’s one feeling that scrapes by on the “go big” approval index.

2. Trickling tears. Let little rivulets stream from the eyes if something particularly touching or meaningful has occurred. It allows everyone see a tender heart; and tender hearts are always on the approval index, as long as they meet the fluff requirements and don’t tread into unpopular social­ issues territory.

3. Crowd angst. If a whole group is frustrated about something, then being mildly frustrated alongside is not a problem, because the goal is to blend in. (Unless the media shows up.)

4. Team pride. The rules of conduct get suspended when team pride is being displayed. Shouting in reaction to a very good or bad play is a must for fanatic credibility. Getting the team right is of utmost importance, mind you.

5. Baby adoration. When babies are around, a woman can be as giddy and zany and full of antics as it takes to get this precious little person to smile. Babies are all about the feelings. Just don’t let them cry because nobody wants to hear that! (Even babies get the stink­eye for being angry. Especially in church or airplanes.)

What Not To Do

Now that the reference is complete, I should review the forbidden items:

1. Personal anger at being hurt. That’s too much. Stuff it down and save the rant for home or lose reputation points. An occasional outburst may be forgiven if one follows the proper channel of apology or diminishes their point with, “I’m sorry, I was clouded by emotion and didn’t know what I was doing.” Being angry ​and​knowing it is too dangerous.

2. Loud manifestations of grief ­ wailing or moaning ­ it might make people think of death, or zombies, or worse: sex.

3. Being overcome with piercing emotion by the injustice in this world. It’s the new stumbling block. Peace of mind lies in silence, don’t you know? Anyway, the proper authorities will take care of it, like they do.

4. Using your outside voice to tell the truth. This is the seal on the proverbial coffin. Pretend everything is all okay, and move along now. People would rather catch the real story on the evening news, thanks.

5. No loud swearing. No real swearing. That’s when people start saying the word troublemaker. Better to keep the head down and cute­swear in dulcet tones at medium volume: “fudge sundaes!” or “to heck with this bleeping pumpkin!” (Pumpkin is almost as satisfying to say as another less friendly word.) One could also say “bless” when they mean something else entirely. Being adorable is always acceptable.

The Sad Truth

Do these lists make you angry?! These are just a small number of the unspoken but enforced expectations we’ve been taught to live with, and it’s not okay anymore. It never was, but now I’m opening my mouth to say it. The truth is, it’s still dangerous for women to show anger. The truth is, it’s still especially dangerous to be publicly angry. Our reputations are at stake if we show a strong emotion. Our conduct will be discussed and deconstructed; our motives and intent will be projected onto us.

When I’m told to write angry and publish after cooling off, I wonder, is it not okay for anyone to know I had a strong reaction? Is the world a better place for my silence?

I am asking myself if it’s the right thing or if it’s just the way things are, and therefore, open to challenge. I am asking myself if hiding my anger is wise. I am also asking myself what the world would look like if we stopped hiding our anger.

I don’t know the answer, but I can surely see the fear. Oh, the fear! It makes us all “the good girls” doesn’t it? But I know from a personal standpoint that I’d rather look a dragon in the eye than try to ignore it hiding there under that table. I know from personal experience that a suppressed anger is not the same thing as a diffused anger. I still don’t know what the proper channel for diffusing anger might always be, especially when it’s socially engaged and the majority gets to choose what “reasonable” looks like.

I have more questions than answers. I think many of us do. That is why it’s important to talk it out; to create safe spaces to share ideas and, gulp, FEELINGS about how it is to be angry, and what it looks to express anger, and how it can move toward a necessary change.

Anger does not generate spontaneously. If we’re not allowed to track down the source­ and the only way to track it down is to follow the anger­ then it’s going to be impossible to find a healthy resolution. Instead, we’ll carry it around inside and let it eat the soft places in our hearts one bite at a time until we are consumed.

I want more for myself than that. I want more for women than that. And I hope with all the heart I have left that our anger can lead to positive change. But first, we have to stop being afraid of it.

 Jamie writes at http://www.jamiewrightbagley.com and is on twitter @jamiebrightley

Perplexed by Anger ……… by finding my voice

I’ve grown up believing anger to be a bad thing. I have seen anger expressed in very damaging ways. Indeed, I have been damaged by anger expressed in the wrong way.

The Bible tells us to ‘Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger’, and, ‘Do not let your anger lead you into sin’. I think these verses coupled with a fear of doing the wrong thing has created a culture of people who are afraid to get angry, and if they do, they don’t know what to do with it.

Recent events caused me to seek help from a counsellor. It turns out that deep down I feel angry. But after a lifetime of avoiding anger, I finally want to get angry but I can’t. It won’t come out.

I’ve spent my whole life believing you should lay your life down for others, forgiving them, dying to self, trying to turn the other cheek, etc, etc, and I’ve slowly died on the inside. It’s only recently that I’ve been able to say, ‘Hang on a minute, that was wrong. What you did was wrong. I’ve put up with it for years, but you treated me badly and that makes me angry! You stole from me. You took away who I was supposed to be.’

I think the difficulty to express my anger is compounded by my shame at feeling angry. I feel wrong for feeling angry. And anger scares me.

Here’s where I get stuck. Now I’ve finally identified that I’m carrying anger around with me, I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t want to hurt them back, and I don’t feel the need to drag it all back up and confront them with it, but I do want to get rid of it so I can be free, I just don’t know how.

What I really I want to do is to scream and shout, because I grew up with intimidation where it wasn’t safe to have a voice. Somewhere deep down inside, I finally want to stand up for myself and shout back. I want to shout back at all the voices in my head that tell me why I can’t do things. I want to tell them to shut up and I want to fight back.

I think if I could find that voice, if I could let it out, if I could find a way to stop being passive and compliant and fearful, I feel like I might start being the me I was supposed to be all along.

Holy Anger and the Way of the Cross ……. by Danielle Strickland

(We were going to go quiet for Easter, but when we saw this piece by Danielle Strickland and she said we could repost, we felt it needed to be shared this Good Friday. )

‘If Holy anger is a thing, and I think it is, then that’s what I am. I am angry. I’m not alone either. I was marching in a protest today a thousand people strong. There were drums and war cry’s and I was glad. The yelling expressed my sentiment exactly. My son said it hurt his ears, and I said it hurt my heart. We both embraced the pain and walked on. Cindy is dead. She was killed by her ‘boyfriend’, abused and broken and left to bleed it out in a hotel bathroom. Her pelvis (produced at the trial) had an 11 centimetre wound. He said she liked ‘it rough’. He was acquitted.

So we pound our drums, shuffle our feet and cry our lungs out. We are angry. It’s a collective cry from a people who are tired of crying. See Cindy is one person – who matters. But she is not alone. It’s a cry that’s been going for a long time in Canada. Over 1000 indigenous Canadian women are currently missing and/or murdered and no one seems to care. Murdered, abandoned, tortured, and left for dead. There are over a thousand of them.

A few months ago I was flying over Canada and read the cover story accompanied by a beautiful picture of 16 year old Rinelle. She got lost from her friends in downtown Winnipeg and was sexually assaulted by two men, beaten and thrown into the frozen river. Instead of dying as expected, she somehow managed to pull her broken body out of the river and collapse on the shore that freezing winter night. Some people found her. She survived. When she woke up she asked for prayer. And God gave her the strength to release her photo and name to the press. She told them to make sure they put it in the paper because all the women who are systemically abused and discarded actually have names and faces too. That made me angry and sad. Apparently those emotions are connected. Sadness is anger inwards. Anger is sadness outward. I’m gonna call it Holy anger because I think God is sad and angry to.

So, it’s Good Friday tomorrow. What better day to bring our anger and sadness to God. He knows a bit about injustice and pain. He knows the way of the cross. He walked to the beat of a drum and the wailing of some women who loved him too. Instead of a picture of Cindy we will walk behind a big wooden cross. It is of course the same thing. A symbol of suffering and shame.

Today I’m gonna cling to the old rugged cross because I need somewhere to put my sadness and anger. I need someone who might take it and use it. I need Jesus to remind me that it no longer has the final word. I need to review the story.

My sons are going to help me – they’ve made a book about the whole thing. Judah told me I’ll be really surprised at the ending. And because no little kid can keep a good secret very long he leaned down and whispered in my ear, ‘He actually lives mom!’ with a big smile on his face. And I remembered. And my anger and sadness was invaded by love. A love so deep and divine and true that it can meet death and fear and shame and sorrow and stop it dead in it’s tracks. It’s the way of the cross. I’m gonna walk it, with my sons tomorrow.’

anger and redemption ……by theangrywomenblog

The build up of barriers to expression of anger begins when we are small children. Standing in a school playground it becomes clear that acceptable boyish behaviour includes shouting and roaring, displaying real and pretend rage. We attribute these things to the effects of testosterone and maleness. Parents and teachers smile and make quips about them being ‘such boys’. Girls who behaved in similar ways would be taken aside for displaying problematic behaviors and their parents would be unlikely to feel quite so at ease.

Later in life anger becomes a frightening idea maybe because we more often see it displayed by men, and as women there is sometimes (often) a physical difference which means that expressed anger causes us to become fearful.

Perhaps we frighten ourselves with the power of our own anger and are so ashamed of the beast that rears up in us that we promise ourselves it will never happen again. I know that when my children were small, and life was constantly lived on the edge due to extreme fatigue, frustration with a recalcitrant toddler could turn into fully fledged, roaring anger that terrified both the child and myself. It was always swiftly followed by tears and apologies and deep shame.

Anger can cause us to move beyond a place where we have control of our behaviour, and that’s when it becomes both frightening and damaging.

So why is this site here to allow expressions of anger ?

Anger does not have to be damaging, but can be redemptive. This doesn’t just mean redeemed, but redemptive. Your own anger can be the thing that saves you.

For me the experience of anger can bring about clarity in an overwhelming situation. There have been times when I’ve felt suffocated and helpless due to circumstances. I’m in a stupor and I don’t seem to be able to move in any direction. The world is black. And then suddenly I feel angry about what is happening. Angry about the way I’m being treated, or thought of, or dismissed. That flash of anger is like sending a flare up into the darkness, and in that moment I gain a greater understanding of what is actually around me and I am empowered by that emotion.

I have tried to apply two maxims to my own anger. The first has been ‘in your anger do not sin’. It has given me permission to feel the anger but it has shown me the line which I shouldn’t cross; when you’re angry don’t do harm to yourself or anyone else. I haven’t always managed to stay on the right side of the line, but I have discovered that when I do cross the line the harm I do is to myself and not to anyone else. Uncontrolled, inappropriately expressed anger damages me.

The second maxim is ‘Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry’; anger is not something that should be held and carried through many days.

This site is an attempt at creating a space where anger can be expressed and released without it damaging ourselves or others. A place where anger can be set down. A place where the flare of anger will bring light and movement and freedom.

It will be quiet here over the next few days as we pause for Easter.

Anger and redemption.