Anger is meant to be an ignition, not an address. Anger was meant to be the doorway into action against injustice.
Anger is fire and smoke.
Rage is anger that had nowhere to go, nothing to pour its power into. So instead, rage levels forests and buildings to the ground. It burns whole lives down. Insistent on ignition.
We become afraid of our own anger when we have been scarred by rage. Our own, our father’s, our mother’s, our drunk grandfather’s, the man who used to enjoy our fear. Whoever it was, whenever it was, rage leaves scars.
But the real payment is taken years later, when a burning heart finds itself caged behind timid teeth, and a bit tongue, and a voice that has made itself small.
It is not difficult to know why. We are afraid of our own anger because we are afraid it will set a fire we cannot control. So we stay small and tidy, considerate and neat, making as little smoke as possible. But what does that supposed reservation cost us? Our identity? Our confidence?
What if we received our anger the way we received our best friend when she came over unannounced, her hair askew, angry and needing to talk? Or the way we receive our child when they come in crying and fists balled, angry and looking for mom?
We do not lecture the friend. We do not shush the child. We pour the coffee. We kneel down. We listen to the whole story before we say a word. And then, together, we figure out what to do.
Anger is the igniter. It lights the fuel under the fire of our heart. Love is what we do with the flame. Love takes everything anger has to give and turns it into something that warms instead of consumes.
It sharpens words, deepens thoughts, gives us time to find what we really mean to say. It inspires action and then it sustains it when the initial flash of fury has long since settled. It keeps us engaged and steadfast. And from that steady place, we can write clear words and tell illuminated truths.
Love builds a hearth around the raw power of fire. It makes it something that can be shared, not to burn down other peoples houses, but to warm them, give them hope, and then direction as they carry the flame into their own lives.
It struck me tonight, as I chewed on these thoughts, just how much it costs to have a constant stream of anger poured into your being. And listen, I feel it. I am so angry at the government. I am so angry at the media and corruption and greed and the uphill swim they have made of ordinary life. The fuel is there. The fire is lit. The question is whether it burns me down or burns me forward.
This is not giving up on justice. This is knowing what can flow out of peace. When love is doing the carrying, you can sleep at night. You can eat your dinner and actually digest it. You can stay in the fight without the fight staying in your body.
This is the good news as I have understood it. That Love has made a way for passion to be sustained fire, face set like flint with resolve. That Love is truly salvation from a life of futile self-combustion.
afterthoughts:
I’ve written a lot this week. I hesitated to share this piece so quickly after sharing another article just a handful of days ago, discussing the writer’s block I was digging myself out of after becoming extremely tangled with anger and hope. I guess it worked. The words have flowed freely since, and I’ve been catching them in my notes app and the journal I keep in my purse.
Conventional algorithm-playing wisdom says to space your articles out. Don’t flood the inbox. But frankly, I’ve never been terribly good at that kind of restraint. Sometimes I just need to release things or else I’ll bury them and find myself tangled again.
The response to that article is what inspired this little meditation, which honestly feels like the second half of what I was trying to say. Anger is roiling through my audience. So many people shared how incapacitated they feel by it. People shared about losing their land to data centers, struggling to afford food, and feeling unable to plan for the future. People expressed their confusion, their sense of helplessness. And hey, I just admitted I had been buried into silence by my own sense of rage.
This is short. It doesn’t offer the exacting pragmatism some people may be looking for. It may even seem uselessly poetic to one consumed with rage. I stand by it, though. I stand by the truth that anger is allowed and when anchored by love, it can be the very thing that provokes us to alignment, to justice, to hope.
Because I am a teacher at heart, and it is my own resistance towards opaque platitudes that urges me to write an explanatory afterthought at all: I will leave you with this one point of application.
If you are feeling anger, instead of building it a padded room to go slowly crazy inside of, give it a drawing board. What would justice look like? What would a healed Earth, void of corruption, look like? What would a culture that valued community over consumption actually look like? Imagine it. And then, look at the life directly in front of you and decide on one small step you can take towards that reality. Just a little movement.
This is what my garden has given to me. All the frustration I’ve felt, the anger, the confusion, I have taken the small step towards resilience against them by going and planting seeds, pulling weeds, assuring that when headlines promised lack, I would have something to harvest instead.
The belief that we are helpless in our anger is what pads the walls. It’s what locks the door. It is not anger leading to rage that makes us hopeless. It’s a belief system that convinces us our action and passion and love and presence are incapable of inciting change, and that we would do better to be as numb as possible to survive.
And truly, isn’t that exactly what Corruption and Darkness would want us to believe? That there is no hope in shining our light? Let us not forget, darling, the nature of these things. If you need a reminder, light the fire in the hearth. Flip the switch. Step out into the sunshine. Remind yourself what light can do, and find the next small step to do it.
I love it when you share the things I write. It shows me what stood out to you and helps me reach audiences I haven’t met yet. Thank you for taking the time and sharing my words with your people.
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