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In
my experience, we can’t learn enough about dealing with anger: Our own and
that of others. This is especially true in divorce navigation, but,
unfortunately, hardly limited to that realm.
This
past weekend, Pastor Brad Powell of NorthRidge Church in Plymouth, Michigan,
“put it on the bottom shelf” (as he likes to say) in a talk titled “Mad
About You,” part of his “Vent” series. It’s a Christian religious
perspective, with applications refreshingly beyond preaching cliché and
poorly masked opportunity to condemn this human frailty that universally
afflicts all of us.
We’re talking tools. Why does Matthew 5:43ff emphasize this change of
paradigm, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate
your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies”? Because it takes energy to
maintain anger and hate; that’s a trap that keeps us from the freedom to
focus on the possibilities of our presents and futures.
More
importantly, perpetual anger relies on the false premise that justice can
ever be externally imposed. The growing number of marital partners who
negotiate, mediate, and settle their own divorces certainly realize this.
The Courts themselves realize this. The further out we get from a marital
dissolution that didn’t quite satisfy, the more effort (anger) it requires
to yield ever-diminishing and ultimately inconsequential results. Or, as
Pastor Powell put it: You can’t impose your sense of justice on others. No
one can.
That
truly can only be the purview of God (Genesis 18:25).
—posted by Dell Deaton @9:45 AM EST 2/12/2008
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