Two simple things we must do with our anger today.

If there's one thing that has crossed party lines, transcends race, gender, age, and creed without bias, it is the fact that we've all had something to stew about in these days. The right rages worried that their will has been violated and their voices not heard—fearful that an election (and their hoped-for country) has been stolen from them. The left lurches with loathing over the putrid pandering to a puerile pack of proud-less proud boys. If you've denounced and renounced violence done in the name of a cause, good for you, but many on both “sides” of our alternate realities are still ANG-A-RY. And that anger, left unprocessed, will be the undoing of our nation. "United we stand," will give way to "divided we fall," if we do not act fast. 

There are two things we must immediately do with our fury:

Forgive and Grieve.

Forgiveness gets a bad rap. It feels like giving your abuser a Get-out-of-jail free card, so they can keep abusing you. Sometimes, it seems like an excuse passive people make to avoid confrontation, or standing up to bullies. But, true forgiveness is way more practical and aggressive than that. True forgiveness rightly sees self as immensely valuable, deserving of respect, honor, trust, affection, and gentleness. It is also stubbornly convinced in the capability of goodness in the offender. It does not minimize or dismiss their offense; it just believes their flawed actions or words are beneath them, unbecoming of their identity as imago Dei (being made in the image of God).

Okay, but, how does one forgive?

I remember one time several years ago that I was seething with anger toward my wife. (I can't now remember what it was about). All I remember is that we had a huge fight. I went to work and the more I analyzed our points and the facts, the more convinced I became in my correct understanding of the matter, which led to me feeling more justified and that led to me getting even angrier. I was still at work when she called me. She said she was going to take the kids to one of our neighborhood restaurants for dinner and asked if I would like to meet them there. I curtly agreed and hung up the phone. My blood was still boiling. On my way, I noticed that all of these micro-judgments against her were flooding into my mind, one after another. I call them "micro" because they were so little. Each one was something I just had learned to live with, little annoyances about her habits and behaviors. As I was mentally scrolling through all of these annoyances, a thought invaded my mind: these thoughts aren’t coming from me. It felt as if there was a courtroom inside my head and a litany of accusations were being read one-at-a-time, as if from a plaintiff's scroll. I suddenly remembered how Satan is described in Scripture as a prosecuting attorney wanting everyone to convict their fellow as guilty (his name literally means, "accuser"). I knew what I had to do. Mere moments before rounding the corner to come into the restaurant where my wife and kids were waiting, I said aloud under my breath, "I cancel all judgments against my wife." And for good measure, I repeated it, "I cancel all judgments against my wife. She is mine. I accept her as she is." 3-2-1, I entered the restaurant and there they were. My wife smiled at me. It was a knowing smile and a wary smile, but all the same it said, I love you. I smiled back. And just like that the cloud over me was gone. Completely gone. The anger, the annoyances, the self-justifications,...all of it dissipated in a moment.  I could see her again. There she was. The beautiful, lovely her. My heart warmed again and I smiled back. We both knew that whatever had us on edge against each other was gone. 

The goal of forgiveness isn’t to just let someone off the hook all the while maintaining an us-versus-them posture. No, the goal of forgiveness is oneness. The goal is to no longer see us-and-them or me-versus-he at all, but to only see we. We are actually (whether we like it or not, whether it is comfortable or not) all together, sharing the same space, the same air, joining in the same societal experiment of offering our strengths to one another in exchange for reward. As Bill Clinton famously said, “it’s the economy, stupid.” The more we participate in this togetherness project—in faith and trust that the bridge builders did a good job, that quality inspectors have guaranteed our food safety, that our car isn’t going to explode randomly, that planes are held in the air by a million moving parts and service technicians and skilled operators—then the more we stand to gain…rewarded not just by a paycheck, but also by the peace of mind that frees us to enjoy the benefits of togetherness and of the joy of being a part of each other’s families, communities, cities, states, and nation.

Oneness was number one on Jesus’ mind before the greatest passion play in history unfolded. In John 17, Jesus prayed that we would be united, just as he and the Father were united. This isn’t pie-in-the-sky Pollyannaism; it is an uber-practical possibility—a possibility that we’ve all experienced at some level, but that we’ve also fallen short of. The question is, how much more possibility are we missing out on? Imagine the benefits of an undivided America, and of a more connected world.

Side by side with forgiveness is the urgent task of grieving. After the capital riots on January 6, I felt angry—furious at all the lies and deception that have divided my country. My mind jumped back and forth to a thousand things to say or do, yet I ultimately felt helpless. I paused for a second. It was a long enough second for my heart to hear Jesus saying, “will you be sad with me?”

In my imagination, I pictured Jesus just sitting there, silent, with his face turned toward the ground. The quietness of it, the sweetness of his invitation, lured me in. So, I silenced the legion voices in my mind and mimicked his posture. It wasn’t a time to pray or even listen to what he was wanting to say. He just wanted me to sit with him, to be with him, and to feel this moment with him. That couple of minutes of silence was one of the sweetest times with Jesus I have had in my entire life. I felt like Simon of Cyrene (the man who carried his cross with him). It reminded me that a true friend is someone you would call when you’re sad, not the long list of people you’d invite to a party. I want to be one of Jesus’ true friends. I want to help him carry the hard stuff.

Anger is a signal that we have unprocessed grief or unreleased accusations. Funneling the energy of anger into the grief process helps us deal with our pain, release it, and become more gracious and patient people. Sadness is like a yeast that breaks down the high-octane sugar of anger and converts it into something that brings joy, something fermented with grace. Anger that is given the permission to be sad can also create another beautiful byproduct: articulation. Words seasoned with sorrow release grace to listeners. These salty sorts of words can heal and bring people together. There is a paucity of such words, mainly because there is a poverty of sadness. Too much distraction. Too much releasing of the pressure valve (through our trigger-happy tweets) before the fermentation process can even be started. We too quickly give voice to our unprocessed anger, our yet-grieved grievances. Communication that hasn't passed through the cleansing fire of grief will only serve to further incite, rile, divide, and wound others. 

So, take this invitation from Jesus: “will you tarry with me?” Sit with him and feel his sadness—the loss of what could have been, what should have been. Feel each loss and grieve them out.

I also invite you to pray this prayer out loud in the courtroom of your minds: "I cancel all judgments against _____." Say it as many times as you need until a new perspective comes into your imagination. See what that does inside your own heart.

Entering into grief and forgiveness is like cleaning out the mold-growing leftovers from your fridge, which threatens to infect the good stuff, or cutting out a tumor before it metastasizes. Our internal world is as much the world we live in as the world we live in. Read that sentence again. We need our internal worlds to be healthy and free from the spoiling presence of bitterness. Division and anger don’t just naturally dissolve with time, just as darkness can't be swept under a rug. It will come back to bite us if we don’t properly deal with it. Real things (relational bridges, roads, and channels) have been torn down and damaged. These need to be rebuilt. This will take time, effort, and deep belief that everyone in a community has something positive to contribute. This may look like spending a couple of minutes right now and sending someone a message. Even if it is short, as long as it is kind and/or contrite, you will have participated in the right steps toward rebuilding trust. 

We all have a part to play in fixing what's broken. Each of us belong to a community, and most likely that community needs some love and grace. Let's build and restore them into diverse communities where differing ideas are welcome to the table of our homes, our workplaces, and our favorite coffee shops—so that Jesus can be in our midst again, and with him we can watch the garden of a better world bloom for our children.