Anger

I posted an angry comment about one of my posts about Roman Catholicism today. The commentator enumerated his academic and humanities credentials as a preface to calling me a liar and implying that I am plotting against good causes. I was flattered that someone so accomplished took the time to denigrate my humble thoughts. I don't get many comments of this kind. In fact, I get few comments in general. I am happy to have it that way. This is not a message board or a forum. It is simply a blog, my journal, of my humanist practice.

The Web has become an outlet for unbridled, anonymous rage. I have no problem with that. Perhaps it is a deterrent to potential mass murderers. Perhaps not. It is hard for me to take anonymous rage seriously. I have confronted enough in-my-face direct rage in my life as an out gay man. The anonymous kind is a piece of cake. 

I have had a long and tortured relationship with my own anger. When I was a young boy, perhaps 11 or 12, I experienced a black-out episode of my own unprocessed rage. When I became conscious, restrained by several adults, I was told I had done something horribly violent to another child who had taunted me. My relationships with every person who was involved were permanently changed. The sheer power of my rage to change my life in an instant frightened me deeply. That lesson has never been lost, and I must still work with my anger every day.

Japanese Buddhists have a wonderful saying, based on the teachings of Nichiren Daishonin on the Lotus Sutra: "Turn poison into medicine". Anger, unmitigated, is poison. Anger, acknowledged and understood, can be medicine.