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Anger.

It’s something we all experience. And if we are honest with ourselves, something we all struggle with from time to time.

I had an encounter with anger this weekend.  A stranger gave me some unsolicited parenting “advice”.  The tone and inappropriateness of her comments set off a feeling of anger within me.

Soon after that experience, I sat down and read these words from Dallas Willard in The Divine Conspiracy on the subject of anger…….

In its simplest form, anger is a spontaneous response that has a vital function in life. As such, it is not wrong. It is a feeling that seizes us in our body and immediately impels us toward interfering with, and possibly even harming, those who have thwarted our will and interfered with our life.

Anger embraced is, accordingly, inherently disintegrative of human personality and life. It does not have to be specifically “acted out” to poison the world. Because of what it is, and the way it seizes upon the body and its environment just by being there, it cannot be hidden. All our mental and emotional resources are marshaled to nurture and tend the anger, and our body throbs with it. Energy is dedicated to keeping the anger alive: we constantly remind ourselves of how wrongly we have been treated. And when it is allowed to govern our actions, of course, its evil is quickly multiplied in heart-rending consequences and in the replication of anger and rage in the hearts and bodies of everyone it touches.

Anger.

Experience it. Feel it.

But then let it go.

Don’t embrace it. Don’t keep it alive.

Don’t let it poison you and those around you. Don’t let it multiply or replicate.

(image by The Loopweaver)

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