I have been absent from the blog world as of late. I probably have more clear thoughts and provocative fodder than I have had in a long time. However, hard thinking and personal reflection consume my energy in what is an already challenging schedule. Like small children do before making a large developmental leap, I have been conserving my energy and even regressing. I hope this regression is in service of a large leap that will take me over this current chasm in my life.
What is that chasm? It's the chasm of anger. I am full of a raging, seething, permeating anger. I've been making angry mix cd's. Lying on our bed screaming from time to time. It's the type of anger that makes me miss the release of having a sibling with whom to wrestle. My husband (an only child) is confused with my assertion that my wimpish jabs on his shoulder are signs of affection. I want to wrestle someone. I want to hold someone to the ground, and fight against my own being held.
One of my mentors said that it's like God is holding me in his lap while I punch the hell out Him with my elbows and fists, kicking and screaming. "I don't want this! Let me go!" What I'm angry about seems inconsequential, but what is important is that I am angry.
What makes me more angry is the admonitions of Christians not to be angry or to move on too quickly. The implication that my anger is wholly selfish, misplaced, or wrong makes me want to kick people in the teeth. As if anger is something you get beyond without falling completely into it. I'm screaming into the abyss. I'm Zach Braff and Nathalie Portman in The Garden State. And avoiding the anger doesn't work. And turning the anger inward isn't good. I did that for years, and it destroys you. The only choice is to leap, arms back, curly locks spreading behind me, into the full consuming darkness. That. That jumping. That's my faith. Faith that in the midst of shit, God somewhere smells like roses.
Because faith isn't faith if I build a fence around the edge of the chasm, put up warning signs, keep myself or anyone else from falling in. Nope, faith is to keep on walking, fall off the edge, and realize God is still the same. God's the same in the sunlight and in the darkness. And it sounds trite, and that makes me angry. My lack of words to describe it make me angry. That people tell me not to say "Fuck this shit." That makes me angry. That someone is reading this right now thinking, "Aww, poor Nicole, she's angry. I hope she gets over it soon." That makes me angry.
Yet, I remain aware that anger CAN be a sin. One of the deadly ones. Jump into the abyss, but don't breathe the air. Don't let it become your oxygen. It seems key to remember what my mentor said, "God will never leave you, Nicole." And, "I just had the feeling that I wanted to kiss you on the forehead, and give you God's blessing." I imagine this middle-aged black man in his cool metrosexual glasses and black shirt placing his lips on my very pasty forehead, and I almost laugh. That God will tell someone to bless me, this fat fleshy very white ball of being pissed off.
People these days want to touch me. Professors lay hands on my shoulder as they walk by, hands that never rested on me before. And friends want to hug me "just because it felt right." There are deep pools from which I drink, but I have to keep walking. And I can't see the next one. I get oases in the desert. When what I long for is to live on the beach.
Jumping into the abyss is tiring and disorienting. My organs are in free fall, I fear they'll liqueify if I make impact. I'm suspended. There's nothing to do but to fall. Falling too fast to look around and get my bearings. Life flashes before my eyes. I'm still falling...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
<
4 comments:
Nicole,
For centuries, women in our society have been told to calm or suppress their anger. I would not wish that for you. In fact, I would hope that you give yourself permission to be angry for just as long as you feel the need to do so.
But recognize that anger is almost always a defense, a way of either coping with another pain or avoiding another pain inside of us. I do not know you personally, and even if I did, I could not presume to put a name to that pain.
My hope and prayer for you is for strength in your journey as you work to identify that pain, as you look deeply inside and try to understand what the anger is seeking to protect you from.
My hope for you is not the stifling of your anger. It is instead a release from that pain -- or, better, a healing of that pain. In the meantime, I hope you hold onto your anger for as long as you need it.
Spam is irritating, but I'm not wasting anger on it..so moving on..
Steve, I disagree. I appreciate your intentions, but there are some pains and hurts that incite anger, and that are such atrocities that they should make one angry.
Your comment wasn't accusatory, and I didn't experience as such. However, I am aware of the pain behind some of the reasons I am angry, and I've sat in it. And it sucked. In fact, I had to get through the pain before the anger would come.
While, yes, anger is sometimes a secondary emotion, not always. Some things can and should make us angry. I think of what Jones says on the topic in Ch. 5 of "Soul Making." He shares the story of a rabbi talking to a young rabbi, and he tells him that there is much to be angry about in this world and in his life. Let's be angry about your suffering...together.
Anger is no more an emotion to move on from than happiness, guilt, or any other emotion.
Steve, I disagree. I appreciate your intentions, but there are some pains and hurts that incite anger, and that are such atrocities that they should make one angry.
Nicole, I welcome the discussion. I actually think we agree much more than we disagree. Specifically, I agree strongly that we should experience anger in response to some evils in life. How could we be human if we weren't angered by abuse, by genocide?
Sometimes anger is the only way for us to stay sane in the face of such evils.
And yet...anger is often also destructive. It distances us from people, makes it easy to lash out at those around us, makes it easy for us to cause pain to them.
The issue in a sense becomes what to do with anger. I agree that a simple-minded answer like "moving on" from such a feeling is not a solution. In fact, I see "moving on" as a very unhelpful metaphor most of the time.
I much prefer to see it as a process of healing -- or, better, of looking deeply enough into our pain and anger that it transforms into insight, into compassion. Actually, I think what is key to this is approaching our pain and anger with the kind of compassion, non-judgment, and understanding that we would give to those most dear to us.
Anyway, what is important is not which of us is "right" on this, but rather that I express simply and sincerely how my thoughts and prayers are with you on this journey.
Reminds me of Kasey Chambers: "If you're not pissed off at the world, Then you're just not paying attention"
I am not sure I understand anger as a defense mechanism. I tend to agree that there are things in this world that should make us angry. The fact that those injusticies do not make some of my friends angry--well, angers me. :)
Not sure this is helping.
Post a Comment