Here is where the rubber meets the road, as it were. Today I face a real challenge with impeccability. I have a colleague who has recently done something I despise. This is not the first time we have disagreed, heatedly, on certain politically charged topics. In my opinion he stands for hate in the name of Christ which is the most despicable combination I can think of.
At this point in time I am incapable of speaking eloquently about this person, or of sounding wise or hoping to lead folks into a sense of enlightenment through my words. I am angry, angry to the point of perverse enjoyment over the hatred I feel for his actions. I don't know if that makes sense. Have you felt a righteous anger against someone? Have you ever been so sure you were right that to despise that person felt good, like scratching a bug bite until it starts bleeding again? It is a self righteous hatred that some broken part of me wants to hold on to. Moreover I want the world to know what he has done. I want to text it, email it, post it on facebook. I want to scream his name at God and say, "Do you SEE what this person does in your name?? Are you not PISSED OFF??"
And yet I know I must let it go. I cannot live into hate, because then I am no better than this person, and my actions are equally abhorrant. Neither can I spread news of my anger to people who know him. The sick feeling I get inside from talking even to myself about him is reminiscent of a story we heard in preaching class in seminary long ago entitled, "How to Kill a Wolf." It outlines in gruesome detail the way certain hunters use a bloodied knife to cause a wolf to kill himself by attempting to lick it clean. The wolf cuts himself on the knife until he bleeds to death, and that's what our hatred does. Righteous anger or not, it kills us from within, until our hatred mixes with the hatred of others and we become consumed.
And so I will pray. I honestly don't know what else to do. I don't ask for forgiveness for him or me, or for understanding, or anything rational because I'm not there yet. I ask for peace, and for God to be in relationship with him so that I don't have to. Not yet, anyway. Maybe some day.
It is easy to counsel people about anger. It is easy to write wise words about how to handle or avoid and get rid of anger. But, when you really have a case of it, deep down, it is another story. Nothing about anger is easy when you really have it. It probably brings out the worst and best of us, and it is real easy to get mixed up about what is worst and best in us. The real scary thing about anger when it is the real thing is that it is, as you say, intoxicating. It feels like a part of us that we do not want to let go. Of course, sometimes we shouldn't let it go but have to ride it like a wild beast to some better place. Sometimes, we probably need to get off the wild beast immediately. God have mercy on all of us when we have a real case of anger.
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