Anger Management 101

I read Pearl S Buck's Portrait of a Marriage while nursing my first baby, pregnant with the second 26 years ago.  It was so thought provoking, in that third year of my own marriage that I sent it off to my Mother in law, because I wanted to discuss it with her.  She disliked it so much she felt insulted that I had sent it to her. : (  Dad had told me once that she had been the sole parent in the raising of their 8 children.  His very much appreciated contribution was a successful OB practice in San Diego.

 The husband in this novel was not a big contributor, financially or emotionally.  He was an artist, and the wife worked very hard on their farm to provide for them. While administering a whooping to her oldest son, a teenager, the father walked in.  He had never seen her so mad and he tried to stop her.  The son interrupted and told his dad angrily that he had deserved the belt and if he couldn't stomach it, to leave.  Retelling the story, it seems sick.  Yet this was not a sick relationship. This was a telling of the dynamics of parenting, and parenting alone. Of anger, and it's affects on others.  No one likes to be angry. The son had made an already spent mother's life more difficult by his carelessness and she only knew how to inflict pain so he would not forget to do it again! The father was an artist, he lived to see beauty and retell it in his paintings. He knew nothing of the discomfort of hard labor. This "Portrait of a Marriage" is not unique to fallen man, wife raises a family and husband does what he is 'inspired' to do, without getting his hands dirty with the everyday duties and conflicts. Of course there are other stories where the father is the one who lays down his life for an unknowing wife and children.  Or the overindulgent mother and the husband whose attempts at forming children are sabotaged by the same. Where is Peace?

No one likes anger.  I don't know anyone who enjoys being angry or being in the presence of someone who is angry.  But when self serving, self protecting, self shielding anger is ruled out of the event, say for the anger of one who is being denied a drink or some other addictive substance, being upset with the person for being angry, or trying to suppress anger, or worse yet, focusing on the emotion of the inflamed person, is not helpful!   Anger is not beautiful, it is not something that the soft artist wants to look at.  He closes his eyes and walks away to find beauty while the opportunity for self giving love and peace, is lost.   The artist/husband would have redeemed himself if he had asked the son what he had done to anger his beloved wife so, and asked the wife to hand over the belt for him to give it to the lass. He would have made more points if he apologized for not involving himself in the past and made himself present to both wife and children in the labor of love that family is.

Rules that govern a family's emotions are dysfunctional.  on the other side of that coin, families that are ruled by emotions are also dysfunctional. 

Here are the healthy alternatives to the above: Conflict is allowed, your emotions are neither good nor bad, they just are, feel them, and if possible learn from them, then move on.  Being human is a journey into Eternity through, with and in, Christ.  Threats to that union, in ones heart, or ones beloved spouse, child or friend, can turn an otherwise calm soul into a raging bear.  When an angry person experiences the compassion of a calm friend or spouse, we are one step closer  to practical solutions to nurturing our relationships with one another, and one step closer to heaven.