IRA

Wrath.

Anger, Hatred, Prejudice, Discrimination.

You could describe this as the nail through the feet for me.

In reverse order of importance…

Hatred:
I really try not to hate people. According to psychology, the only two reasons to hate someone are
#1. You want to be just like them.
#2. You see something that you don’t like in yourself in that person emphasized. For example, people who really like attention who claim to hate arrogant cocky people (only child vs. only child).

So actually, by that definition, there are a LOT of people who either want to be just like me, or, they see something about themselves in me that they don’t like about themselves.

HA! TAKE THAT ENEMIES!


Prejudice:
Being a people reader, I usually give them a chance to prove to me that they are an idiot before I call them one. Ok… so… maybe there is a bit of prejudice. But I really do give people a chance first before I realize how stupid they really are.


Discrimination:
I don’t discriminate, I don’t care if someone is red, white, brown, yellow, or black… they are probably an idiot. Has NOTHING to do with skin color or national origin, people in general are idiots.

Seriously though, there are two definitions of Discriminate:
*Unfair treatment of a person or group on the basis of prejudice.
*The cognitive process whereby two or more stimuli are distinguished.

You see, some Discrimination is good (the 2nd one) where as the stereotype definition of the word is bad (the 1st one). We are to keep away from the 1st definition while still using the 2nd one. When? When dealing with Anger.


Anger:
Now we come to it. This is my field of messing up expertise.

This is not to say that ALL forms of Anger are wrong. That is a common misconception. Improper use of Anger is what is wrong. Thefreedictionary.com (which I have used throughout this series) defines Anger as:
“A strong feeling of displeasure or hostility”

Christ showed anger. He showed a strong feeling of displeasure when he saw what the shysters where doing in the temple, upon Holy ground.

The morning of September 11th, 2001, many of us displayed a strong feeling of displeasure. And we should have.

55 military personnel were murdered at the Pentagon
70 civilians were also murdered at the Pentagon
246 innocent men, women, and children died on board the four planes
And there were 2,605 victims in the towers and on the ground in New York City.
Over 400 of these deaths were emergency workers.

The loss was not only that of America. There were citizens of over 90 other countries who were robbed of their lives in the attack.

I still remember watching as the 2nd plane hit the tower. I remember watching the 2nd tower collapse. Just the MEMORY of it is causing my blood to boil! I remember being filled with Anger. Not at Muslims though. At terrorist. There is a difference. One should discriminate the fact that Islam is a religion (whether peaceful or violent I’ll let you debate on your own time) where as Terrorist are violent. Now yes, a good number of terrorist are Muslim BUT not ALL Muslims are terrorist. I felt extreme Anger on 9-11. But at the people responsible for the loss of so many lives, not to an entire ethnic group or religion.

That is where we get ourselves into trouble. We only Discriminate in the 1st sense of the word, and we don’t bother Discriminating in the 2nd sense of the word which is what we should.

One pet peeve of mine with some of the employees at Maccas (McDonalds) in town, is the way they say “tick tick tick tick” when a group of Indians (dot, not feather, they don’t have the feather kind here) comes in. What are they implying? They are comparing Indian Hindus (peaceful people) to Jihadist terrorist Muslims simply because their “hat” is similar.

And so our Anger is misguided. Misguided Anger divides people. When we as a race (the ONE race, the HUMAN race) are divided, that is when we disappoint the Creator. That is what makes Wrath a deadly sin. Not the fact that we show Anger, but that it is the wrong kind of Anger.

Someone who knew me in my high school years and then talked to me relatively recently before I left for Australia made a comment about my anger. They practically asked me what drug I was taking to manage it.

What drug am I taking to manage my Anger!? The great irony is this kinda pissed me off. No, no drug to anyone curious. Hancock relaxed me a lot. Sure, school will always be stressful, but it was a much different kind of stress. It was purely school stress. No relationship issues.

My senior year of high school was a horrible year for me. I am sure it was a horrible year for people who knew me. Most of you who know me know how passionate and stubborn I can be about something that really matters to me. Imagine then, the first year after I became a Christian. Most christian’s in their first year are real assholes. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it is totally great how on fire for God they are, but the way they can just find the slightest excuse to remind you that they are newly Jesusfied just… just pisses some people off. Now, imagine the typical asshole rookie christian, THEN, imagine my normal passion (stubbornness) and mix the two together… ya… see where I’m going with this. Terrible year for me. I think that must have pretty much killed off any hopes of walking away from VCA with any friends (thankfully I turned out to be wrong on that, but, at the time that’s what I thought would happen).

Why was I so sure about the fact that anyone other than Val or with the last name “Kiger” would ever talk to me again? Because, I resigned from VCA class of ’04 in a moment of rage.

I don’t remember the date, but I do remember the events of the day quite vividly. My overwhelming zealousness, mixed with the fact that I was never very popular in the school to begin with (and yes, that is my mild way of putting it) basically segregated me from the rest of the class. I believed that there where sinister deeds a foot amongst most all my class. I wasn’t even getting along with Val at the time which shows how many problems I had going with friends. I had pretty much lost one of my high school best friends a couple months before (due to my own actions of course) which really helped out a lot in the alienation process of my social life at VCA. I was pretty much down to just 3 people who would still bother listening to me (who weren’t teachers, actually, including teachers I was still down to just 5). All my trust in other people was pretty much invested in these 3. One of them, my BEST friend Val, I already mentioned I was pissed off at. One of the other two was nowhere to be found because they decided not to be in the senior play. The last of the 3 was in the play.

So, being that Drama (as in acting not high school bullshit) is a right minded activity, it is something I’m actually good at.

AT LONG LAST!!!

Something, ANYthing that my creative skills could be put to use that would allow me to contribute to the class, and maybe, dare I say, even help me win back some friends… maybe?

Well, I of course pounced on the chance, and… in my over zealousness, did my best to take it over (like I tend to do with things…). During a really bad day of rehearsal when not much seemed to be going well (for me), I was giving people their que, you know, to help move things along. That’s when the last of the 3 people let me down (like people do – including myself). I gave them their que to get on stage; they made a real smartass comment in return to belittle me. I had one thing going for me, they knew that. It wasn’t just to me though; they did it in front of other class members to further make me look like an ass.

That is when… I flicked them in the back of the head.

I know… not quite as drastic as “that’s when I shot him”, “that’s when I keyed her car and slashed her tires”, “that’s when I threw his puppy in front of the oncoming semi”.

But… that moment of anger, I acted out physically. Which, I’d been known to punch guys before. There was this one guy I remember, let’s just call him “Bill Greek”, who called me the wrong name so I threw him a yard and a half into some lockers. But, I never liked Bill Greek anyway, I don’t care if he was brothers with one of my first crushes, the guy’s a schmuck, this person was different. A third of my faith in my High School was riding on them practically. In that moment, I felt sooooo betrayed. I felt like they’d become a sell out to the mob and the masses. Doesn’t matter though. I was still in the wrong for what I did. In that moment that I physically acted out of anger, I separated myself from that person, and I galvanized my separation from others.


Anger, in the bad sense, separates and divides.


I went home and typed an email to them, that I hoped would fully explain how done I was with my graduating class. Explaining how horrible of a people I thought them to be. I segregated myself. I myself… made myself a lonely person.

Later, I went to my fortress of solitude. I thought the encounter over. I began to realize how alone of a person I would end up if I didn’t change. Physically, in just a purely physical sense, it was a flick to the back of the head. It was not designed to cause physical harm, it did slightly for a few minutes, but that was not at all the intent. I was still in good condition when the said event occurred, if physical harm was a goal, it could have been accomplished. BUT! Much deeper than just physically… I allowed my emotions to control my body, not my rational thought. I also, though lightly, struck a friend of mine. Val and I have no problem slug bugging each other, or pushing the other off a sand dune, or any other number of friendly gestures which can also be construed as friendly, but this was different. This was Anger from the feelings of betrayal INcorrectly showing its self.

What if it was more than a flick? What if it wasn’t the friend that it was? What if
it was a hit? What if it was a full on bitch slap? And then… what if that person wasn’t my friend sitting there, what if they had been my wife? What if it was a lethal punch to the face (and yes, I am really a black belt)? What if that was Val taking that lethal punch to the face? What if it was a kick with my, dare I say, amazing soccer legs? And what if it was one of my children taking that kick?

Well, suddenly, as Pastor Bell would say, THAT was really about THIS, and THIS was really… about THAT.

THAT incident about THIS topic opened up a whole new set of issues and concerns within me.

I of course did not resign from the class in the sense that I dropped out of school. I did stop caring. I even let it get in the way of them attempting to be nice to me. I still viewed them all as hypocrites (which we all are, all of us, ya, me too – especially me). I was in complete and total amazement to even be invited to Jessica’s end of the year party, that, is how segregated I allowed myself to become.

I still carry that moment, in the back of the church office, around with me. Yes, I have thought about “just giving it all to Jesus”. Then if I do that… I’m afraid I’ll stop owning it. Too often Christians just “give their problems up to God and let him deal with it”, well you know what, I think that is Sloth. I think that too often we use that excuse “Jesus wiped my sins away” (by the way, all the quotes in this paragraph are to be said with a southern accent) and we use that to justify doing it over and over again and not learning our lesson.

The irony is, I have made myself a much mellower and easy going person, by carrying around this extra weight and guilt. I never ever want to hurt someone I love like that again. I didn’t really physically hurt them as far as I know. I do know that their level of trust in me has never been the same again. Talking with them is so much more laborsome then it once was (although a couple other factors aside from this have contributed, that was the start of it). Truth is they probably forgave me, moved on, and haven’t thought about it in a couple years because they are awesome like that.

But I remember… I remember all my major fuck ups. Maybe that’s why I don’t sleep. Maybe I really should try just giving it all to Jesus.

Since that day, I’ve never physically acted out on anyone out of Anger who did not fire first. I have punched a hole in my wall. I have thrown an object a fair distance. But no part of my body has fired first in rage at any one since then.

Jack Johnson music has helped.
Wine helps.
Venting to Andrew or one of the Turtles helps.
Frequent visits to my Fortress of Solitude help.

Sadly… above all else, it’s guilt that helps the most.

Hmmmm… maybe I’m not such a bad Catholic after all when you look at it that way.

No… no drugs since High School… just a lot of thought and meditation. I do not fight people for fun. If I did fight someone, one of three things will happen…
*I will kill them
*I will die myself for not surrendering
*5-10 guys will pull me off of their limp, unconscious body
So you see… a person like me needs to have control of their anger.

And so, who would have EVER believed, that in a pub of angry Aussies a few weeks ago, the ONLY person who did NOT throw a single punch at any one (including the 4 guys trying to attack him) was…

The war mongering American.


I am FAR from saying “look at me, I don’t deal with Wrath! Hahahah”

No, complete opposite. Every day, I wake up; and I have to remind myself the day is a gift from God. A gift that will pass by far too quickly and I’ll never get back. And it is no use wasting that gift filling it with Wrath. It is a choice I have to make ever day that God gives me. But it IS a choice. And if I can do it… ME! The one who has inherited St. Paul’s thrown as Chief amongst sinners… well; I think any of you have a pretty good sporting chance also.