new question to live: how to be angry without being mean?

twice yesterday the topic of anger came up for me pretty strongly.

the first time was at my going-away dinner at colab. i chose to have my send-off activity be a simple feedback activity: i asked people to go around the table and each say one thing they appreciate about me (option to share an experience we had to together) and also one thing they’d push me on or an idea they’d like to see me try. dayna’s area of growth for me was thinking through how to process and support anger, my own and the anger of others. anger is an emotion humans experience so it will be in the mix whether i like it or not. and given that it will be there, it only makes sense to learn how to be with it and also what it’s useful for.

the other was a bloody brilliant episode of on being with eugene peterson. i wish i had heard this about ten years ago. he was talking about the psalms and he shared that the psalms have plenty of anger (though many churches like to skip, ignore, or literally cut out those parts) and the gift they impart is the ability to be angry without being mean.

and thinking of casper’s love of rainer maria rilke’s passage about living the questions, i think this is a new question for me:

what does it mean to experience anger without being mean?

i know one recent quote i was reminded of about anger was in radical dharma. i’ll look it up later, but the gist was the anger is a signal; it keeps us off balance so that we keep advocating for better, more just worlds.

i like that, but i know that’s just a start. so here’s to exploring!

words / writing / post-processing
285w / 10min / 10min