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PelagiathePenit
Guest
Words do have the power to incite anger.
Proverbs 18:21, Proverbs 12:18, Colossians 3:8, Proverbs 15:1
Proverbs 18:21, Proverbs 12:18, Colossians 3:8, Proverbs 15:1
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POJIUJH
Guest
I see what you mean now, very well said. We just have a slightly different language. Would I be right in thinking that by being offended you mean letting things get you into a state where you brood over them - cultivating the anger?
I see where you are coming from. Righteous anger has one particular characteristic and that’s that it completes it’s mission and drops immediately, carrying no anxiety.
I once heard story about about Ven. Fulton Sheen, that one time after a Solemn High Mass he was talking to the altar boys in a very grandfatherly way (this story was related by one of the altar boys) when at the same time a man came in and spoke in a deliberately loud voice to the parish secretary so that Ven. Fulton Sheen would overhear him. He was telling her that he had just come back from the east, and that he had written a new book combining the “best of eastern mysticism and the best of Catholicism”.
At which point Fulton Sheen spun around on his heels and erupted into a fury shouting: "GET OUT. GET OUT. THE CATHOLIC FAITH IS A GIFT FROM GOD AND I WILL NOT HAVE YOU CORRUPTING IT. GET OUT."
The man literally scarpered. Meanwhile, the altar boys were shocked, but were even more shocked when Fulton Sheen turned to them and carried on speaking to them in just the same way he did before, the same grandfather figure, perfectly, saintly calm! It made a very strong impression on them.
The Holy Spirit worked through him with that anger and as soon as the job was done the anger was dropped immediately. So just like Our Lord on the Temple Mount, it seems that anger is intended to be used to get a job done, but that the line of temperance is drawn quite short in that it is to end as soon as we have fulfilled our duty.
That is with regards getting angry for good reasons, of course, we can also get angry for bad or stupid reasons. I suppose that’s part of original sin.
In that way I suppose that (legitmate) anger that has crossed the line could also come under gluttony.
It sounds as though you are trying to keep this under good check. That is commendable. The times I get very angry at genuine inexcusable evil, to save dwelling on it I just hand it to God. No matter what justice I would like to see happening, He has a better way of handling it (even in punishing it) than I can possibly think of so it benefits me in no way to dwell on it continuously until it makes me sour. It should probably move me towards praying for mercy. I should maybe do that more often…
Thank you for the thoughts!
I see where you are coming from. Righteous anger has one particular characteristic and that’s that it completes it’s mission and drops immediately, carrying no anxiety.
I once heard story about about Ven. Fulton Sheen, that one time after a Solemn High Mass he was talking to the altar boys in a very grandfatherly way (this story was related by one of the altar boys) when at the same time a man came in and spoke in a deliberately loud voice to the parish secretary so that Ven. Fulton Sheen would overhear him. He was telling her that he had just come back from the east, and that he had written a new book combining the “best of eastern mysticism and the best of Catholicism”.
At which point Fulton Sheen spun around on his heels and erupted into a fury shouting: "GET OUT. GET OUT. THE CATHOLIC FAITH IS A GIFT FROM GOD AND I WILL NOT HAVE YOU CORRUPTING IT. GET OUT."
The man literally scarpered. Meanwhile, the altar boys were shocked, but were even more shocked when Fulton Sheen turned to them and carried on speaking to them in just the same way he did before, the same grandfather figure, perfectly, saintly calm! It made a very strong impression on them.
The Holy Spirit worked through him with that anger and as soon as the job was done the anger was dropped immediately. So just like Our Lord on the Temple Mount, it seems that anger is intended to be used to get a job done, but that the line of temperance is drawn quite short in that it is to end as soon as we have fulfilled our duty.
That is with regards getting angry for good reasons, of course, we can also get angry for bad or stupid reasons. I suppose that’s part of original sin.
In that way I suppose that (legitmate) anger that has crossed the line could also come under gluttony.
It sounds as though you are trying to keep this under good check. That is commendable. The times I get very angry at genuine inexcusable evil, to save dwelling on it I just hand it to God. No matter what justice I would like to see happening, He has a better way of handling it (even in punishing it) than I can possibly think of so it benefits me in no way to dwell on it continuously until it makes me sour. It should probably move me towards praying for mercy. I should maybe do that more often…
Thank you for the thoughts!
L
Lost_Wanderer
Guest
I would agree with you so far that you can only feel incensed for so long without it taking its toll on your day. However, I actually compare the feeling of offense to that of a shiny nugget clogged up in worthless rock. The emotion still serves a decent purpose for telling us what we simply don’t like.
And when we know what we don’t like, we can logically conclude on what we do like. Because even if we learn to calm down, cool our heads, it’ll be like chipping out the rock and pouring out the molten gold.
There is still something left, such as the reasons for being offended or the dislike. People would think this is more of a problem and not something equating to gold. But really, knowledge is gold. If you know that something needs to be resolved, you now both have a clearer head to deal with it as well as the courage to put it in its place.
And when we know what we don’t like, we can logically conclude on what we do like. Because even if we learn to calm down, cool our heads, it’ll be like chipping out the rock and pouring out the molten gold.
There is still something left, such as the reasons for being offended or the dislike. People would think this is more of a problem and not something equating to gold. But really, knowledge is gold. If you know that something needs to be resolved, you now both have a clearer head to deal with it as well as the courage to put it in its place.
M
Mystical_Seeker
Guest
I’m not telling you “how to feel.” I’m telling you there is a way to peace that you inevitably have no plans to even believe in much less try to taste and see.
You can “not express it” and I’ll never know whether you are seething with anger. And if that’s how you want to live, please don’t let me stop you from doing it.
That’s totally understandable. But I’m here to tell you that I can get over in five seconds, or even five minutes or hours, transgressions that used to get me brooding over for months or more.
It’s a way of life with peace, and it’s based on the teachings of Jesus. If you don’t like that, don’t accept it.
That is a good question, and frankly I think there are many people who simply are not ready to open up to honest conversations with others about their faith. Many of us have enough problems figuring out what we think ourselves, much less defend ourselves against others.
I think it does a lot of good to be friends with people with strongly different views. I see the Internet as bringing people to a level where we can communicate directly with people all over the globe where we would never have heard of them. Some of us grew up with no idea what Catholics were like anywhere but in our own parishes – and how were we to know there was even this much diversity?
Yes, for me I crave knowing people with a “full range” of ideas – including and even especially those that oppose mine. If all I did was hang around people who thought like me, I’d never be challenged to grow.
I do believe people have the “right” to feel any way they want to.
Feeling angry at transgressions is neither illogical nor irrational, given the way we are brought up in our culture. It is totally “normal” to retaliate. That’s why Jesus tried to scale back “retaliation” by removing the “eye for an eye” and “do not repay evil with evil, but with kindness.”
I’m offering advice that has made Jesus’s words come alive in me, and consequently is happening in some of the other people I know both IRL and online. If you want to join in an effort to actually listen to the teachings of Christ instead of going along with human sinful tendencies, then that is your right.
And if you don’t believe it is either possible or even desirable to bring yourself to the point of being freed from emotional bondage to the Bad Manners of others, then go ahead and keep justifying yourself and keep doing the same thing.
MS
M
Mystical_Seeker
Guest
You have worded this very well, and I am confident you caught the gist of what I am suggesting. I have nothing more to contribute at this point.
M
Mystical_Seeker
Guest
Yes, it is a good diagnostic tool. Some thing it is an inevitable part of life; that that part where I’m trying to offer some counterpoint.
It really is. And Jesus referred to the “knowledge of the kingdom of heaven” as a treasure in several scenarios.
And once you have some of this knowledge, more starts coming in and it overflows.
Luke 19:26
‘I tell you, to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
LW I believe you are very blessed. I’ve seen you put up with a lot to express yourself, among people who have a difficult time hearing what you have to say.
M
Mystical_Seeker
Guest
They have a right to be as miserable as they want. I can guarantee that within five minutes and Google I can find enough stuff to offend some people for an entire lifetime.
If we want to be angry and justify why, that’s fine. If we intend to take Jesus’s teachings to heart, I submit there is a better way that is marked with peace rather than being offended.
Prov 19:12
It is good sense to be slow to anger, and an honor to overlook an offense.
We have a choice whether we want to live a life where we bear the fruit of the spirit as listed in Gal 5, or if we want to be just another bitter person who clings to religion as an outward lifestyle but fails to allow that religion to make any actual inner changes.
What astounds me is not that people don’t agree with me, but they refuse to take our Lord at His word, substituting instead the “human condition” as something that should be maintained and excused
Matt 5:22-24
But I say to you, whoever is angry[r] with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, ‘Raqa,’ will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
Really, who is Jesus even talking to here? Anyone who wants to justify being offended and angry really should consider taking their issue up with Jesus instead of against me.
Absolutely.
D
DiZent
Guest
People can say something to insult me. It may be true or not. It may be very mean or just mistaken.
But whether I am “offended” or “outraged” that these things happen, are all optional and are manufactured products of our ego which says there is a difference between the way the world God gave us is, and the way we would like it to be. And further, we are going to waste emotional energy over that difference, and maybe act stupidly in retaliation.
Whether people will insult me, or at least that I will perceive it as such, is unavoidable.
But whether I “become offended” is completely unavoidable.
Every day terrible things happen. People get shot every day, there are abortions every day, and people die in wars every single day. These we cannot change.
But whether they “get to us” or “make us mad” is optional. Many people think we “should be outraged” at this or that. I don’t recall Jesus ever saying I should be outraged because of the sins of another person – and in fact He has his most scathing things to say about those who did act condescendingly toward presumed “sinners.”
I do remember Him saying “rejoice and be glad” if you are insulted for your faith.
I do remember Him telling us not to be surprised when terrible things happen as we approach the end times.
I do remember Him telling us that we cannot add one day to our lives by worrying.
So do I care that bad things happen? Yes. Do I like them? No. Do I do something about them? Yes – I do take up certain causes as I can but I can only do so much. Beyond what I can do, being upset is destructive.
Being offended in the name of Jesus is what the Westboro Baptist Church is famous for.
MS
I say something similar in regard to a few of my office mates who seem to get offended over imagined slights. In order to “be offended” one has to “take offense” A choice. The most overused word on the evening news is “outraged”.
P
PelagiathePenit
Guest
Are you saying people should/should not become angry? The bible says “slow to anger.” Are you saying people should take things more lightly? Learn to let things roll off their back. After all, God will judge them. I know that sounds punitive. If someone did truly wrong me, God sees and knows this already, right?They have a right to be as miserable as they want. I can guarantee that within five minutes and Google I can find enough stuff to offend some people for an entire lifetime.
If we want to be angry and justify why, that’s fine. If we intend to take Jesus’s teachings to heart, I submit there is a better way that is marked with peace rather than being offended.
Prov 19:12
It is good sense to be slow to anger, and an honor to overlook an offense.
We have a choice whether we want to live a life where we bear the fruit of the spirit as listed in Gal 5, or if we want to be just another bitter person who clings to religion as an outward lifestyle but fails to allow that religion to make any actual inner changes.
What astounds me is not that people don’t agree with me, but they refuse to take our Lord at His word, substituting instead the “human condition” as something that should be maintained and excused
Matt 5:22-24
But I say to you, whoever is angry[r] with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, ‘Raqa,’ will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
Really, who is Jesus even talking to here? Anyone who wants to justify being offended and angry really should consider taking their issue up with Jesus instead of against me.
Absolutely.
P
PelagiathePenit
Guest
I have never been friends with someone solely because we are both Catholic. I do not know if I have any IRL Catholic friends. You generally have to have something in common to be friends with someone, right? It can be difficult if the person shows little to no respect for your beliefs or lack thereof. As for the Muslim extremists, I do not like people pretending that journalists are in the right. Yes, freedom of speech. I would like to know exactly what the magazine featured that was so offensive to the Muslims. I highly doubt it was not intended to be disrespectful towards Muslims. If this magazine were Anti-Semitic or slamming LGBTQ, I think it would have been considered hate speech. That is what I am annoyed by. There is such a double-standard for freedom of speech.I’m not telling you “how to feel.” I’m telling you there is a way to peace that you inevitably have no plans to even believe in much less try to taste and see.
You can “not express it” and I’ll never know whether you are seething with anger. And if that’s how you want to live, please don’t let me stop you from doing it.
That’s totally understandable. But I’m here to tell you that I can get over in five seconds, or even five minutes or hours, transgressions that used to get me brooding over for months or more.
It’s a way of life with peace, and it’s based on the teachings of Jesus. If you don’t like that, don’t accept it.
That is a good question, and frankly I think there are many people who simply are not ready to open up to honest conversations with others about their faith. Many of us have enough problems figuring out what we think ourselves, much less defend ourselves against others.
I think it does a lot of good to be friends with people with strongly different views. I see the Internet as bringing people to a level where we can communicate directly with people all over the globe where we would never have heard of them. Some of us grew up with no idea what Catholics were like anywhere but in our own parishes – and how were we to know there was even this much diversity?
Yes, for me I crave knowing people with a “full range” of ideas – including and even especially those that oppose mine. If all I did was hang around people who thought like me, I’d never be challenged to grow.
I do believe people have the “right” to feel any way they want to.
Feeling angry at transgressions is neither illogical nor irrational, given the way we are brought up in our culture. It is totally “normal” to retaliate. That’s why Jesus tried to scale back “retaliation” by removing the “eye for an eye” and “do not repay evil with evil, but with kindness.”
I’m offering advice that has made Jesus’s words come alive in me, and consequently is happening in some of the other people I know both IRL and online. If you want to join in an effort to actually listen to the teachings of Christ instead of going along with human sinful tendencies, then that is your right.
And if you don’t believe it is either possible or even desirable to bring yourself to the point of being freed from emotional bondage to the Bad Manners of others, then go ahead and keep justifying yourself and keep doing the same thing.
MS
M
Mystical_Seeker
Guest
Kind of. If someone wrongs me, then if there is anything I can do to correct it, I would still do that. Like I would prosecute someone, or I would hit someone with a ball bat if they attacked me and I had a ball bat.
So I’m not really talking about someone wronging me in a physical way, but even then “anger” in itself is something that martial artists know can throw them off their fight.
I’m talking more emotional. Turn the other cheek, and all that.
So not take things “more lightly” in that I consider them less important or severe, just don’t get my emotions up in a lather about it. We are told from when we are little, “I am very angry because you did that” so we get it drilled into our heads that our actions control others’ feelings. The flip side is that we give others permission to manipulate our feelings.
I’m saying the Jesus gave us His peace, which takes us through times of both testing and comfort. If we lose our “peace” when people do things to upset us or we otherwise don’t like the world we’re in, then it isn’t really the peace of Christ. It’s “worldly comfort” that we seek and value. The peace “not as the world gives” is unconditional and eternal. Being in “comfortable conditions” is by definition conditional, and is temporary. People not saying mean things I don’t like, is one example of a “comfortable condition.”
Too much emphasis these days is placed on only being around people who “make us feel good.” A much more useful thing to do would be to learn how to be around objectionable people, without that bringing us down.
These are some good points.
And I only have a few really good “IRL” Catholic friends IMO, but it is getting better. My pastor is the best of them all. If I say something offensive to him (without other ears to hear to cause scandal) he’s likely to try to one-up me. Now and then he jokes, “don’t worry about it if you go to hell; at least you know you’ll have a chaplain.”
MS
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PelagiathePenit
Guest
I guess my point is that. I think being anger, or taking offensive is not good or bad, unless you become angry or upset for too long or over everything. I used to think I had to like everyone and everything or that it was “wrong” that I was displeased with someone. There are some issues that will genuinely hurt you. Does that mean you are wrong for feeling that way? Not everyone is anger management is there because they have an explosive tempter. Some people do not know how to deal with their anger. Or they do not know when they “should” or “should” not feel angry.
I just do not think it is right to invalidate someone’s feelings.
How do you feel about crying? Is it wrong for someone to cry when they feel mistreated?
I am different than most people. I am considered a pushover. Most people are always telling me I should not let someone use, talk down to me, or etc like that. It is not fair. I am just as human as they are. Not everyone is coddled or used to people liking them.
You may argue words are just words. At some point, words can be vicious, abusive, and have severed friendships.
I just do not think it is right to invalidate someone’s feelings.
How do you feel about crying? Is it wrong for someone to cry when they feel mistreated?
I am different than most people. I am considered a pushover. Most people are always telling me I should not let someone use, talk down to me, or etc like that. It is not fair. I am just as human as they are. Not everyone is coddled or used to people liking them.
You may argue words are just words. At some point, words can be vicious, abusive, and have severed friendships.
S
Sarcelle
Guest
In the last Judgement, we will be all held accountable for all the words we have said to others. So no, in the end, words are just not words.
M
Mystical_Seeker
Guest
I totally agree. And I do think part of the problem is anger management, in a very societal sort of way. We are taught as youngsters that adults are “happy” when we do this and “angry” if we do that. Consequently, our actions have control over their feelings. Of course that works both ways. That means that my feelings are under control by others’ actions. And in this case I’m limiting the argument to hurtful words.
Yes, words hurt. But my point is that they don’t have to have control over our emotions. As a practical matter, it happens that way for most of us, including myself (until I became psychotic and then had to reprogram my thinking to get out of it) I was in so many highly frustrating environments, that it literally drove me crazy. I lost a career after 20 years. Severe bipolar disorder. And I have plenty of stories for my 12 year battle with those symptoms, including a “despair” segment that lasted maybe a couple months but seemed like three eternities.
So that’s what “society programming” did to me. I was helpless because other people’s seemingly arbitrary and senseless actions (people who had actual influence over me and my family so it was) made me crazy.
So I had to find an antidote. And I don’t know what you personally may need to help you at this time, but I can tell you that yes feelings are very real and since 2001 I’ve been in states of consciousness and emotional extremes that luckily the Lord was able to heal me from before they totally locked me away somewhere.
But I’ve spent over 60,000 hours on the task of becoming sane, which happens to correlate very well with the Dark Night of the Soul, and many of the “inner” teachings of Jesus but those are really long stories. I only had this ability because I was “too crazy” to work so I had plenty of time to go about finding healing from various medical, philosophical, religious, and other sources.
My conclusions is that I can’t say about other people, but I also can’t see anything special about “me” that makes me able withstand insult without taking offense to the level I do now. Actually, being treated as a leper even by one of my own pastors because of my mental illness – actually banned from parish property at times, help a whole lot in learning to take insults. The really funny thing, is that one of my sons became a seminarian and now some of those people who shunned me like the plague, all of a sudden are all interested in my life and I can see right through those phonies. All of their insults retroactively just made me laugh, when I saw how shallow those people are. They took themselves so seriously, especially certain lay snobs who had high positions in the diocese structure. I just politely acknowledged them and moved on to anywhere other than where they were. Funny a few years prior I hungered for their approval and was upset because I didn’t have it.
At this point, I am actually ready to go places where my personal ideas are so strongly attacked that it does “get to me” and even provoke me. Whenever that happens, that tells my subconscious that “yep, there’s another trigger we didn’t know about” and basically vaccinated me from getting offended by that again, because whatever pain in my past it probably brought up, this gives me a chance to “process it” under the new “don’t be offended” mindset.
M
Mystical_Seeker
Guest
I actually cry fairly easily; this morning I was crying over a past hurt to a guy who was helping me (actually I pay him for Skype sessions) when I realized why I even was attracted to his services. I just want to be validated that my ideas are useful and not crazy. I know they aren’t but I’m so sick of being treated like a sub-human and I mean people would talk about me with me standing there as if I weren’t there, like I was a lab rat. So yeah all this “strength” I’m finding now still has kinks in the armor, but I’m toughening them up daily and have actually found some pretty cool secret Facebook groups where I actually get to deal with some very strong but supportive egos, who have also helped me. And they will tell me anything they can see wrong with me, because we are in an atmosphere of love, where we are actually helping each other as we help ourselves, with specks and planks in our own and each others’ eyes. So I do have a lot of friends, mostly online. I only have a couple people IRL that I actually consider “true friends” and who actually know me well enough and have the ability to listen and understand me.
My point is I don’t “blame” people for their feelings, or try to take them away. I just want to “empower” them by telling them that there is a way – and I can’t promise I can show it to anyone in particular but I don’t see anything that they are lacking that might stop them – to become free of enslavement of my feelings, to others’ behavior. Because if the world has to be right before I can be happy, I’ll never be happy. So it’s a matter of being ecstatic about life no matter what others are saying to me, who is in office, what countries or religions are at war, or who wins the Grammies.
“If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what’s said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.”
― Abraham Lincoln
I absolutely agree, and until I was 42 years old, I had so little “emotional intelligence” in terms of handling other people and the weird ways they acted (I never understood that other people make decisions based on feelings, rather than information for example) I was a pushover. I wouldn’t take back something defective because I couldn’t stand up to the guy at the counter and say, “please give me a product for the money I already gave you.” I have allowed myself and my family to take considerable harm because of my inability to deal with people who are aggressive, stupid, mean, or on an agenda, or maybe some combination of all of them.
But I can tell you this – there is a way to “rise above” it, and I’m in the process of “tasting and seeing” how good this world is. I’m actually starting to learn to enjoy insults, but here’s my problem. I’m getting really good at dealing with insults in that they don’t hurt my feelings, but they do tempt me a little to much to “get back at them” without even really giving it much thought – because my bruised ego wants to jump in there now and then and give a little “dig.” Sometimes I’m just fascinated like there is one thread where this guy is so hard to make sense of that I’ve leveled some extraordinarily strong accusations against him, just because it amazes me how it doesn’t phase him. So yeah that’s a fault I never had the “skill” to have before, so it’s only a matter of time until the Holy Spirit gets me to quit behaving like this and somehow becoming the bully I always hated.
M
Mystical_Seeker
Guest
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