To the Angry Ones

you know who you are

The lights are down, popcorn is popped, and my oldest kids cocoon under blankets on our couch. I’m cuddled up in a chair at their side. The younger two, too young for this movie—this was many years ago—are already in bed. On the screen in front of us, The Avengers plays. We’re at the part where a good guy fights a mechanical monster in the air, while the other good guys do battle on the ground. I won’t say they’re losing, but things aren’t looking good.

Just then, Bruce Banner, the mild-mannered nuclear physicist who unpredictably turns into the raging monster Hulk, putters up to the group on a beat-up motorcycle. The battle rages all around, but he gets off his bike and casually walks over to the other good guys, to his friends.

“So …” he says, “this all seems … horrible.”

There’s a short conversation, but soon the metal beast is being led right to where they stand. The stakes are, at this moment, so, so high. They don’t need a good-natured buddy. They need the Hulk—his strength, this power, his rage.

“Dr. Banner,” Captain America says in a measured tone, “now might be a really good time for you to get angry.”

Banner gives Cap a look, a smirk almost, and it’s like I recognize myself.

“That’s my secret, Captain,” Banner says, turning away for a moment. He then looks back at his friend and right before turning big and green simply says, “I’m always angry.”

***

let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

***

In a truly excellent cinematic moment, before Banner is even done speaking, all his rage is channeled into a punch that lands squarely on the metal leviathan’s face. The monster curls up on itself and Hulk releases a primal roar.¹

My mouth drops open slightly. I lean towards my husband, Chris, and whisper, “I’ve never felt so understood in my life.”

He laughs as if I’ve just told a joke.

I laugh too, wishing it weren’t the truth.

***

I only have two children here, and we live in a 900-square-foot third-floor condo. The kids and I come home from a morning out. I open the door and am hit with an overwhelming smell of feces.

Without a word, I walk inside slowly, holding the kids’ hands to keep them close. In my memory, they wear raincoats and galoshes.

It only takes a moment before it registers: our dog, Mia, a short-haired black lab mix that would whine like a dolphin whenever she got anxious, had had diarrhea. Everywhere. Brown spray on the carpet. In the living room, the playroom, the bedroom. On the rug. In the kitchen. The bathroom. In that small of a space, everywhere is not hyperbole.

Maybe it’s because we don’t live near family and I am a young mom who needs more support. Maybe it’s that at this point in our lives, I feel disconnected from Chris and deeply alone. Maybe it’s grief. Or nurture. Or trauma. Or the state of the world.

Maybe it is simply who I am.

But for the first and only time that I can remember, I lose complete control. My children stand watching as I scream and yell and rage.

***

We all get angry. Getting angry is normal.

But I’m talking to the ones with anger in their bones.

You know who you are. You know what I’m talking about.

Because you hold it, so precariously, in the space behind your heart. Or in that hollowed-out place within your gut. Or in the back of your throat. Or in your tender hands. You’re the one who knows how to breathe fire, whose fingers burn, whose mouth needs but open to unleash the flames within.

***

I grew up in a very conservative church and like most churches, conservative or not, meekness— in women—and a gentle and quiet spirit, was not only expected, it was rewarded.

but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.

It’s in the Bible. I get it. I agree with it. But the lesson I learned?

Be in control.

Behave.

If you’re mad, handle it.

Sure, take it to God. But from there? I had no idea what to do.

Another movie line, from Elsa in Frozen, comes to mind: Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let it show.

So that’s what I did. What I learned to do. What I tried to do.

Would you like to guess how well that works?

***

A number of years ago, anger was the presenting reason I went to see a therapist.

It wasn’t the only reason, of course, but anger is easier to name than grief.

In the office, the therapist had a tennis racket that sat atop a pouf—one of those decorative cushions that could be used as a low seat or a footrest. I’d noticed it on my first visit, and session after session, it sat against a wall.

I eventually learned it was a tool, used as a healthy outlet for the energy of a client’s anger.

You’d think I could have smashed it flat.

But all I did in that room was sit on her couch and cry.

***

If God made us emotional beings, and some of us have bigger, more incendiary emotions than others, What do we do?

God, tell us, what do we do with our anger?

***

I pick my son up from preschool and the teacher hands me a laminated project—a piece of paper I immediately recognize as something I’ll keep forever. In teacher handwriting are his answers to prompts, and the piece of paper was glued to a larger pink construction paper, decorated with blue and green finger-painted hand prints.

My mom is ___ years old. (37)

My mom likes to ____. (drink coffee)

My mom _____ with me. (bakes cookies)

My mom has _____ hair. (brown)

My mom is _____. (a rage monster)

***

There’s a story in the Bible, just one, where Jesus gets so mad, he (in my estimation) loses his mind. A theological impossibility, I realize and concede. And still. In anger (with anger?) he flips over actual tables and uses a whip, a whip!, to drive out the animals from the temple.

Can you imagine?

How fun must it be to crack a whip in righteous anger.

***

Any time I got mad, anytime I raised my voice and was told “You’re yelling, Sonya” or “You don’t need to yell, Sonya” or “Don’t get so mad, Sonya” I’d look at the person speaking to me and think: this is nothing.

Do you know what I’m capable of?

***

“Here,” she hands me the tennis racket and places the pouf in front of my knees. “I’ve been waiting for your anger to show up.”

I hold the racket in my hands, cradling the handle with the loosest of grips. There are one thousand reasons I could be angry, many of which I’ve already named in this room. But all I do is tap the cushion, like I’m patting a child on the head. There, there.

“Why don’t you hit it?” she asks.

I feel the weight of the racket in my hands, but … I can’t. It’s not that I’m embarrassed, though it’s partially that. It’s that I can’t summon the energy. There’s a very long pause. She waits, as therapists are wont to do.

“I think I feel too safe in here,” I say. Then, tears start. Again.

What I’ve found is that my anger is not only allowed in this room, it’s welcome. There’s no moral good or bad to it. No right or wrong. It’s not something to contain; it’s simply information to acknowledge.

Yes, you’re angry.

About what? Okay.

Why? Of course, that makes sense.

In this space, I can just be sad, or scared—the emotions so often hiding underneath the protective wings of my ire.

“But you do need to let it out,” she tells me.

Out? Out where? Out how? All I know how to do is try to suppress it. Control it. And not let it control me. Be angry and not sin.

“This is why people have punching bags at home.”

I laugh. “I don’t have one.”

“But you have a pillow.” The thought makes me laugh again. I shake my head. No, no, no. Not for me. I don’t need help being angry, I need help not being angry.

In a world filled with injustice and cruelty, with a heart painfully sensitive to another’s suffering, not ever getting angry is an impossibility, I realize and concede.

***

The Lord hates six things:

haughty (arrogantly superior) eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,

a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that make haste to run to evil,

a false witness who breathes out lies,
and one who sows discord among brothers.

I hate these things, too.

***

My friend finds out her husband’s struggle with addiction has continued, despite the rehab, despite the reconciliation, despite every best effort to love and attend to him as he needed. Their marriage is officially over.

‘I will fly out there and set all his [expletive] on fire in your front yard,’ I tell her. Another friend says she’s not only happy to join in, but offers to throw a brick through his window and key his car.

In between tears, my friend manages a laugh. ‘That won’t be necessary, guys.’

Till the day I die, I won’t understand how she could have such a measured response.

***

What do I do with this anger? I’ve asked God over and over.

You made me this way. You made me this way! I’ve yelled.

What, then, do we—the angry ones—do?

***

My husband and I get in an argument on the way to our friends’ house. It’s measured—the kids are in the car—until we simply stop speaking. But I’m silently seething. At the house, we walk in the front door and plaster smiles on our faces. Hey! Yeah! Good! Thanks! My stomach turns as they welcome us in.

Then I realize I forgot, honestly forgot, something at home I said I’d bring. Maybe it was a bag of chips, a serving utensil, a book. What matters is that I insist on retrieving it. I’ll be right back. We live three streets away.

Earlier that week, I punched a pillow for the first time in my life. I felt so dumb. So dumb. I started to laugh at myself, shaking my head in disbelief. Who does this? But also? The pillow took it well. And there was a small bit of pleasure in that punch. So I did it again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And the pillow didn’t care.

Maybe if I were stronger, I could have gone on longer, but my arms tired quickly.

And to be honest? The energy of the anger dissipated just as fast.

The issue that made me upset was still there, but it was now isolated, cool to the touch.

Leaving our friends’ house to retrieve my forgotten thing, I get into the car, drive to the stop sign, and after I cross onto the next street, I let out a low-volume “ahhhhhh.” Truly pathetic. I try again, this time louder. “Aughhhhhhhhh!” And then again. And again. And again. Silent seething becomes primal screaming. Full-throated, full volume. Gutteral. Painful. I am positive my neighbors, even inside their houses, can hear me when I pull into our driveway.

I grab what I need from inside and return to our friends’ house. The trip was barely five minutes. My throat will be sore for days, but I walk in, present what I forgot, then relax. Maybe I don’t smile at my husband, we’ll still have to talk through the argument, but something in me has shifted.

***

The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love.

It’s slow, but it’s there.

And this comforts me.

***

“The Other Side of Self-Care,” the advertisement reads.

“Come Relieve Your Stress by ‘Losing it’ at Lose It Rage Room. You’ll leave feeling better than when you came.”

There’s a reason these are popping up all over the country.

***

Acknowledge. I am angry/enraged about …

Then curiosity. What is my anger telling me? What does this anger want?

What’s it protecting? What’s it defending? What’s underneath?

Then care.

What might it need? How can I work this through my body?

Then action.

What will I do next?

***

What do we do with our anger?

This is the question I’ve been asking too often these days. These months. These years.

The anger we feel over injustice. Over a disconnect between people that are supposed to be unified, but seem to come from two opposing world views. Anger about purposeful and unnecessary harm. Stripping of innocence. Blatant wrong. Let me just throw in murder.

What do we do when all we want to do is scream?

Once, also in therapy, I was asked, “How do you want to show up in this relationship?”

We’d already identified that I often felt like I needed to get big and loud to be heard. To be listened to. If I didn’t, no one seemed to care. Regardless of if this were true or not, it wasn’t serving me—or anyone else.

And never had.

“I want to show up knowing what I’m upset about, yeah,” I said. “But I do want to be in control.”

***

Wind can be a tornado, destroying whatever dares be in its path.

And wind can be harnessed, making a ship sail.

Sunlight can burn.

Or it can warm.

A horse’s hooves can trample.

Or carry a rider hundreds of miles.

Fire can consume a home.

Or it can warm a room.

***

To my fellow angry ones, I see you.

Our anger is speaking to us.

Let’s use it well.

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