I was called to speak in meeting today, but somehow I didn’t. It was only a small point but it was trying to get out, so here it is.
A Friend spoke in meeting today about social justice and our relationship with God. What, he asked, is the point in being angry with God? It achieves nothing.
Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes anger distracts from purpose, serves as an excuse for inaction. Being angry with God can be a convenient position to take. It can allow for one to distance oneself from any sense of personal responsibility from the cause or for the solution to an issue, and it can let one put up boundaries that hinder necessary healing.
But sometimes anger is the healthy option. It’s too easy to get caught up in the sense that ‘quakers are never angry’. Inner peace is often seen as a measure of success. Our quaker predecessors, however, used their inner disquiet in much the way that quakers and others are doing now, quietly but passionately all over the world, to heal and create change.
Shelia Bovell wrote in 1988 on the intense reactions she experienced on the loss of a much loved child.
A God we cannot be honest with is no God. If we bow the head and say, Thy will be done, when our heart is aflame with protest, we only increase our own pain.
This interpretation of a very real interaction with God speaks very clearly to me. Without real, honest communication with the divine, however you interpret it, how can you feel led to action in any meaningful way? Without truthfully, openly examining the darkest feelings and reactions I have to a situation, an issue, a leading, how can I freely and willingly give what’s required of me?
I spent much of last year (and this) screaming and crying at a God who refused to stop existing but couldn’t, or wouldn’t, make everything ok. When I paused for breath (and because I’d temporarily run out of hurtful, hateful things to say)I found I wasn’t weeping alone.
That certainty wasn’t a new feeling for me but it’s one I’ve found useful. From this experience I found new strength to fight my way through the pain and fear and discover what new paths it might take me on, what new challenges might be in my future and ultimately how I could use my my experience and my anger to make myself useful to others.
I intend to put my inner disquiet to good use, as a valuable tool alongside my inner peace. I invite all of you to do the same.
August 12, 2007 at 8:08 pm
thank you for this.
one of the things i emphasize with many of my patients is that, like a parent, God would rather we yell and scream and throw tantrums about how it’s NOT FAIR than run away from home. God wants us to keep talking.
and then we find that, even when God doesn’t take away the pain, we find ways to survive it. we find ways to love, even when the world seems set against allowing us that option.
and that, i think, is the greatest miracle of all.
August 12, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Thank you! I’m glad someone found it useful.
You’re right. And I find it heart breaking that so many have been encouraged to view God/the divine as some huge guy with a massive lightning bolt who’s going to GET YOU if you say anything mean. He/She/It’s a big Boy/Girl/Deity/Other, and they can take it.
August 19, 2007 at 3:47 am
Interesting insight – I’d like to add that I’ve found it helpful looking back at my own life experiences, everything happens for a reason, even if it ‘only’ serves to make you stronger. I’ve also found that this perspective can only come after the event and often quite some time after. There are certainly things we may experience, which we would rather not, and feels very unfair, and we would be completely entitled to ask why and or be angry with the Deity or person or organisation etc, we feel is responsible. This brings on the question of faith, naturally, do you believe the Deity is allpowerful and infallible? Maybe, in the rephrased words of Bruce Allmighty – God was on vacation? Hope to be able to discuss this with you in person, as the written word is often not enough to explain fully and without misunderstanding, what you intend to mean
February 14, 2008 at 4:37 pm
thanks for the invite to put my disquiet to good use!
I sometimes let mine get out in petty ways instead of fighting the good fight. Sometimes it can be hard to work out the right way to direct it, especially when I feel God silent on it.