Southwest Conference Blog

A Refreshing Way to Recall Your Baptism

Last Sunday, at First Congregational Flagstaff, several members shared memories and anecdotes concerning their baptisms. One recalled being baptized as an adult in a beautiful river beside red-rock cliffs in Sedona. A middle-aged man shared that his earliest memory in life is his baptism as an infant!

Wherever you were baptized, and however it was done, it is good to ponder its ongoing reality in your life. Like faith itself, the memory and interpretation of the happening may be more important than what occurred in the past.

We commonly think of baptism in its most obvious significance—that of washing away our impurities. That’s certainly an important and abiding perspective; “Repent and be baptized…for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38). At the same time, there is another Scriptural tradition that might point us in additional directions, regarding the significance of our baptism. Each year in the lectionary cycle, at the start of each new year, we commemorate the baptism of Jesus, and we are called to recall our own baptism. Yet the baptism of Jesus points to something more than forgiveness of sins. In classical Christian theology, Jesus was without sin. Or, in more contemporary terms, Jesus possessed a perfect God-consciousness. Unlike us, Jesus had no need for a ritual of cleansing moral impurities. So what does Jesus’s baptism mean, and what does it mean for us?

In the mid-seventh century an Irish scholar wrote a treatise titled On the Miracles of Holy Scripture. It’s a unique work, seemingly ahead of its time. Covering a huge array of Bible miracles, the author sought to point out that God never works in violation of nature’s laws. By portraying the harmony between miracles and natural order, this author makes Scriptural wonders feasible to a scientific mind while also elevating the ‘miraculous’ aspects of everyday natural events.

Referring to Jesus’s baptism the writer reverses our normal understanding: normally we think of water as cleansing the baptizee (as a normal bath would do). Yet Jesus was in no need of cleansing. Rather, the waters required redemption, because they are held within the confines of the earth, and the earth was cursed by humanity’s fall, as indicated in chapter 3 of Genesis. So Jesus’s baptism had a reverse effect–the baptized One gloriously refreshed polluted creation.

Could you think of your own baptism as being a similar event? Has God not called all believers to labor for the good of all creation–not just for humans, but for all beings and the earth itself?

At Jesus’s baptism he hears a voice from heaven: “You are my child, whom I dearly love: in you I find happiness.” It might be a stretch for you to believe this, but God no doubt said the same thing at your baptism. Our self-doubts, or our lack of awareness, probably prevented us from hearing that loving affirmation—but it was there. Ponder your own baptism vows for a moment. Imagine God saying those same words to you. How does it make you feel?

Jesus, knowing how much God found happiness in him, went forth from his baptism to begin healing the world. You had the same experience! So as you recall your baptism, consider how God has called you to live as a dearly beloved child, and how you can work with God to cleanse our polluted earth.

How Kindness Can Increase Happiness

by Donald Fausel

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved,
clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility,
gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive
whatever grievances you have against one another.
Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues,
put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

The Apostle Paul, Colossians 3:12-14

For the last several blogs I’ve focused on the obstacles to happiness, e.g. perfectionism and anger. Today’s blog is going to empathize one of the virtues that augment happiness—kindness.

When I first started to research kindness a few weeks ago, I thought I knew enough about kindness already. How wrong I was! Not only is kindness one of the many virtues, it seems to be out in front when it comes to happiness.

I first searched for what the Old and New Testaments had to say about kindness and the first website I found was What Does the Bible Have to Say About Kindness? It had over fifty small quotations on kindness. I also looked for parables on kindness or compassion in the New Testament. Not surprisingly the parable that stood out was The Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 10-37). Rather than focus on the parable that we all are familiar with, I chose a TED TALK by Daniel Goleman entitled Why Aren’t We All Good Samaritans? Goleman was picked to speak at a TED Conference, which is on a different level than a TALK. It’s “…where the world’s leading thinkers and doers are invited to give the talk of their life in 18 minutes.” Dr. Goleman’s presentation is very down to earth, humorous and takes compassion/kindness from a global level to a personal level.

As helpful as the themes in the Bible are for inspiration, and action, I moved on to several websites that are considered to be part of the science of happiness. I was very happy to find The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation. They even have a Random Acts of Kindness Week (this year February 14-20, 2016), and Random Acts of Kindness Day on February 17, 2016. If you’re interested in celebrating either of these events, you can, “Check out their RAK Week page for kindness ideas and other activities they had in 2015. The 2016 program will be out in the middle of January.

Not only is there a Foundation for Kindness, there is also the World Kindness Movement (WKM). This international movement has “…no political or religious affiliations.” Their mission is to inspire individuals “…towards greater kindness and to connect nations to create a kinder world.” After its formation in Tokyo in 1997 the movement now includes 25 nations, one of which is the United States. If you check their website above, I think you’ll be impressed with what they’ve been able to accomplish in the last nineteen years.

Acts of Kindness

There’s such a wealth of information about kindness and random acts of kindness that it’s difficult to pick which articles to use for a blog. After much self- debate, I finally chose several websites. The first website is How to Be Kind. I chose it mainly because it is a three part article that deals with: 1) Developing a Kinder Perspective 2) Developing Kind Qualities, and 3) Taking Action Questions and Answers. I was particularly impressed with a part of Taking Action section that’s entitled Transform Your Life through Kindness. It starts with a quote from Aldous Huxley’s remedy for transforming your life: “People often ask me what is the most effective technique for transforming their life. It’s a little embarrassing after years of research and experimentation, I have to say that the answer is—just be a little kinder.” The article goes on to suggest that we take Huxley’s many years of research to heart and “…allow kindness to transform your life, to transcend all feelings and actions of aggression, hate, despising , anger, fear and self-deprecation, and to restore strength worn away by despair.” I say Amen, sisters and brothers!

If you’re not familiar with the The Greater Good Science Center at Berkeley, this is their Mission Statement and it contains page after page of material about kindness and happiness. You could spend hours just on this one website. Here are two articles from that website on kindness that speak for themselves. The article Three Strategies for Bringing More Kindness into Your Life “…highlights 10 core kindness practices, grouped into three broad categories. 1) How to Cultivate Feelings of Kindness. 2) How to Boost the Happiness We Get from Kindness. 3) How to Inspire Kindness in Others. The second article, Kindness Makes You Happy…and Happiness Makes You Kind, is from two studies, one from the Journal of Social Psychology and the other from Journal of Happiness Studies , that propose that “…giving to others makes us happy, even happier than spending on ourselves. What’s more, our kindness might create a virtuous cycle that promotes lasting happiness and altruism.”

To end this blog with a bang, here is a TED TALK by Dr. William Wan, titled Happiness and Kindness Dr. Wan is the General Secretary of the Singapore Kindness Movement and the World Kindness Movement. He has graduate degrees in law, philosophy, religion and theology. Now that’s impressive. His TALK is actually about happiness by the way of kindness.

Blessings!

Getting a Handle on Life

by Amanda Peterson

I purchased a card once that had a man sitting in the middle of the desert, looking disheveled, holding a handle in his hand, and the caption read, “I used to have a handle on life but then it fell off”. With the beginning of the New Year there can be this sense that if the handle fell off in 2015, now in 2016 it might attach again. Yet what we find happening at the end of year just moves with us into the New Year. There is a sense if only one could find the right device, the handle on life would be securely in place, and whatever happens there is a means to manage it, understand it, and have some control in it. A means to ride the tiger in a sense, without getting thrown off and eaten.

The handle is a very important part of life. Often the emphasis is on what the handle connects to. The situation or person that needs to be opened or changed or moved. How does one move this stone? How does one get a handle on an overwhelming issue? How can someone feel life is manageable and not just a series of uncontrollable events? How does one put a handle on fear?

What if, rather than a way of controlling and managing life, the handle is what connects us to ALL the energy of life. What if the handle is God? Looking at it as how one chooses to hold on to God as a way of getting a hold of the person or situation. That makes whatever is on the other side of the handle less influential than the means of connecting to it. The question becomes less about how does one roll away the stone and more about how does one’s faith and relationship with God connect to this stone? The handle is how one connects God to the situations in life.

Over the next few weeks, we will look at these questions as a way to begin 2016, using these questions as a way to engage our faith life rather than make life manageable. May God be your connection to all this New Year brings!!

Handling Criticism

by Ryan Gear

It’s been almost three years since we launched weekly worship services at One Church. Overall, the process has been inspiring and encouraging with changed lives, renewed hope, and growth.

It’s also true that one of my most difficult challenges since planting One Church has been adjusting to the level of criticism that comes with leading a forwardthinking organization.

I’m sharing this post for two kinds of people:

1. Leaders in any field who are considering starting something
2. Church planters, specifically, who are discouraged

Whether it’s a business, a church, a group of some kind, anything, whenever you hear stories of growth and everything looks rosy, you should know that those stories usually do not include the continual, daily struggles that occur simultaneously with the growth. Some church planters were associate pastors previously and did not realize that the associate pastor is always the most popular person in the world. Once, you’re in the lead role, you have to learn to duck!

Here is the reality of One Church:

Since starting One Church, I have been called more names than in junior high and high school combined.
I have been accused of heresy several times.
1/3 of the congregation left the church after one sermon they didn’t like.
A one-time attendee told me that I’m leading people to hell.
I received emails that were angry rants, bordering on threats
A Young Earth Creationist ended his final email to me like this, “I have issued the warning I was instructed to give you. Now I shake the dust from my garments.”

That was in the first six months.

The harshest critics have long since gone, but at one point in the life of One Church, sharp criticism was a weekly reality for me. Every week, one or more people expressed that they were not happy about something in the church, usually something to do with me. It might have been a criticism of a sermon. It might have been my stance on an issue. It might have been that they didn’t like something about the music (still, ultimately my responsibility). There may have been a miscommunication, and apologizing profusely was not enough.

Of course, constructive criticism helps me and One Church. One Church is better because of people who genuinely care about the church and about me, and they contribute in many positive ways, sometimes through criticism. It is easy to tell the difference, however, between people who love you and offer constructive criticism and people who do not.

In my experience, at least half of the criticism you receive will not be constructive. It comes from people who are acting out of their own issues and spewing on you. They want power they have not earned. They want the church you planted to look like the church they just left. They criticize because they’re angry.

For me, the key to handling criticism is a prayer, a mantra, I heard from a veteran leader who has survived several seasons of harsh criticism:

“God, give me a softer heart and thicker skin.”

It’s a journey toward character traits discovered in two seemingly opposite directions – vulnerability and toughness, tenderness and strength, flexibility and resilience. It seems like those qualities are opposites, but they are not. In my experience, it’s vulnerability, tenderness, and flexibility that lead to toughness, strength, and resilience. If I’m confident enough to be vulnerable and softhearted toward others, then I’m confident enough to stand tall and stay on course.

Nope, that’s not easy.

It is, however, necessary to succeed in church planting or any other leadership capacity.

If you’re discouraged, may you continually grow into the kind of person who tenderly loves people even when they criticize you, and may you be confident enough to be vulnerable, assured of who you are and your purpose, so that in softhearted strength, criticism is powerless to discourage you.

Stories That Happen

by Tyler Connolley

As a pastor, I always disliked Christmas. It wasn’t the exhaustion at having so many duties on top of family obligations (although that’s a thing, and we should all be kind to our pastors during the holidays, because they really are exhausted). The hard thing about Christmas for me was trying to find something to say about stories that I and many in my church didn’t believe happened. The date of Christmas, the annunciation, the census, the star, the Magi — the fact is that none of these stories has any historical corroboration. As a result, many of us feel like we’re playing a grownup game of Santa Claus at Christmas. We’re pretending to believe in something we learned was a lie a long time ago, because we don’t want to burst the bubble of our younger brother who still believes.

Here’s the thing though, there is practically no extra-biblical evidence for any of the Jesus story. One of my friends who is an atheist likes to tweak people by telling them he doesn’t believe Jesus existed. I do believe Jesus was a real person, and at first I tried to argue with my friend. “It seems preposterous that the earliest Christians would create Jesus out of whole cloth,” I said. “There must be some kernel of historical fact in his story, even if it’s embellished.”

He just grinned at me, and responded, “You can’t prove it. I don’t believe it.” He’s right, and I’ve come to realize it doesn’t matter.

The power of Jesus, his life and his teachings, is not in his historicity, but in the stories themselves. I don’t need to know who wrote the Magnificat for it to strike me to my core as a beautiful poem of hope for the oppressed of the world. The fact that the story says it was sung by a young pregnant girl whose life had just been turned upside down adds to the poignancy. I know of many young people who need the truth of that song, and it inspires me to work toward a day when the powerful are brought down from their thrones and the hungry are filled with good things.

When we stop worrying about the historicity of these stories, we begin to realize they are stories that happened, that happen, and that continue to happen. The stories mean even more when I let them step outside of their first-century trappings, and reimagine them in my own time, as Everett Patterson did in this amazing print. Then I find myself asking, “How I should live my life differently, knowing there are Josés and Marias in the world?”

Today is Epiphany, the last day of the Twelve Days of Christmas, on which we celebrate the visit of the Magi to the baby in Bethlehem. For many of us who are bound by ideas of fact and Truth (always capitalized), this is one of the hardest stories to swallow. Today, however, I invite you to read the story and see what truths you can find in it.

Don’t worry about the historicity. Read it like a parable, because I think that’s how it was intended. What does it tell you about the nature of the world? How does it inspire you to imagine a world that doesn’t yet exist? How is it a story that happened, that happens, and that continues to happen? Let it happen to you. Read it for what it is, an encounter with Jesus that has the power to change you.

Perspective for the New Year

by Amos Smith

“What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” – James 4:14

In this New Year I am reminded of life’s brevity. I am reminded of the preciousness of each day, week and month. It is a privilege to be alive—to be among the living. As the New Year approaches, I think about beloved members of my congregation and friends who have died: Roma McKibbin, who died on August 10th of this year; Marshallese Pastor Wendell Langrine, who died on July 26th; and Kristy Urias, who died on February 4th.

The chart above puts life in perspective for me. It makes me realize that this coming year is precious. What can we do with these twelve months that are before us? How can we make a difference? How can we use our gifts to make a contribution to our faith community, to our wider community, and to our world?

Life is an ongoing multi-generational poem, and each of us contributes a verse.

Values stink.

by Karen Richter

Why do you bring your children to church? Why do you think there are children sitting in the pews of your church?

If you ask parents this question (or if just now, you answered this question for yourself), you might hear answers like this:

“It’s important for me that my child learns the values of our church community.”

“I want my kid to be a good person.”

“Church provides my family with moral guidance.”

Values stink. by Karen Richter, Southwest Conference Blog southwestconferenceblog.org United Church of Christ — Can we agree than authenticity is better than shiny and happy?

Nope. Sorry – nope nope nope.

Church is not about values. Not only are there OTHER places in our society to expose your children to good values, there are BETTER places in our society to teach good values.

Scouting, team sports, community theater, chess club, school-based values curricula, VeggieTales… these are excellent sources for parents to teach their children the importance of fairness, teamwork, honesty, and cooperation. The kiddos will make friends along the way – it’ll be great!

Church MUST be more than values instruction. I’ll risk overstating my point (and annoying my readers): if we structure programs for children in churches with the goal of teaching good values, we will lose. Not only are the organizations I listed above doing great things with kids, the Gospel of grace always trumps morality.

What then takes the place of values instruction? In progressive churches, we’ve somewhat abandoned old-timey instruction. I haven’t seen a good fill-in-the-blank Bible worksheet since I was 10 years old. We’re working on abandoning a school-based model and even in some churches we’re getting rid of a star-earning, funfunfun carnival model.

What’s left? Just two principles guide children’s ministry in the post-modern era, and the earlier a child can communicate and internalize these, the better.

“At church, people love me just as I am.”

This means prioritizing relationships and connections over curricula and content. This means children participating in worship – not as cute props for adults to coo at, but as full members of the worshipping community.

“At church, I can ask questions.”

Whether it’s a deep question like this one I got during Advent, ‘How do we know that Jesus was God’s son? What if he was just a good person?’ or it’s a question from the Our Whole Lives question box or just an everyday ‘Why?’ – questions are at the heart of the spiritual journey for every person. When our churches are safe places for questions, doubt, experiential pondering, they will thrive.

In fact, what would our churches look like if every person at every age and in every situation can express these same ideas:

“At church, people love me just as I am.”

“At church, I can ask questions.”

So, yeah, values stink. The Good News we have is so much better, deeper, and wider than values.

Peace to us all in 2016.

Vulnerability is Sacred

by Davin Franklin-Hicks

Vulnerability is sacred.

I first thought this when I had been attending First UCC Tucson for about three years. I was spending a great deal of time, attention, thought, and meditation in developing relationships, including the one that I had once known with God. It was a communion Sunday and I often did not partake in communion. This was due to a resentment that I had against those who created insiders and outsiders at the communion table. The other aspect of my refusal was that I did not know what, if anything, communion meant to me and my path.

Vulnerability is sacred.

The work that I get to do in the community where I live is often heart-wrenching at times and celebratory at other times. Working in the realm of substance dependence and mental illness, I see people often at their most vulnerable. The stripping away of ego is so hard to watch, especially when it is due to illness. Many of the folks who fill our jails and psychiatric facilities have a large number of adverse childhood events, also known as trauma. As trauma increases, health needs and disparities often increase. As safety increases, health needs and disparities often decrease.

Vulnerability is sacred.

The return to the sense of safety often comes on the heels of talking about that which made it unsafe, most often trauma. The concept, “the only way out is through” is very applicable here. Finding that way through trauma is not for the faint of heart. That being said, I shall now give you a bit of a gross comparison that a coworker of mine uses. He says, “This whole time we have been together, you have been swallowing your saliva without any thought about it. It’s natural to you, it’s normal. If you were given a cup and told to spit in it vs swallow the saliva, that would likely gross you out. If you were then told to drink from that cup (my note: my stomach is turning too, ugh) you would likely refuse.” Here’s why that is: when it is out of you, it changes. We interact with it differently, we see it differently, we address it differently.

Vulnerability is sacred.

The telling of trauma is exhausting, scary, and so incredibly hard. The pain that induced the trauma feels fresh and feels awful, most do not want to talk about things like that. Yet, we must. To some degree, we must. In the telling, we are no longer alone with it. In the telling, we are able to look at what exactly it is that was inside us. In the telling, the event of the trauma can be a single event versus the overshadowing painful, all consuming thing that it had been. It is out of me, it is out of you and we can look at it together.

Vulnerability is sacred.

That communion table. What am I to do with that communion table? Can I just fake it and hope the feelings of acceptance for communion comes? Can I continue to ignore it and just check out while it is being served? I could do that. Or I could work on this a bit more. I chose the latter. The only way out is through, after all. Within the same hour that I opted into contending with communion and determining my beliefs and practices, a thought came to me. Communion is the telling of trauma. As we sit with the understanding of the horror that was done to Jesus in his execution, we are bearing witness. We are bearing witness to injustice. We are bearing witness to something intensely private and very human. We are bearing witness to trauma.

Vulnerability is sacred.

I look very closely for the vulnerability in those around me. I have a strong desire to protect that vulnerability, to ensure they are safe and cared for in whatever way the vulnerability arises. I have a strong connection to vulnerability and I have a strong disdain for abuses of power. The Sermon on the Mount, or the Beatitudes made perfectly clear the expectation that we would look for the vulnerable and honor that vulnerability with love. In so doing, we are reaching beyond what is in front of us or what is our present reality and we are inviting the sacred into our relationships. When I am vulnerable with you and when you are vulnerable with me, I do believe God is there. The whole, when two or three people are gathered in my name, I am there in the midst of them. The presence of the sacred.

May we tell our stories.

May we look for our shared humanity.

May we be vulnerable. And may the sacred be present.

Your vulnerability is sacred.

The Force is with us

by Ken McIntosh

This year, the world is celebrating a very special season, in a very special way. Evidence of the unique meaning of this time is a phrase that we hear repeated, in some cases daily.

“May the Force be with you!”

It really is very appropriate for this season, when many of the world’s religions celebrate the battle between the dark side and the light…the winter solstice could perhaps be regarded as one epic lightsaber duel… the annual return of the Jedi. For Christ-followers, it is the time of the year when we choose to celebrate the Force coming to live among us.

John’s Gospel begins with a word of enormous importance…a somewhat mysterious word…and that word is… ‘the Word.’ “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” That’s some ‘Word!’

Oceans of ink have been poured out trying to explain and understand ‘the Word.’ In Greek the word is ‘Logos.’ It has survived and transmuted into our language today whenever we speak of a brand ‘logo.’ The Word ‘Logos’ was used outside of the Bible—used a lot, in fact, for centuries. It had meaning for Jews, Greeks and Romans. And it was still somewhat mysterious.

Jews associated the Divine Logos with the Hebrew word ‘Amar,’ = “to speak, to utter”…as in Genesis 1, “In the Beginning… God spoke, saying let there be…and there was…and it was good.” The first words of John’s Gospel echoes Genesis, “In the Beginning was the Word…”

The Greeks also spoke much of the Word. The Logos was the ordering principle, or the cosmic pattern, that underlay all things. Heraclitus spoke of the Word as the rational and divine intelligence that controlled the universe. In fact, for the Greeks the Word was what made the universe the UNIverse (as opposed to a disordered omni-verse); the Word was the single unifying factor shared by a vast number of diverse phenomenon in the cosmos.

I am sure that if ancient sages could speak to us at the end of 2015 they would readily affirm—“In the beginning was the Force!” Remember Obi Wan’s first description of the force, from the original 1977 Star Wars? “The Force is what gives a Jedi his power… It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.” That sounds an awful lot like the Greek philosopher Heraclitus!

So the thinkers and mystics of the ancient world knew the Word the same way that people now know the Force. They could protest, like Han Solo protests in the first movie “There’s no mystical energy field controls my destiny!” Or give benedictions like a Jedi “May the Force be with you!”

But there are things they could not know about the Word…not until “the Word became flesh and made his home among us.”

They could not know that the Word would look at humanity through eyes filled with compassion.

They could not know that the Word would challenge a lynch mob telling them “Whoever is without sin, let them cast the first stone,” and then assure a shamed woman, “Neither do I condemn you.”

They could not know that the Word would weep, shedding tears at the death of a friend.

They could not know that the Word would shed tears again, thinking about the coming destruction of Jerusalem, and say to the women of Palestine “I have longed to gather you, like a hen gathering her chicks under her wings.”

They could not possibly imagine that the Word would rasp out a phrase, over and over, from the cross, “Abba, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.” “Abba, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.”

The Force was strong in that One.

Christians have gotten their theology backward, over the centuries. They have sometimes proclaimed “Jesus is like God…Jesus does what God does.” But in fact it’s the reverse. In fact, “God is like Jesus…God does what Jesus does.”

Yes, the Force was in Jesus of Nazareth… and the Force is with us still. Not just a fact of history, but a reality today.

We can feel the Force within us, and…the Force is still speaking.

And that’s Good News for 2016, because the power of the Dark Side still entices us.

In 2016 we need to heed well the words of that ancient prophet of the Word, Master Yoda. “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

Fear-talk abounds: be afraid of terrorism, be afraid of refugees, be afraid of people with darker skin, be afraid of people who follow other religions, be afraid of your neighbor, be afraid of the future…be afraid, leading to anger, leading to hate, leading to suffering.”

Jesus still speaks, saying “In this world you will have many troubles, but do not give in to fear, for I have overcome the world!”

God is love.

The Force is love.

Be strong in the Force, and may the Force be with you.

Amen.

Angry is as Angry Does!

by Donald Fausel

Angry is as Angry Does!

“If you want to learn something, read. If you want to understand something, write. If you want to master something, teach.” I’m not sure who the original author of those wise words was but I accidentally found them in a Chinese fortune cookie. Then not far after my discovery, 1983 to be precise I read a book by Neil Clark Warren, titled Make Anger your Ally. I was impressed by his book, not just because he earned a Master of Divinity from Princeton, and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Chicago, but his book was down to earth and made a lot of sense to me. Oh and a more recent version of the original book was published in 1999.

Following the dictum from the Chinese fortune cookie, and the credentials of Dr. Warren, I began to read more about anger, write commentaries on anger, and a few years later I began to teach courses and workshops on anger. Eventually I realized that anger was another obstacle to living a happier life, and I began to make it a part of my pursuit of happiness commentaries.

As the title of this blog Angry is as Angry Does suggests, it’s not anger that is the problem, our problem is how we cope with the anger that we have, and the anger that others have towards us. Anger affects millions of people. It affects all races, all ages, all religions, all ethnic groups, in essence—everyone!

In the words of the Dalai Lama, “When people get angry they lose all sense of happiness. Even if they are good-looking and normally peaceful, their faces turn livid and ugly. Anger upsets their physical well-being and disturbs their rest; it destroys their appetite and makes them age prematurely. Happiness, peace, and sleep evade them, and they no longer appreciate people who have helped them and deserve their trust and gratitude. Under the influence of anger, people of normally good character change completely and can no longer be counted on. They are ruined by their anger, and they ruin others too. But anyone who puts all his energy into destroying anger will be happy in this life….”

In order to write this blog I had to go back and review the work I had done on anger some years ago, and bring myself up to date on current research. When I googled Anger and Happiness I was surprised to find how many articles were available. There was even one titled Awaken Your Own Force: 9 Ways Happiness and The Force are One . The author of the article, Jim Smith, was referring to the opening last week of the movie Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. I didn’t even know the force had been asleep, since I left off at Episode II. Dr. Smith was kind enough to remind us that in the original Star Wars film, the Force “…is described as an energy field created by all living things that surround and penetrate living beings and binds the galaxy together.” He goes on to state, “That sounds an awful lot like Happiness, right?” To prove his point he offers nine ways happiness and the force are one. As an example the number one way they are the same is, both the May the Force be with you, and Happiness are indeed one, since they’re both are “all around you.” I found an another article, Understand Anger: Why Anger Isn’t Irrational which agrees that “Anger is a force of energy that we project in order to push away or combat a threat.” But it doesn’t identify happiness as force of energy. If you want to read the rest of the ways that force and happiness are the same just click on Dr. Smith’s article above. Or maybe your children or grandchildren can enlighten you.

I also searched for a book from Earnie Larsen, whom I mentioned in my last blog, hoping he would have written a book related to anger. Sure enough he didn’t disappoint me. The title of his book is From Anger to Forgiveness . Here are a few themes from Larson’s book that I found helpful. He first talks about what he calls The Faces of Anger. These include:

Depression: probably the most common face of anger.
Smoldering Rage: One symptom is the tendency to take everything personally.
The Fidgets: people with behavioral styles that always seem to be tap dancing faster than anyone else. They have very little serenity.
Secret Keeper: This person must always look good. They lie about things because they don’t want to spoil their image.
Victim: They feel they have no options. Down deep they sense they don’t count—that no one takes them seriously.

For each one of these faces of anger, Larsen provides a story of one of his former clients who had dealt with that particular problem. Without going into details, for an example of Depression, Larsen tells Curt’s story. He describes Curt as being depressed but not dysfunctional, and goes on to show how you don’t have to be dysfunctional to be depressed. In Curt’s case he was very active in his professional activities but at the same time he felt terrible negativity and hostility, and was emotionally flat. The stories are very helpful.

The following YouTube videos are each about 20 minutes long. They both focus on anger and their answers are too long for me to cover in a blog. So here they are. The first one is The Purpose and Importance of Anger and the second titled How to Deal with Anger. I hope both are helpful!

You may also like:

Psychology Today on Anger

Pathway to Happiness

May the Force be With You, and may you have a healthy and happy 2016.