Tuesday, May 24, 2022

There is a time for righteous anger.

 

Righteous Indignation

“Righteous anger is usually not about oneself. It is about those whom one sees being harmed and whom one wants to help. In short, righteous anger is a tool of justice, a scythe of compassion, more than a reactive emotion. Although it may have its roots deep in our fight-or-flight desire to protect those in our family or group who are threatened, it is a chosen response and not simply an uncontrollable reaction. And it is not about one’s own besieged self-image, or one’s feelings of separation, but of one’s collective responsibility, and one’s feelings of deep, empowering connection.”

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

          I’ve always had a bad temper. I’m not easy to anger, but when I get mad, it’s not pretty. Once, when I was strolling my little sister, Missy, on a street in Jefferson City, TN, a kid on a bicycle kept riding around us staring at Missy, who had cerebral palsy. I was about nine years old at the time, and Missy was around four. The boy was my age or perhaps a bit older. Finally, he drew up beside us and asked, “What’s the matter with her—is she crazy or something?” Now, that was a stupid question even for a ten-year-old boy, but it didn’t warrant the beating I gave him. My daddy finally yanked me off the child and sent him and his bicycle home.

When I remember this incident, I try to parse out what my response should have been—it was a teachable moment, as they say, and I botched it badly. For me, as a child, I am certain I was embarrassed by Missy’s uncontrolled movements, and lack of speech. When someone else pointed them out, I lashed out at them because I didn’t know how to express what I was feeling. But as I grew up, that reactive anger became righteous indignation that informed everything from my career choices to my marriages, to the gym I choose to frequent now. I feel for people who are wheelchair bound and have difficulty with self-expression. It would seem to make an already difficult life even harder. I am able-bodied so I feel that collective responsibility to be an advocate for them—although, having witnessed the paralympic rugby team at Lakeshore, I realize that many of them do not need an advocate any more than I do.

One problem affecting our nation today is the lack of empathy for much of anyone outside our immediate family and friends. We have hit critical mass when it comes to minority populations being large enough to have an impact on day-to-day life and politics. Some of us welcome this as a refreshing change from the culture of “old white men” who have ruled the world for millennia. And change, God knows, has been slow and gradual with many setbacks. Now there is an outsized reaction to this coming of age of our minority populations. And the violence toward them has escalated.

Those of us who are capable of empathy should now have enough righteous indignation to stand up and stand with these populations to help them. We who have that “deep, empowering connection,” of which Desmond Tutu spoke, need to speak ourselves clearly—no more violence! No more senseless destruction, no more murder and mayhem. We must remember the teaching impressed upon us as children—we must learn to share. The planet belongs to all of us, not just a few. Let us take up our “scythe of compassion” and strike a blow for collective responsibility.

                                        In the Spirit,

                                        Jane

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