Anger

“Anger” is only one letter removed from “danger.” And we can sympathize fully with the little fellow whose angry outburst brought him swift punishment. “Dear God,” he was later heard praying, “please take away my temper, and while you’re at it, take away my father’s temper too.”

When kept within reasonable limits, anger is a healthy emotion. It is not “bad” or “sinful”: it is as normal and as healthy as grief, love, joy, fear, sadness. Anger is a basic part of our human equipment, found earliest in infancy, as a response, for example, to frustration or rejection. Anger that is denied an outlet can be like a festering sore which poisons the body and the mind.

It is the stuff of which ulcers are made. It can cause blood pressure to rise, depression to set in. Aristotle anticipated modern psychology when he wrote: “Anybody can become angry—that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time and for the right purpose and in the right way—that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.”

Perhaps then the prayer of the little fellow is not our prayer after all. We should not ask God to take away our temper. Instead, we should ask, in Shakespeare’s words: “Touch me with noble anger.”