I am coming to realize that the process of adulthood, of becoming grown up, is about discovering the depths of one’s own capability to feel, to be fully human, fully alive.  Many of my posts here – indeed, a lot of why I think I began this blog – have to do with working through my own surprise at the emotions that are the consequences of the various experiences of life.  I need time and space to sort through these things, dissect and analyze them and discover their riches – be they good or bad. 

So much of the past five years or so has been spent coming to terms with and understanding the profound grief that resulted from both my miscarriage and my father’s death and also grasping the revelatory nature of that grief: what it has told me about myself, my faith, humanity and God.  I can only assume that the rest of my life will continue to be an ongoing exploration of this very adult emotion.

And, now, I have another emotional opportunity before me.  The details are irrelevant, but in the past 24 hours, for the first time in my life, I have discovered anger.  This is not the emotion of a child who has been denied a toy or the rebellion of a teenager; no, this is the real, grown-up thing.

I remember once, not long after my father died, feeling as though a large dog, friendly and warm, but ultimately unwanted, was pawing its way into my heart, circling and patting as dogs do before settling down with a heavy grunt right in the middle of who I am to remain there permanently.  And that is my grief: warm and weirdly comfortable and alive, but heavy with its presence. 

But this, this anger is something altogether different.  This is a ferocious beast that erupts onto the internal landscape of the self with a visceral scream from its maw.  And yet his burn seems a slow one.  His fury will not snuff out quickly but will rage on long before dying out.  And he is not finding his home in my heart (thank God, probably), but in my gut, roiling with the fumes and energies of digestion, demanding a physical response from my whole body. 

And here’s the first of what I’m sure will be many discoveries about this new animal: I love him.  Scary and new, fearsome and strange as he may be, there is something wonderfully powerful about him.  His insistence and persistence are beautiful and I know that he is right to be there, that his presence is for good reason.

And I am eager, so very eager, to discover what he will do next.  Will he settle down, too, eventually?  Will he dissipate into the internal landscape entirely on his own?  What will it take to calm and control him?  How will the organism that is my spiritual and emotional self change and shift to accommodate his presence within it? 

And there’s this too: my personal grief, it turns out, made me a much, much better pastor and priest than I ever was or could have been before.  It turned a light onto a human experience that I could have never understood from without and it gave me the ability to meet those I serve right there in the valley of the shadow where they are often to be found.  And that ability has been one of the greatest gifts of grief. 

So what, ultimately, will be the gift of this anger?  With Ash Wednesday just around the corner, I am mindful of the work of repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation that is at the heart of the Lenten season.  I’ve always thought of these things from the perspective of the one who has done wrong: that it is my job to do the repenting that I might be reconciled to God and others.  And, of course, that’s true.  That is my job. 

But what if, for a moment, we consider the other perspective.  What if we consider these things – repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation – from the perspective of the one who has been terribly and deeply wronged and is left with that very righteous anger?  What must take place – on both sides of relationship – for that beast to be reconciled,to be allowed its rightful place and to be pacified, to be given a just peace? 

In human relationship, that is not an easy task, but it’s also not an impossible one.  For my anger to be reconciled I would need to have the opportunity for honest conversation, for an outlet for my feelings to be told, heard and acknowledged and for sincere forgiveness to be sought and given.  There could be, indeed there very well may be, a way forward for healing and wholeness.

But in the human-divine relationship?  How can God’s righteous anger ever be resolved?  I’m reminded of Jonathan Edwards’ fiery sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.  Not my usual preferred choice for religious imagery or spiritual sustenance.  But now, now, I understand it, at least.  How right God is to be angry with us, for all our failures, for all our injustices to one another, which are our injustices to God.  And how can we ever appease such anger?  How can it ever be justly pacified and reconciled?

Surely only through supernatural intervention, through the saving act of grace.  And that, I believe, we are given in Christ, whose “power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20). 

This, at least, is the first gift of anger.