The New Man: Part 1
By Myrna Ishak
Picture this – you’re seven-ish years old, sitting on the floor while your school teacher reads a book aloud. Something about a boy living in a peach. The carpet is scratchy and it makes your legs itch; why do you even have to sit here – the lunch bell rings! Your train of thought is cut short as you, and about twenty other children, scramble madly outside. You make a beeline for your favourite playground spot, systematically dodging and weaving between those in your way. You clutch your lunch tightly to your chest – a ham sandwich, an apple, and a bag of Cheetos-equivalent chips. This isn’t working, the thronging crowd of students isn’t even close to dispersing. So, you take a short cut. It’s a risky move, running past the principal’s office when no one’s supposed to be indoors, but really, when is she ever actually in her office?
“And where do you think you’re going?”
Your heart sinks as you turn to face the voice’s source. Her face is pinched, arms crossed, and you feel like a bug under a microscope. To make a long story short, you’ve earned a detention. But so what if you were indoors? You were just passing by – how else were you supposed to get outside with enough time to enjoy your lunch? Your sheepishness and embarrassment are replaced by another feeling and you see red. Time slows down. An orange blur flies through the air, colliding with Mrs Jones’ back as she walks away from of you. Her brown jacket is now pelleted with orange cheese dust where the individual Cheetos made contact, and your single detention has suddenly turned into several.
Over a decade later, I can finally look back at this memory with some amusement. It comes as no surprise that anger has been confirmed to temporarily impact cognition and the way we process external stimuli. I’m sure everyone has a similar story where anger has caused rash behaviour, as Solomon so frankly states:
“For anger rests in the bosom of senseless men” – Ecc 7:9
To put it simply, anger is an emotional state often secondary to a perceived threat. We know it is an inevitable feeling as a range of Biblical figures, from Cain to Jesus, encounter it – but what separates the passion that would cause a man to slaughter his own brother and that which drove our Lord to overturn vendors’ tables in the temple?
Motive and result.
Anger is only justified if its root cause is love of God. If my anger is triggered by my desire for self-preservation, driven by my ego, or in defence of my values or beliefs – it is unjustified.
And what becomes of unjustified anger? There are essentially only a few ways this can go:
- My anger is aggressive – I hurt those who hurt me, be it verbally, physically, or with Cheetos. Choose your weapon.
- My anger is assertive – I call out those who hurt me and hold them accountable.
- My anger is passive – I redirect my anger through other mediums; I ignore, I feign disinterest, I manipulate.
- My anger is suppressed – I’m fine, really! The rejection I suffered will only gnaw at my insides until it evolves into bitterness and malice; maybe it’ll even impact my physical health. But I really am just fine.
“An angry man digs up strife, but a furious man digs up sins” – Proverbs 29:22
HH Pope Shenouda III suggests a beautifully practical strategy for dealing with anger:
1. Avoid circumstances known to provoke your anger –
“Do not be a companion to an angry man and do not associate with a quick-tempered friend, lest you learn his ways and receive a snare for your soul” – Proverbs 22:27-28
2. Do not make decisions, be it by thought, word, or action, during a time of anger –
“He who refrains from uttering a harsh word is intelligent, and a longsuffering man has discernment” – Proverbs 17:29
3. And finally, take off the old man and put on the new – put off anger and put on patience. Confess the weaknesses that may have caused you to sin in anger, and train yourself to adopt a disposition of love, long-suffering, and self control.
“But now, you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him …” – Colossians 3:8-10