Browsing tag: rage

  • Help The Troubled

    You must relieve the lot of the poor, clothe the naked, visit the sick (Matthew 25:36), and bury the dead. Go to help the troubled and console the sorrowing. (Rule of St. Benedict 4. 14-19)

    There’s all the trouble in the world, and there’s what you can do about it.

    Not much.

    You don’t know the name of the neighbor who suns himself on his back steps in the cool of the morning in his briefs, but you’ve seen him up close once. He was nearly naked and mostly drunk then too. You let him know his fence was on fire, and he did get up to throw some water on it, not another cigarette butt, so you probably don’t need to worry about him. That was the fence on his other side: not your problem. Lower the shades so the kids don’t get another visual of the bulging briefs over breakfast.

    The friend down the street is going back to her maiden name after her husband left her on her own with two little girls. All you volunteered for was carpool, but she looked so worn out at the end of the week that you went back and handed her your lasagna. You made it from scratch: the meat filling, the ricotta layers, the tomato sauce. It took all afternoon to put together, and parting with it does still hurt some, but not as much as watching their lives splatter.

    You never even met the woman who signed up to teach Sunday school and then just didn’t show, for whatever reason. You thought you were going to be the aide, sucker. Shouldn’a been there. Here’s the roster: now it’s on you. A dozen innocent, willing faces are counting on you to explain the gap between earth and heaven.

    It’s a fine day for a picnic. Release your children into the park and let them run around while you listen to the regulars vent their grievances. They have everything the world has to offer, and no end of complaints. They’ve achieved the American Dream: a house inside the Loop, private schools, and two food allergies in every kitchen. They will rant as long as you will listen, but you’ve reached your outside limit. Time to hit the zoo and see some animals at feeding time.

    Funny how all the kids’ legs give out as soon as they pass the zoo exit. They can run for hours, but they limp, cramp, blister and drag their feet when you try to hurry them through marijuana plaza on the corner of Cambridge and Fannin. If you could make the light before someone hustles you for cash, you’d be at the Metro Rail station across from Hermann Hospital.

    Now there’s a wild sight: on the train platform, a girl wearing nothing but a hospital gown sits in one of the logo wheelchairs from a different hospital up the street. The I.V. line is still stuck in her vein, and the drip bag is still dangling from the rolling pole. Everyone else knows to walk around these impeding objects. Do you really have to stop and ask if she needs help?

    Turns out she doesn’t. Her boyfriend comes over when he sees you talking to her and tells you so. He’s been working out a lot lately, from the look of those muscles. His tattoos proclaim something you don’t have time to read, because he’s too edgy to stand still in one place for long. The vibe you get from him is rage. She looks like she’s about to slump out of the wheelchair, and she can barely nod her head: yes. When he circles back around, lights up a joint and hands it to her, she can still reach for it, though. Maybe you’re witnessing an exchange of loving devotion.  Or maybe he’s the one who put her in the hospital, and now he’s retrieving his property, along with a couple of items of equipment that they do not give away when they discharge patients.

    You stopped, so a bright, competent intern stops too. Yes, the boyfriend does look like an explosion about to happen. Yes, the escaped girl does look like a wreck. One of you keep an eye on him, and one of you put in a call to the hospital with the missing wheelchair and the absentee patient. Wait till half a dozen EMS guys his own size are carefully closing in. Someone with backup is talking him into letting her get lifted into an ambulance.

    Mom! What’s for dinner?

    Not lasagna, actually. Maybe scrounge night again. Be glad you have a dad who’s happy to see you when he comes home.

    Fall into bed. You’ve done what you could. It’s all a human being can do. Let God spell you on holding the universe together.

    Domestic Violence Hotline U.S.A.

     

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  • Beware Fatal Attraction

    Rage Definition

    We must then be on guard against any base desire, because death is stationed near the gateway of pleasure. (Rule of St. Benedict 7.24)

    Last week a man identified himself with death and stationed himself at the gateway of pleasure to deal it out.  

    This was not a Kenny Rogers kind of Gambler.  But was he one of us?

    Answer 1:

    We don’t see the appeal of murdering as many people as possible before killing ourselves.  If we were to kill ourselves, we’d just swallow a bottle of pills.

    Answer 2:

    Ending it all is not necessarily the goal.  You just want what you want, and you don’t care if it kills you.

    Answer 3:

    The lure dangling before your eyes is more playful.  You figure you can take the bait and leave someone else on the hook for it.

    Answer 4:

    None of the above.  You want to live a good life.  And you want to be happy.  Why does this have to be so hard?

    St. Benedict’s approach:

    St. Benedict warns us not against desire in general, but against base desire.  We keep all our other desires in check because our deepest desire is for life itself.  Only God can satisfy this desire.

    First mistake to avoid:

    The first mistake is to imagine that Christian faith requires a repression of desire itself.  

    Not so: Christian faith is all about the ultimate fulfillment of desire.

    Second mistake to avoid:

    The second mistake is to imagine that because desire itself is good, therefore all of our particular desires must also be good.  

    Not so: the practice of the faith involves learning to distinguish between right desires and base desires. We also develop self-control, so we can enjoy good impulses without giving in to bad ones.

    Third mistake to avoid:

    The third mistake is to imagine that because there are right desires and base desires, every impulse must have a moral rating.  

    Not so: many actions are in themselves neutral.  The rightness or baseness of a desire resonates within the forms of God.  Where God is silent, we may improvise as we please.  But where God reveals, we heed and harmonize.

    The theory isn’t that difficult.  It’s the practice that gets you, as you finger your way through the cacophony. All around are neurotic types who want to dominate, each according to his own devices. There are hedonist types who want to let everything go, especially themselves.  And there are neurotic hedonists: the peculiar creatures of our time.

    The neurotic hedonist rejects the forms of God in their entirety, by rejecting the very existence of God.  He sets himself up as a replacement for God.  This sort of narcissist glorifies the impulses of the self.  But the neurotic hedonist also regulates the worship of the self with a complex, compulsory structure.  Then when he really gets going, he tries to impose the worship of himself onto everyone else.

    The Enraged Man:

    A neurotic hedonist can develop into an enraged man.  For a lifetime he cultivates anger at everything that does not conform to his control.  For a lifetime he refuses to tune the one thing his creator asks him to adjust: himself.

    The Christian script calls for an entirely different way of living.  We worship God and attempt to follow his lead.  We subordinate our wills to his on principle and seek to harmonize our desires with his.  But within the parameters set by God, we enjoy complete freedom.  We’re under no compulsion to do anything in a fixed way.  We rid ourselves of anger, rage, malice, slander–how?  By giving thanks to the one from whom we receive every good thing.

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