ANGER

Surely God does not intend for us to be angry. Simply because anger overpowers and imprisons the joy that God has planted deep inside us.

Anger seems to be on the increase as God’s children are killing each other everywhere. And increasing in individual amassing of weapons for the purpose of killing.

Anger seems to arise when there is a feeling of loss of power, of control. It can be something as detailed as a TV set not working properly or can be a general feeling of more than hatred toward a group of people—perhaps coming from a fear that they might become more powerful, might try even to kill us.

What God wants is to eliminate the anger in us—one by one—through a personal transformation experience. Elimination of anger is the only means to our living in harmony with each other, whether in marriage, families, communities, nations.

Anger comes from wanting power, no matter how much we already have. Anger may be a sibling of greed—or surely plays into it. No matter how much power we have, we want more. We want people to behave the way we want them to behave. We want events and outcomes to follow our agenda. We want to be in control.

The drive for power does something peculiar to our insides—both physically and psychologically. It causes negative consequences that actually reduces our power and thus increases our anger.

Anger occupies the space where creativity and authentic excitement for life is intended to live.

We would do well to identify our angry spots and ask ourselves if we really do want to be rid of them. If we do, our Inner Wisdom can destroy what is keeping us from experiencing abundant life. It waits for our permission.

13 August 2014
Ann Glover O’Dell

(Note: my personal transformation story, where anger was destroyed in me and hasn’t returned in 30 years, is contained in the book,  Humpty Dumpty Hatched, which is available on this website.)

I SPEAK FOR THOSE

I speak for those who
once upon a time
or rather
once before time
before our fall
into dual time
the time before
the brokenness of consciousness
when we reflected
the authentic image
of what had begotten us.

We
the once begotten
have need of something likened
to a twice begottenness
for blurred has become
the holy image
and our polishing cloths
are helpless to restore
the depth and luster
of our former selves.

2 March 2015

(Note: Additional poems that deal with brokenness and restoration, duality and unity, and themes of wholeness and transformation may be found on this website under POETRY.)

BEING

The story of the sacrifice of Isaac is so powerful that it is never referred to as the near-sacrifice. Abraham’s willingness to give up his son was 100%. The story shows, with two characters and God, what in the Jesus narrative is accomplished in one human being.

In stories the spiritual must be represented in the physical else there is nothing for the reader to work with as symbols. The physical can be interpreted in many ways and that’s what makes for a good story.

For Abraham, the son he had prayed for, his link to progeny, his proof of manhood, the long-awaited delivery of God’s promise—all this as his most prized possession was being asked of him. And his willingness was all God wanted.

Jesus was asked to give his life, his most prized possession, a life lived doing what he thought was the most important things: preaching, teaching, healing—what he thought God wanted him to do. As all those things were given up he became, in the narrative, one whose very being was transformed. The story says his being was so transparent and ethereal that he could move through a locked door and yet could eat and drink as a normal human.

He was recognized in a prayer of thanks. He prepared a meal for his friends. He didn’t preach or teach or heal. He encouraged his friends to be compassionate.

He just was. His being was enough. His being was exactly what God wanted of him. And what God wants of us.