Love is not easily angered

 Love is not easily angered - link to Podcast

It is important to be angry at injustice as it can fire us up to get involved in important work.  But in loving relationships, the anger caused by the petty stupidity and selfishness of the flawed humans we do life with needs a bit of tolerance and grace.

 

There is plenty to be angry about in this life.

There is the outrageous statistics and personal trauma of rape and domestic violence in this country that is just sickening.  Rightly so, lots of people are protesting and furious about this. 

People are angry about immigration policy, angry at the banks for ripping off the little guys, angry at the police or the church or the justice system or any number of authority figures who abuse their power or are incompetent. 

It seems to me that being angry is often appropriate and reasonable.  Jesus got angry and lots of people who ended up doing good things did so because they were angry. 

I will never forget being at the funeral of a guy who overdosed at the Salvo rehab I was involved with and the magistrate of the drug court at the time spoke at his funeral.  He said I am so angry that this has happened and it just fires me up to do even more to fight against the scourge of drug addiction in our society. 

We should be angry about injustice. Edmund Burke is attributed to have said “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

The founder of the Salvos William booth did a whole angry speech.  While women weep as they do now I’ll fight.    

So anger that helps us focus on doing what is important is a good thing.  However today scripture says that love is not easily angered.  And this is where the rubber hits the road or in my case with the lovely Sue, where the eye rolls happen. 

Anger in the small everyday interactions of our lives is an important thing to talk about, as this is where domestic violence and the breakdown of relationships begins.  When we get angry over petty things, a loving relationship cannot flourish.

There is no place for abuse in any loving relationship, but there has to be a degree of tolerance for the normal stupidity and selfishness of the flawed human you are trying to do life with and getting angry is rarely helpful.  

 I asked the lovely Sue if she is ever angry with me and she shook her head with a sheepish grin. 

I didn’t believe her, so pushed a bit harder.  I got specific and asked if she had been angry with me today at all?  Turns out she had been a little more cranky with me than I thought. 

Here’s the list. 

She was angry when I interrupted her in the bedroom where she is working at the moment to ask what she described as stupid questions while she was doing some prep work for me for Good Friday and Easter Sunday church services at Maroochydore next Sunday.  I asked her if she would like to come and help me do this meeting at Maroochydore as she was so invested in helping prepare it.  She said - No, I’m doing the Easter meetings in Melbourne aren’t I?  Flying out on Thursday afternoon. It’s been in the diary and talked about for months. Oh, yeah.

She was angry when I went to the ensuite toilet which is a thin door away from her work space. 

She was angry when I asked her to test my new wireless microphone on teams by calling me for no reason and she did this three times before I got them to work. 

Then we had to go to the shops to buy a selfie tripod for my upcoming podcast insta stories.  I told her this was an exciting new feature of the podcast I am planning, which will no doubt go viral with all the young people who currently don’t listen to the podcast at all.  Sue’s response was a less than subtle eye roll. 

Anyway, we chose a selfie tripod and we were at the checkout when she asked me if I had my wallet with me to pay for this.  I did not.  It was in the car.  We then returned the item and she sent me off to get the wallet.  But we were at Carindale shopping center which is a 17 hectare maze of shops, corridors and elevators and she sighed heavily as she realized I would get hopelessly lost if I tried to navigate my way to the car and then find my way back to this particular shop on my own, so she had to come with me to the car to get the wallet. Then back to the shop. 

Now, I’d love to say that this was not typical in the life of the lovely Sue, but unfortunately a day like this is not uncommon.  But she is not referred to as the lovely Sue for no reason, she is not easily angered and loves me very much.  Although some days she does a lot of deep sighing!

Bless ya,

 

Bryce