Results tagged “anger” from Marilyn Sewell

I woke up this morning with the news that President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize.  Comments from previous recipients and from world leaders were pouring in.  Although some said the prize was "premature," most respondents seem to receive the news as a harbinger of hope for our world.  I would agree.

It is true that Obama has been in office a scant 9 months, but he has not been given the Prize for what he has accomplished, so much as what he embodies.  With his election as our President, he became an iconic figure for the whole world, signifying a new day. 

--He says we need to work together in non-partisan ways to solve the enormous problems of our country.  (And he has tried to do so, in spite of no encouragement from the Republicans.)

--He says that everyone deserves to have health care.

--He says we should rid the world of nuclear weapons.

--He says it's way past time for Israel and Palestine to work for a concrete solution to their ages-old conflict.

--He says that the United States can and should lead the way in the reduction of carbon emissions, but that we cannot solve this problem alone..

--He is not naive about defense, but will always hold out the olive branch for peace.

But it is more than what he says--it is what he is, that won the Nobel Prize.  He listens, respectfully.  He changes his mind sometimes, when the facts merit it.  His wish is to compromise, some say to a fault, but he keeps the vision of the good ever before him.  He is humble.  His life has never been his own, to gain riches or fame--he is a servant of the people.  He understands that the United States is not the only country, but one country among many.  He respects his wife as his peer and true partner--which says everything about his attitude towards women.  And he is a person of color in a world long dominated by white people, but a world that is mostly populated by people of color.  His very presence as head of state of our country says to the world, "This is a new day.  No longer will we do business as usual."

So Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize.  What are the implications of his winning?  Undoubtedly, his voice will carry ever more authority when he speaks of peace.  His distractors--and they are many and they are shockingly effective--will have a tougher time convincing others that he is unworthy, for one reason or another.  His character will only become stronger as he grows into this new honor.

But Obama cannot bring peace to our world alone.  No one can.  What can each one of us do to make our world more peaceful?  I mean, personally, in addition to our political activities. 

I think peace has to be learned, like any other skill, and this skill is best learned by example.  It is learned first in the home.  Then in school and in the workplace.  It is learned in churches and universities and unions and non-profits.  What if wherever we have influence, we sought to bring caring and compassion to our words and actions?  What if we did not allow ourselves to be "hooked" by others' anger or frustration?  What if we assumed the best of people?  What if resentment was released and forgiveness practiced?  I'm not arguing for Casper Milquetoast--it's possible to be firm as well as kind.  

I have only one bumper sticker on my car--it's a small one, on the left side of the back bumper, and it says "Nonjudgment Day Is Near."  I'm trying to practice not judging--discernment, yes, but not judgment.  Just being present with what is.  I've begun noticing how much calmer I am when I can pull this off.  And how much more peaceful the world feels. 

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You know somebody like this.  I'm talking about a person who is consumed with anger about having been treated unjustly.  A  person who can think of little else but how to wreak revenge on the person or persons who caused his pain.  A person who talks about this injustice incessantly, and who can't seem to get on with his life.  Now psychiatrists have named this quality and are saying that it is a bona fide mental illness--it is known as "embitterment."  It could also be called "the Ahab Syndrome" for Melville's Captain Ahab, who was willing to sacrifice his ship and his men to capture the white whale that had taken his leg. 

Dr. Michael Linden, the psychiatrist who named this behavior, says that people suffering from the syndrome are generally good people who have worked hard at something--such as a job or a relationship--and then suffer some unexpected loss.  They get fired.  Or the wife runs away with their best friend.  They turn into helpless victims and stay mired in their hate and aggression.  Linden says that these people rarely come in for treatment, because they feel that the problem is outside, in the world, not inside themselves.  "They are almost treatment-resistant," he says.  "Revenge is not a treatment."  (La/Times-Washington Post, 5/26)

The same day that I read the Post article reprinted in the Oregonian, I read another piece: it was the horrific story of a mother who picked up her two children, a daughter 7 and a son 4, from their father for a weekend parenting visit, and then forced the children off the Sellwood Bridge, apparently an act of revenge against her estranged husband.  (Oregonian, 5/27)  The little girl was saved only by the quick action of a stranger who heard the children scream.  The man, David Haag, went out in his boat, found the children in the water, and dived in after them. Haag said he thought the girl had been holding onto her little brother, for they were right together in the water.  But he could not save the boy, who was already dead.

I look at the picture of the mom on the front page of the paper--her name is Amanda Jo. She has long dark hair, disheveled now; a dazed look on her face, she looks almost like a child herself.  What could she have been thinking, to push her two babies off a bridge?  What could she have been feeling?

This mom had lost a custody battle for her children--this was the second time she had lost custody of a child, for this past February, the court ordered an older son, by a different man, to stay in the sole custody of his father.  I can only imagine that she might have felt helpless and hopeless.  And because she could not control the courts or her husband or her own out-of-control life, she exercised influence over others by hurting the children.  She had become truly mentally ill.  Her act was akin to the man who loses a job and then goes in and shoots up the office.  Or the man who shot people in a Nashville church because his estranged wife used to go there.  I've been treated unfairly, they say.  And somebody has to pay.

It should be said, however, that even though few people will kill to justify themselves, most of us have sucked on this bitter rag of revenge.  At some time or other, we will have been treated unfairly--by another person, by society, or just by the universe in general.  And this typically makes us very, very angry.  Generally time takes care of our bitter feelings, and we move on to more productive activity.  We forget.  We may even forgive.  We understand that justice is not something we can expect or demand, in this world. 

Speaking of justice, now--what would justice be for this woman?  What would you say, if you were on the jury?  What crime is more horrible than killing one's own children?  What demons are at work within this woman?  Are they different from the ones at work in you and in me? 

I have no answers to these questions.  I am struck with the horror of the crime.  I wonder at the reaches of human pain, about the genesis of evil.   I acknowledge the darkness in myself and in all of us.

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