I was on the road again this last week. It was a long trip as most work trips tend to be, but at least I had a coworker with me this time to share a meal with and have some company. Still, after completing the training on day two, I had a three hour drive back home, just to turn around a go right to choir practice. So I was struggling to stay focused on the drive back.
I stopped for coffee, but that wasn't enough. From there, I went for the radio. Having no luck finding something that I could sing along with or that otherwise struck my mind, I found a news channel. But once things started to cycle again to the same talking points, I found something else, out of desperation: I found something that made me angry.
I found a radio station that was talking about how Islam is not a peaceful religion and how we should ban all Muslims from entering the US.
I was frustrated and angry enough that I stayed well-awake for the rest of the way home.
In a nutshell, I'm thoroughly disgusted by a lot the rhetoric floating around. If you can tell the difference between the KKK or the WBC and the United Methodist Church (as an example), then you can tell the difference between these extremists and the majority of Muslims. In fact, these are the people that the Syrian refugees are trying to get away from, for goodness sake. And this fear mongering is EXACTLY what ISIS wants. If the people caught in the crossfire stay there, you have hostages and you have skilled persons and you have relief resources pouring in; it is lucrative to keep them there. ISIS wants us to be distrustful and fearful of all persons because hate will perpetuate more hate and add more fuel to all kinds of fires.
If you are reading an article or listening to an opinion, try this litmus test: replace "Muslim" with "Jew" then ask yourself "Does this person sound like a Nazi?" There were articles going around in World War II asking if we should be taking any European (and particularly Jewish) immigrants in, especially from Germany and we are well aware now of what they were trying to escape from.
I have a lot more ranting points that I could go into, but that's not the main message that I want to focus on today. There is a lot of anger out there right now and a lot of fear. We can use anger. We have seen so many examples where anger is used to fuel poor decisions--lashing out, shootings, etc.--but what if we could fuel that into something productive? We can choose to use it well or poorly. I used it to keep me awake. I've used anger at my body's situation to work on making it better.
Anger isn't itself a negative thing, but it is often used as an excuse to do negative things. I've seen people get mad and channel that energy into writing letters, starting a campaign, picketing, protecting other people, creating events, educating people, and a number of other options. What you do with those emotions is going to have a huge impact, one way or the other. Back when your sibling or a neighbor picked on you when you were growing up, someone might have told you to "just ignore them." Sometimes, when they couldn't draw a reaction out of you, they escalated the antagonism or they lost interest. When someone deeply offends you, your reaction can make it better or make it worse or it could not matter at all. I feel it is better to not make things worse, such as inadvertently justifying the cause of the other side. But I know many people who cannot let some things go.
Anger itself is not the problem, but the choices that are made in its wake, those powered by a strong, emotional backing, that is where we will be judged next by our peers and enemies alike. Not because we were angry but because of how we responded to that anger. This involves keeping a cool head while simultaneously feeling your hackles rise, a wonderfully paradoxical idea. Weighing reason and emotion together to approach the situation as best it can be met sounds equally difficult, but we're facing a lot of tough decisions as a country and even as individuals--don't these problems deserve our best responses rather than ill-informed sources and knee-jerk responses?
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