Anger and the Coffee Cup

(NOTE: This blog was written for our Raising Happy Children Heritage Builders Blog site on November 30, 2011 by Gail and me. The coffee cup illustration at the end of this blog has been picked up and used in several other blogs since, but we believed at the time of our composing the 11/30/2011 blog, it was original content)

There is a growing attitude that when someone has been found guilty of abuse they need help. I agree with the premise…abusers do indeed need help. The courts, in order to help corporations avoid lawsuits and steer clear of judges acting on litigation, will order a perpetrator to attend anger management classes. This is a class where he or she may get in touch with feelings and find answers as to why they have become so hostile in their relationships. It is a curious term to be sure and brings more questions than answers. Can anger really be managed? Does anger even need to be managed? Do we want it to be managed or is it even supposed to be managed? I saw an amusing headline on the bottom of the TV screen as I watched CNN’s headline news the other day. It read: Man kills man in anger management class! Managing anger would be akin to attempting to keep an inflated beach ball under water. Maybe it could be done for a little while, but eventually it will surface.

Let’s look at the word managed. It means to oversee: to hold whatever is to be managed close enough that one may protect and properly appropriate. In other words, I am to hold my anger close enough so that I may later, properly direct it. 

It strikes me as strange that socially we are not asked to manage any other of the works of the flesh. Who says, “You need to manage your fornication?” “You should attend classes to manage your thievery, or you need revelry management.” Ludicrous! Yet we are intent on managing our anger. Keep it close so we can properly appropriate it when needed. Actually the works of the flesh are not to be managed -- they are to be forgiven! Therefore, since anger is a work of the flesh, does it really need management or does it need forgiveness?

Teresa sank into the winged-back chair in my office. With her head down and shoulders slumped forward, she repeatedly clapped her knees together smashing the backs of her hands out of nervousness. This is the third time she has asked to meet with me this year. Each time it has been over the loss of a job. By the note I was handed before this appointment, this meeting will be no exception. She begins with the same old story but adds a few twists. Basically she complains that she is mistreated by other staff and is not only passed over for promotions but is instead, let go. After walking me verbally down the same path we eventually get to the same destination: her anger is raging and she is having trouble controlling herself. She sinks further into the chair.

Teresa knows that a large part of her problem has to do with anger. But when confronted with the problem of anger, she becomes angrier. She seems caught in a vicious circle and knows no way out. She has attended anger management classes that assuage her anger for a while, then it comes back on her like a Kansas prairie fire.

In the course of conversations Teresa has told me that she is an adult child of alcoholic parents. She admitted that she had a tendency toward an addictive lifestyle herself but she stayed away from alcohol because of her parents. “I do not want to have booze controlling my life the way it did my family,” she responded.

I explained that “booze” was not the only thing that we humans can get addicted to. Many have addictions to sleep, or food. Others have addictions toward pornography, or some even name shopping as theirs. 

We launched into a discussion of addiction and what it was. She asked me to verbalize how I thought addiction might be defined. I reached for my Bible and told her that I believe the best definition of addiction is found in the apostle Paul’s writings to the Roman believers. He was describing his battles with the flesh in the seventh chapter. Just before he bellows out the question, “Oh wretched man that I am. Who can deliver me from this body of death,” he gives what I believe is the perfect definition. It’s found beginning in the 18th verse.  “For I know that in me (that is in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.”    

After reading that to Teresa, I suggested according to that definition she was addicted to her anger. She agreed that she did not feel comfortable handling a situation until she got angry. “When I get angry” she snaps, “I can handle anything!”

Actually Teresa found comfort in her anger. It was difficult to get her moved out of it.

I’m not sure Teresa understood what I was trying to say or where I was going with this conversation. The look on her face told me she was still confused. Up to today she believed everyone else, or at least those whom she considered opposed to her, were responsible for her anger. “If I could just get away from them’” she reasons, “then I wouldn’t be so angry.” The same was true for Mike who lost a child to leukemia. It was the disease that created the anger in him and is the reason it sustains. 

The argument that others or circumstances create the anger is an easy scapegoat. It does seem reasonable that if the circumstance or person responsible would disappear then so would the anger. But that is just not true, particularly in light of the Scripture quoted from the book of Romans. It is no longer I but the sin that dwells in me! Wow!  

My secretary had brought Teresa and me a cup of coffee. I started to pick up my cup for a sip when a thought occurred to me. 

“Teresa,” I said, “if I bumped this cup that’s here on my desk, if I bumped it hard enough, what would spill out?”

With a puzzled look she replied, “Coffee of course.”

“And why would coffee spill. Why wouldn’t…say…orange juice? Or for that matter why wouldn’t diet coke spill out of the cup when I bumped it hard?” 

“Because coffee is what is in it!”

“Exactly,” I said. “So when someone or something bumps your cup hard enough at work, if someone says something, or accuses you, or lets you go, what spills out?” 

“Anger,” she admitted. 

“Well,” I continued, “why doesn’t goodness, or kindness spill instead of anger?”

She looked down at the Scripture, placed her finger on it, and replied, “Because that is what is in me!” The light of truth was rising!

It’s not a matter of managing the contents of the cup. It’s a matter of emptying it!  According to John 14:30 Jesus knew that! If nothing is in us, then it can’t spill no matter how often or how hard it is bumped!

Teresa understood!

Questions: Can anger really be managed? Does anger even need to be managed? Do we want it to be managed or is it even supposed to be managed?