Retreat and Rage
I lie on my stomach on the ground, my fists pounding the earth, my whole body convulsing, picturing violent images I didn’t know could possibly make their way into my mind. I am hurting people I know—even people I love--running them over with my car, or pounding them with my fists, or kicking them in the stomach. The pounding goes on and on as memory after memory from the last year washes over me. My fists swell, my feet ache—I realized I am kicking, too—and my voice grows hoarse from screaming.
It wasn’t supposed to go this way. I was on a short retreat. I was supposed to mourn the year’s unresolved grief so that I could get back to being in the present moment. Instead, halfway through, I was on my stomach in the center of a labyrinth that was supposed to be used for silent meditation, pounding and screaming.
This was how I came to understand that working through anger is a spiritual practice as real as prayer, and studying sacred texts, and yoga, and meditation. I’d expected to use my retreat to return to practices that had worked for re-centering before: yoga, journal writing, and being in the natural world. The first thing I did after S and her college buddy drove away was to I spread out my yoga mat. I did the sun salutation, some warrior poses, some deep stretches that reached into the places where I usually hold my grief—places that had been aching and giving out on and off for about a month, the first sign that I desperately needed to take some time for self-care. I expected to cry, but I didn’t; my body felt mildly better after an hour of practice, but I could tell the relief had not reached into the deep places.
Then I opened the journal I’d used only five times since early March. “I came here to deal with whatever it is that is blocking me from being a kind, compassionate person, from doing my work well, from writing, from being a good teacher and friend and most importantly, parent,” I wrote. And then, the next words that came, written, it seemed, by someone else, were, “That something is not grief, it’s RAGE.” Suddenly, I was writing every incident I could remember that had made me angry in the last year, and the list was long—14 pages in my journal, to be exact. And varied: a heated argument that I couldn’t finish because the other party wouldn’t accept either my apology or my plea for a follow-up conversation to address the core issues in our fight. Times my friends had not been there for me when I needed them. The anti-GLBT legislation passed in November, upheld since then. Students who had spent most of the semester texting and facebooking during my class, then complained about their grades. The way S and I had been forced to sign an agreement with her biological mother that we didn’t want to sign. Incident after incident, meeting after meeting, e-mail exchange after e-mail exchange, all relating to my ongoing argument with the schools.
When I got to page 14, I went into the bedroom in the apartment, drew the drapes, and, as if somehow my body had been overtaken by some force outside myself, I began to pound on the pillows on the bed. There couldn’t have been anything more opposite than yoga. I’d never hit pillows in my life—in fact, there have only been a handful of times that I can remember when I acted on my anger physically. I wanted to scream, but I’d vowed to be silent for the duration of my retreat, except for a nightly phone conversation with my daughter. I had stopped being able to control my words, so three days of silence, of simply listening, seemed appropriate.
I went on pounding and pounding until my body couldn’t take anymore. And then, I checked how I felt. Better—much better—but I knew there was more inside of me. The day was getting away from me, though, and I wanted desperately to be outside. I would let my mind do whatever it needed on my hike, and I would go wherever the path led me. I walked quickly, angrily, only vaguely aware of the mosquitoes and the sun seeping through spaces between the leaves; I glanced but didn’t take the time to really see the lake that the path was winding around. Suddenly, I was in an open field, the sun hot on my back. I let myself breathe in deeply, and when I breathed out, the old prayers from my childhood came to me, the order of service repeated four times a day, the Prayer of St. Ephraim, the few psalms and Bible verses and poems I knew by heart. My pace stilled, my heart stilled, and I walked through the field and back into the woods. I kept on praying, not bothering to try to make sense of the words, just letting their rhythm wash over me. Strangely, suddenly, I was standing in front of my apartment door.
Back at the little kitchen table, I read through what I’d written earlier, all 14 pages, and realized that not a single one of my entries had to do with S—that is, she was never the person at whom the anger was directed, though often, I was angry at someone for something they had done or said that had directly or indirectly affected her. I wanted to understand anger better, but the only sources I had (no phone connection, no internet) was my bible and my Unitarian hymnal—the only books I had brought along. The only other book in the apartment was the Methodist hymnal, which didn’t have an index. I looked for anger and rage in the index of the Unitarian hymnal—it offered nothing. Unity, love, the interconnected web of all existence, the environment—there were readings and songs for all of these, but nothing, not a thing, for any of the dark emotions, like anger or jealousy or grief.
So, I reluctantly looked in the index of the Bible, skeptical because, in addition to topics like “anger” and “revenge,” there were subject headings like “paganism” and “homosexuality.” But, I reasoned, I have no other choice, and besides, I can apply critical thinking to what I read. I needed to move into my head and out of my heart, to rest a little, because I couldn’t stay in that raw feeling—but I didn’t want to lose the thread altogether, either. The Bible was all I had.
I started with the listed psalms. I opened first to Psalm 38: 7-9: “My back is filled with searing pain; there is no health in my body. I am feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart. “ I wanted to weep, but tears were not accessible yet. I’d come, partly, because my back was truly in searing pain, feeling like it was on fire. Yoga wasn’t going to fix the pain, at least, not alone, I realized. I needed to work through the rage.
Then, I turned to Psalm 4:4: “In your anger do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent.” I couldn’t help but read this as clear instruction: I’d come here so that my anger would stop controlling me. I needed to deal with things night by night—not year by year. But also, I needed to lie on my bed, pounding, in silence. OK, the verse didn’t say that exactly, but can you blame me for reading into it?
Reluctantly, I went on to the one Old Testament story listed: Cain and Abel. I already know how this ends, I thought, but I remembered that part of the point was not resisting the process. It turned out there was a part of the story I’d forgotten. Cain got mad because his brother’s sacrifice was loved by God more than his own—that part I recalled—but when he gets angry, God says to him, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”
And then, Cain goes ahead and kills Abel anyway, because he couldn’t “master it.”
I hadn’t killed anyone, but I knew I wasn’t in control of my anger, and I didn’t want things to get worse. I was getting a clear message that it isn’t the feeling of anger itself that is the problem, but the way the feeling makes a person act—the feeling’s mastery over that person. It’s a simple lesson, to be sure, but I realized that all my life, I’ve been scared shitless of my own anger because I’ve seen what anger, unchecked, can do—I had watched my father tear apart his family and life by giving into rages, over and over again.
There is nothing I fear more, except maybe dying like my mother, than becoming my father. Unchecked anger could, I realized, lead to both outcomes. But the pounding doesn’t hurt anyone, I said out loud. It was the first time since I’d said goodbye to my daughter and her college buddy that I’d spoken. I can feel these feelings without hurting anyone, I said again.
I went on reading. Matthew 5:21-24 had a similar message. It was not the anger itself that was the problem, but the way one handled it. Don’t call others names or decide that they are fools when you are angry, Jesus warned. I realized then how often condescension is how I deal with my anger. When I get angry, I immediately turn it off and try to understand the reasons for the other person’s actions. The problem is, the reasons usually boil down to some kind of condescension: This person can’t be there for me because she’s just not deep enough to go to the hard places; that person can’t educate my daughter because she’s simply not bright enough to understand my daughter’s complicated needs. There is a fine line between compassion and condescension: even if the reasons I choose to explain others’ actions are true (which I can rarely know for sure), I need to be careful. True compassion, true forgiveness, can’t happen if I am harboring anger. That much was clear.
The verse goes on to suggest that we must make amends to those we have hurt before we offer a gift at the altar—but what about making amends to those who have hurt us? And what if they don’t want to admit it, or won’t discuss it? Just this question put me back into a rage, led to more pounding. So much of my anger was about my lack of control—the other person was controlling the situation by only selectively hearing me, or by not responding at all.
There’s no direction for situations like my argument with the school, or with some people I love dearly who won’t continue the conversation, I told myself. I went for another hike, and ended up, eventually, at a small pond, where I sat to continue reading. The parable of the unmerciful servant (Matthew 18:21-35) seemed a useless reminder of “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” But on deeper reading, I realized that this story, too, did not go exactly as I remembered it. The master calls a servant to him to demand what he is owed, and the servant begs for more time, which he is granted. Then, that same servant goes out and throws another man in jail for not immediately repaying his debt. The master, when he hears of this, is outraged, and punishes the servant more harshly than he might have in the first place.
The servant’s problem is not that he wants the money owed to him or even that he asks for it, but that he violently punishes the other man. I had been doing the same. I was so angry at some of the people on the list that instead of just continuing to ask for what I needed, or what was legally or rightfully mine (or S’s), I punished them by passive aggressively making them feel stupid or by being cruel or by withholding things from them. The parable calls us to act and speak directly about what we need—and to give people more time. Even the master doesn’t totally forgive his servant all his debt—he simply gives him more time to make it right.
Finally, I moved on to the letters in the New Testament. The instructions to a new church community found in Ephesians 4:25-5:2 note that we must “put off falsehood and speak truthfully,” and that we must “not the sun go down while [we are] still angry.” I used to read this instruction as a call to make amends, to talk it out, and again, I was frustrated by this notion, as doing so is not always possible. The other person may not want to work through the issue before sundown, if ever! But, I realize now that this is not what the instructions say at all—they simply say that the angry person should let go of her anger by the time sun goes down. The instructions noted that holding onto anger “give[s] the devil a foothold.” It was, again, the actions that follow, and not the anger itself, that was of concern. If I needed to get my anger out in a safe way that didn’t hurt others—while, of course, either working toward reconciliation or accepting that such reconciliation can’t happen—then perhaps this was not only OK, but something I needed to do on a daily basis.
I ended that day’s study with James 1:19-27, which reads, in part, “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.” I prayed, Lord, this is what I want. I want to be able to listen patiently again as I used to do, and to start controlling my anger instead of allowing it to control me. But how can I do this? I let the question hang there, over the reflection pond, and, realizing evening was coming, I went back to the apartment to get something to eat.
After supper, I decided to just give in to the pounding. I would actually plan to pound the pillows—would read what I’d written about a specific person or situation, then go and do my pounding. And I would keep this up until I had pounded out all 14 pages. I realized this was physical work, but that it was also different from brisk hikes or yoga. And also, I knew by then that it was necessary. I got through about 10 specific situations or people that night. I stopped my mind when it backed away from the anger and began to make excuses for the other people, condescending or compassionate. This is just about being in this moment, feeling this anger, I kept telling myself.
When it was over, I was sore. I did some more yoga, showered, and went through both the Greek Orthodox and the Methodist order of service for closing the day. I went to sleep and dreamed nothing. When I woke the next morning at 7, I felt rested for the first time in several months. I got up, did the morning prayer services, Greek Orthodox and Methodist, and did an hour of yoga. Then, I made myself some Greek coffee. Afterwards, I turned my cup over and turned it three times, then tapped it three times, as I’d watched my great-aunt do so many times the summer I lived in Greece about 10 years ago. She had taught me to read the grounds; she said I had a natural affinity for it. One thing I had learned from her is that the grounds rarely tell the future—usually, they give us better clarity about the present, and about what might happen if the present situation continues. We can often change our futures, at least to some extent.
Remembering this, I went for a hike and let the cup sit. I let myself breathe in the clean air, and noticed every change in the path—slight inclines, declines, needle-covered, grassy, and then, the sounds of the birds, more variety, it seemed, than I’d ever heard before. I want to control everything, I thought, and by doing that, I’ve totally lost control. I need to just let myself feel sad and angry about the things that don’t go well, to be in the moment, and then move on. I got a bit lost, but remembered again to trust the path, and again, although I’d started in an entirely different place, and crossed the road twice, the path returned me to my door. Does every single path come back to the beginning? I wondered.
When I returned, I turned over the cup and saw, clear as day, my own body, my hand on my back, and flames consuming me, devouring me. I wanted to weep. I thought I was almost done, but apparently, I was just beginning.
I acknowledged then in prayer that I knew I was causing S harm. I was being outright mean to her, yelling, or saying things I never thought I’d say to a child, much less my child. Nobody saw this, and nobody knew how bad it had gotten in the last month except the two of us and our therapists. They had been helpful, teaching us ideas for ways to react better in the moment, but it seemed that nothing had actually stuck for me. Just when I thought I’d figured out how to stay calm, she’d find a new way to hurt me, and I’d lash back. Or so I thought, but now, looking back, I wasn’t so sure that was how it always happened, and even if it was, it was no excuse. Cruelty and violence are coping mechanisms she’s learned from a life of abuse. She is 15. I’m 38, and I am supposed to be teaching her a better way.
I resolved to keep working. I got through pounding out five more people and situations, then went hiking, then came back to more.
Eventually, I was back at the pond, looking back over everything I’d written and finding themes. I realized my anger boiled down to three general themes: abandonment, jealousy, and righteous anger. All of them connected in some way to both my best and my worst impulses. I can reframe all of these triggers, if I can simply work toward understanding them, I realized.
I was angry at some people for abandoning me or S in some large or small way. Some had completely cut off communication or pulled away when things got hard; some had simply not responded to requests for help. Some had treated S. unfairly in one way or another, making her feel less loved or cared for than others. Some had refused S. the services or help or support she needed—or I needed—and then had tried to convince us there was nothing wrong with what they had done. Others had tried their best but said or done something to show they were not actually able to help.
No matter how the abandonment played out, or whether it was intentional or unintentional, large or small, it connected to the deep wounds of my childhood, when my mother abandoned me through death, and my father, through mental illness and abuse and an inability to be a father. Other adults did their best, but always, I felt that there was a hole in my center—not only the loss of my mother, but the loss of a person who would really see and listen to me consistently. I realized I had started out being that person for S but wasn’t anymore. I also realized that some of the time, when I raged at S, it was because she was treating me in ways that triggered my memory of abandonment—running away (she always returned within an hour), threatening suicide or homicide, saying hurtful or mindless things, not doing what I’d asked of her. It all went back to the same root of abandonment, for both of us, really. Her feelings of abandonment—and her reasons for feeling them—are so much larger and more profound.
I was mad at some people for treating S or me disrespectfully—for either not recognizing our gifts or talents, or not fulfilling their obligations, legal or ethical, to us, or for impeding our ability to grow or move forward. This category was closer to the righteous anger of Jesus when he cleared the temple—a verse I’d purposely ignored in my study because I was worried it would justify my rage. I was fighting for my own, or my daughter’s, right to be treated as a person of worth, and this was noble. Still, again, it was about how I handled this anger, how I treated the person who made me angry, rather than the anger itself, that was the problem, and I realized that now. Even justifiable anger needs to be handled with care. And even this category of anger connected to childhood-- when, if ever, was I treated respectfully, heard, understood, as a child? I can remember moments, but not a coherent narrative of this kind of care. This was a wound from childhood that I had allowed to affect how I treated myself, how hard I worked for things, how confident I was. I didn’t want to pass this on to S.
Everything was getting clearer.
The third category boiled down jealousy. I was mad at some people for not recognizing how much they had, or how much more they could have if they only weren’t so lazy or made better decisions. I thought again about Cain and Abel, and laughed because I had almost refused to read the story, thinking it had nothing to teach me. But when I find myself asking, “how dare so-and-so complain when all he’d have to do is such-and-such and his problems would be solved but he won’t do it,” or “how dare so-and-so not appreciate how much I do for her when her life is so much easier than mine” was not much different than thinking, “But my offering is just as good as his, damn it!” I needed to decide, in each situation, whether the other person truly had something I wanted, and if so, what to do about that—how to focus on setting goals to get what I wanted rather than envying what was not mine. I had to decide why this was any of my business in the first place (often, it wasn’t), or how clearly I was seeing the situation (often, I did not have enough information). What did I need to do to address the problem, if there actually was one? Often, I had a legitimate complaint—some laziness, and some bad decisions, did affect me, but often, I had not voiced my hurt to the person involved, so how could I expect them to know?
I decided to look at verses about jealousy. First, there were the Old Testament stories of God punishing harshly those who were jealous. I didn’t know what to make of these. They seemed to contradict what I’d already learned—that acts of violence due to rage are the problem, and not the rage itself. And then I realized that maybe God, too, has grown over the years (or, depending on one’s theology, our understanding of God had grown over the years), that maybe the Old Testament iterations of God were early versions of a much younger and less-wise being. Maybe that God needed to get directly involved, to talk to people, to punish people, but the older, wiser version had, at some point, backed off and began to trust us more. We have failed, time and again, of course, but we are running the show now, and God can only guide us through what we find in spiritual texts and in our hearts.
In chapter 3, James warned that “if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. “ The first step was simply admitting that one was feeling jealousy. James 3 and 4 and Galatians 5 had lists of antidotes to jealousy, with little help in how to attain these fruits of the spirit, which included self-control. I had to figure out a way to get to these better, more attentive ways of living.
I went back to my room and pounded out each incident or person who fit into the general “jealousy/bitterness” category, and then, after my anger was out, I put each case to the test. I wrote down which cases I simply had to let go, which cases helped me to clearly see goals I needed to set for myself, and which cases required me to be honest and direct about the fact that the other person’s bad decisions or laziness were hurting me. And, in the process, I realized that bad decisions and laziness—as well as directly expressed jealousy--are three of the biggest triggers that start fights between me and my daughter. Jealousy was often a trigger for my father’s rages—another reason it was an emotion I couldn’t comfortably admit I had—and his laziness and bad decisions were two of the causes of many of the problems in my childhood home. Again, I began to see how the triggers had as much, if not more, to do with my childhood than with current situations.
Most of the pounding was done by now, I thought, but I still felt angry. I went on another hike, to take a break from the pounding and the study, and that is when I stumbled on the labyrinth. It had been there all along, hidden in the midst of a field I’d walked before, but somehow, I hadn’t seen it. It wasn’t well marked; there was tall grass scattered everywhere, and lots of winding paths, so it wasn’t surprising that I didn’t recognize the labyrinth for what it was. I had walked labyrinths before, praying rote prayers on the way in, allowing myself to speak from the heart at the center, then praying my gratitude on the way out. I knew the experience was all about trusting the path, knowing that you can’t always see what is coming, can’t control when you’ll reach the center—and also about the delight and relief of finding rest at the heart-place, the whole-place, the center-place, when it is finally, and usually, suddenly encountered.
I expected, when I found the labyrinth, to have a similar experience. But, when I got to the center, the worst rage of all overtook me, and I found myself on the ground, pounding until my fists actually swelled, and, yes, finally, screaming—giving voice to the feelings of abandonment, to everything I had lost. There was no echo. It went on for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes, and when I stood up, I knew I was done with the rage; there would be no more pounding, at least, not this weekend.
Sometimes the center you have to come to is not peace or hope or love, but the root of the rage you are feeling, raw and beautiful and real in its own way. Sometimes the realization awaiting you is not related to your capacity for compassion or love, but your capacity for violence—real, murderous violence—and your ability to keep from acting on it, or at least, to keep from continuing to act on it. On the walk out of the labyrinth, I said out loud, “What now?” Was I finished? Maybe I could call my S’s college buddy and ask her to pick me up early. Then I literally heard a voice say, “I can take the pounding. Bring it to me whenever you have it to give. It is your offering.” It was a woman’s voice, and I knew it was the earth herself. I turned around and looked back at the inconspicuous center, where I had, not long ago, thrown myself to the ground. Already I felt like a different person than the woman who had been there. But rage as offering? That seemed…impossible, confusing. How in the world could my rage be an offering?
Later, I would ask myself that question again and, finally, weep and weep in my bed. It was the last night of my retreat, and finally, the tears I thought I would start with came to the surface. I realized that is all God, the earth, the universe had ever wanted from me was to walk bravely into the heart of the anger, and then walk out, so I could see clearly what its triggers were, so I could confront the deep pain in my life, so I could, yes, make anger a spiritual path, as real as prayer and yoga and all the others that, over the years, I have tried. Anger was my way in to humility—I could no longer pretend not to understand violence—and also my way into compassion—I could no longer choose to ignore what I was doing to myself and to others. It was my way of finding a balance between trying to control too much and having adequate control over myself. If I would let it, it would teach me to listen more carefully to what I needed; it would remind me when I had wandered too far from the present, when I was living in fear of the future or rage over the path. It could help me determine what to do next, and when to stop thinking about what to do next.
It felt good to finally weep. In the evening prayer service, when I got to the prayers of the people, I found myself finally able to pray for all of those who had hurt me. My heart widened to all I loved, all who were suffering, all who were surviving, all who had blessed my daughter and I so deeply that I couldn’t imagine being angry at them. My heart even enveloped those that had hurt me, and I began to feel real understanding, not condescension, for them—and, yes, to finally forgive. I felt, finally, whole again.
I read, just before falling asleep, the beautiful words in Isaiah 55:10-13: “The rain and the snow come down from heaven. They do not return to heaven without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater. In the same way, my word that goes out from my mouth will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” I remembered, again, the insight from earlier that day that God was expecting us to live out the word rather than speaking directly to us, that God knew we were capable of that kind of honor, that kind of responsibility. Since so much of my rage was about not being honored, not being treated as a whole person, I was comforted. But the verse goes on, “You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands. Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briars the myrtle will grow.”
The next morning, I went through my morning ritual again: services, yoga. I made Greek coffee, drank it, turned over the cup. I had not planned to do anything more, just to wait for my daughter and her college buddy to come back and get me. Absentmindedly, I opened the Unitarian hymnal, which I had abandoned completely when it couldn’t take me to the dark places. I opened to a poem by Mary Oliver that begins, “Every morning the world is created,” and includes these lines, which had new meaning to me, though the poem was familiar: “And if your spirit carries within it the thorn that is heavier than lead—if it’s all you can do to keep on trudging—There is still somewhere within you a beast shouting that the earth is exactly what it wanted.”
After reading those words, I decided I needed to end my retreat by going back to the labyrinth, by thanking the earth for accepting my offering of rage. But first, I wanted to walk the wooded path I loved most, which conveniently ended, if I could remember the right turns, at the field where the labyrinth was. On the way in, I allowed my mind to totally empty, and tried to be, as much as possible, in the present moment. It had been so long since such attention had been possible; the rage had clouded everything, including my ability to see. I listened and looked and suddenly, before me, was a small piece of bark that seemed to be shaped like a bird with an offering of peace in its mouth. I picked it up, intending to take it home with me as a reminder of what had happened here.
When I got to the labyrinth, I sang the chorus of the hymn “Here I am, Lord,” on the way in: “Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord? I have heard you calling in the night. If you lead me, I will follow, I will hold your people in my heart.” As I was singing, I became aware that there were purple flowers everywhere. I thought at first that maybe I just hadn’t noticed them, but no, I remembered, on my way in, before my final, deepest rage, how I’d been somewhat disappointed by the weedy, brown grasses surrounding the labyrinth, had wanted to see color. Somehow, overnight, flowers that were so tightly budded I hadn’t seen them had opened. This was a gift from the earth, and I breathed it in.
At the center, I spontaneously placed the bark that looked like the bird of peace over the place I had beaten with my rage. Please accept this offering as you accepted my rage, I said out loud, and I felt my heart swelling again, open. I walked out, mind empty, aware of everything my senses could experience about this place. On the walk through the woods on the way back to my apartment, I noticed more flowers, lupine and columbine, purple everywhere. I’d seen these before, but they didn’t seem so beautiful yesterday. I felt an ache. I was missing my daughter. I love her so much, I said out loud.
When I got back to the cabin, just before packing, I turned over the cup and there I was, in the fire, though the flames were around my ankles now, not above my head. I felt my heart sink a little—the fire is not gone, I thought—but then I noticed that there were tall, thin, lovely trees surrounding me in every direction, and that I was stomping out the fire. I can come back here when I need to do so, I thought, perhaps physically, perhaps more often. But when I cannot be here physically, then I can still come to this place in my body. I can remember the pounding or find a quiet place to pound. I can remember the woods, the tall, graceful trees, the needled path, the open space of the field, the purple flowers dotting the path. I can remember the offerings I gave at the center of the labyrinth, how they were, in the end, “exactly what I needed.”
It wasn’t supposed to go this way. I was on a short retreat. I was supposed to mourn the year’s unresolved grief so that I could get back to being in the present moment. Instead, halfway through, I was on my stomach in the center of a labyrinth that was supposed to be used for silent meditation, pounding and screaming.
This was how I came to understand that working through anger is a spiritual practice as real as prayer, and studying sacred texts, and yoga, and meditation. I’d expected to use my retreat to return to practices that had worked for re-centering before: yoga, journal writing, and being in the natural world. The first thing I did after S and her college buddy drove away was to I spread out my yoga mat. I did the sun salutation, some warrior poses, some deep stretches that reached into the places where I usually hold my grief—places that had been aching and giving out on and off for about a month, the first sign that I desperately needed to take some time for self-care. I expected to cry, but I didn’t; my body felt mildly better after an hour of practice, but I could tell the relief had not reached into the deep places.
Then I opened the journal I’d used only five times since early March. “I came here to deal with whatever it is that is blocking me from being a kind, compassionate person, from doing my work well, from writing, from being a good teacher and friend and most importantly, parent,” I wrote. And then, the next words that came, written, it seemed, by someone else, were, “That something is not grief, it’s RAGE.” Suddenly, I was writing every incident I could remember that had made me angry in the last year, and the list was long—14 pages in my journal, to be exact. And varied: a heated argument that I couldn’t finish because the other party wouldn’t accept either my apology or my plea for a follow-up conversation to address the core issues in our fight. Times my friends had not been there for me when I needed them. The anti-GLBT legislation passed in November, upheld since then. Students who had spent most of the semester texting and facebooking during my class, then complained about their grades. The way S and I had been forced to sign an agreement with her biological mother that we didn’t want to sign. Incident after incident, meeting after meeting, e-mail exchange after e-mail exchange, all relating to my ongoing argument with the schools.
When I got to page 14, I went into the bedroom in the apartment, drew the drapes, and, as if somehow my body had been overtaken by some force outside myself, I began to pound on the pillows on the bed. There couldn’t have been anything more opposite than yoga. I’d never hit pillows in my life—in fact, there have only been a handful of times that I can remember when I acted on my anger physically. I wanted to scream, but I’d vowed to be silent for the duration of my retreat, except for a nightly phone conversation with my daughter. I had stopped being able to control my words, so three days of silence, of simply listening, seemed appropriate.
I went on pounding and pounding until my body couldn’t take anymore. And then, I checked how I felt. Better—much better—but I knew there was more inside of me. The day was getting away from me, though, and I wanted desperately to be outside. I would let my mind do whatever it needed on my hike, and I would go wherever the path led me. I walked quickly, angrily, only vaguely aware of the mosquitoes and the sun seeping through spaces between the leaves; I glanced but didn’t take the time to really see the lake that the path was winding around. Suddenly, I was in an open field, the sun hot on my back. I let myself breathe in deeply, and when I breathed out, the old prayers from my childhood came to me, the order of service repeated four times a day, the Prayer of St. Ephraim, the few psalms and Bible verses and poems I knew by heart. My pace stilled, my heart stilled, and I walked through the field and back into the woods. I kept on praying, not bothering to try to make sense of the words, just letting their rhythm wash over me. Strangely, suddenly, I was standing in front of my apartment door.
Back at the little kitchen table, I read through what I’d written earlier, all 14 pages, and realized that not a single one of my entries had to do with S—that is, she was never the person at whom the anger was directed, though often, I was angry at someone for something they had done or said that had directly or indirectly affected her. I wanted to understand anger better, but the only sources I had (no phone connection, no internet) was my bible and my Unitarian hymnal—the only books I had brought along. The only other book in the apartment was the Methodist hymnal, which didn’t have an index. I looked for anger and rage in the index of the Unitarian hymnal—it offered nothing. Unity, love, the interconnected web of all existence, the environment—there were readings and songs for all of these, but nothing, not a thing, for any of the dark emotions, like anger or jealousy or grief.
So, I reluctantly looked in the index of the Bible, skeptical because, in addition to topics like “anger” and “revenge,” there were subject headings like “paganism” and “homosexuality.” But, I reasoned, I have no other choice, and besides, I can apply critical thinking to what I read. I needed to move into my head and out of my heart, to rest a little, because I couldn’t stay in that raw feeling—but I didn’t want to lose the thread altogether, either. The Bible was all I had.
I started with the listed psalms. I opened first to Psalm 38: 7-9: “My back is filled with searing pain; there is no health in my body. I am feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart. “ I wanted to weep, but tears were not accessible yet. I’d come, partly, because my back was truly in searing pain, feeling like it was on fire. Yoga wasn’t going to fix the pain, at least, not alone, I realized. I needed to work through the rage.
Then, I turned to Psalm 4:4: “In your anger do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent.” I couldn’t help but read this as clear instruction: I’d come here so that my anger would stop controlling me. I needed to deal with things night by night—not year by year. But also, I needed to lie on my bed, pounding, in silence. OK, the verse didn’t say that exactly, but can you blame me for reading into it?
Reluctantly, I went on to the one Old Testament story listed: Cain and Abel. I already know how this ends, I thought, but I remembered that part of the point was not resisting the process. It turned out there was a part of the story I’d forgotten. Cain got mad because his brother’s sacrifice was loved by God more than his own—that part I recalled—but when he gets angry, God says to him, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”
And then, Cain goes ahead and kills Abel anyway, because he couldn’t “master it.”
I hadn’t killed anyone, but I knew I wasn’t in control of my anger, and I didn’t want things to get worse. I was getting a clear message that it isn’t the feeling of anger itself that is the problem, but the way the feeling makes a person act—the feeling’s mastery over that person. It’s a simple lesson, to be sure, but I realized that all my life, I’ve been scared shitless of my own anger because I’ve seen what anger, unchecked, can do—I had watched my father tear apart his family and life by giving into rages, over and over again.
There is nothing I fear more, except maybe dying like my mother, than becoming my father. Unchecked anger could, I realized, lead to both outcomes. But the pounding doesn’t hurt anyone, I said out loud. It was the first time since I’d said goodbye to my daughter and her college buddy that I’d spoken. I can feel these feelings without hurting anyone, I said again.
I went on reading. Matthew 5:21-24 had a similar message. It was not the anger itself that was the problem, but the way one handled it. Don’t call others names or decide that they are fools when you are angry, Jesus warned. I realized then how often condescension is how I deal with my anger. When I get angry, I immediately turn it off and try to understand the reasons for the other person’s actions. The problem is, the reasons usually boil down to some kind of condescension: This person can’t be there for me because she’s just not deep enough to go to the hard places; that person can’t educate my daughter because she’s simply not bright enough to understand my daughter’s complicated needs. There is a fine line between compassion and condescension: even if the reasons I choose to explain others’ actions are true (which I can rarely know for sure), I need to be careful. True compassion, true forgiveness, can’t happen if I am harboring anger. That much was clear.
The verse goes on to suggest that we must make amends to those we have hurt before we offer a gift at the altar—but what about making amends to those who have hurt us? And what if they don’t want to admit it, or won’t discuss it? Just this question put me back into a rage, led to more pounding. So much of my anger was about my lack of control—the other person was controlling the situation by only selectively hearing me, or by not responding at all.
There’s no direction for situations like my argument with the school, or with some people I love dearly who won’t continue the conversation, I told myself. I went for another hike, and ended up, eventually, at a small pond, where I sat to continue reading. The parable of the unmerciful servant (Matthew 18:21-35) seemed a useless reminder of “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” But on deeper reading, I realized that this story, too, did not go exactly as I remembered it. The master calls a servant to him to demand what he is owed, and the servant begs for more time, which he is granted. Then, that same servant goes out and throws another man in jail for not immediately repaying his debt. The master, when he hears of this, is outraged, and punishes the servant more harshly than he might have in the first place.
The servant’s problem is not that he wants the money owed to him or even that he asks for it, but that he violently punishes the other man. I had been doing the same. I was so angry at some of the people on the list that instead of just continuing to ask for what I needed, or what was legally or rightfully mine (or S’s), I punished them by passive aggressively making them feel stupid or by being cruel or by withholding things from them. The parable calls us to act and speak directly about what we need—and to give people more time. Even the master doesn’t totally forgive his servant all his debt—he simply gives him more time to make it right.
Finally, I moved on to the letters in the New Testament. The instructions to a new church community found in Ephesians 4:25-5:2 note that we must “put off falsehood and speak truthfully,” and that we must “not the sun go down while [we are] still angry.” I used to read this instruction as a call to make amends, to talk it out, and again, I was frustrated by this notion, as doing so is not always possible. The other person may not want to work through the issue before sundown, if ever! But, I realize now that this is not what the instructions say at all—they simply say that the angry person should let go of her anger by the time sun goes down. The instructions noted that holding onto anger “give[s] the devil a foothold.” It was, again, the actions that follow, and not the anger itself, that was of concern. If I needed to get my anger out in a safe way that didn’t hurt others—while, of course, either working toward reconciliation or accepting that such reconciliation can’t happen—then perhaps this was not only OK, but something I needed to do on a daily basis.
I ended that day’s study with James 1:19-27, which reads, in part, “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.” I prayed, Lord, this is what I want. I want to be able to listen patiently again as I used to do, and to start controlling my anger instead of allowing it to control me. But how can I do this? I let the question hang there, over the reflection pond, and, realizing evening was coming, I went back to the apartment to get something to eat.
After supper, I decided to just give in to the pounding. I would actually plan to pound the pillows—would read what I’d written about a specific person or situation, then go and do my pounding. And I would keep this up until I had pounded out all 14 pages. I realized this was physical work, but that it was also different from brisk hikes or yoga. And also, I knew by then that it was necessary. I got through about 10 specific situations or people that night. I stopped my mind when it backed away from the anger and began to make excuses for the other people, condescending or compassionate. This is just about being in this moment, feeling this anger, I kept telling myself.
When it was over, I was sore. I did some more yoga, showered, and went through both the Greek Orthodox and the Methodist order of service for closing the day. I went to sleep and dreamed nothing. When I woke the next morning at 7, I felt rested for the first time in several months. I got up, did the morning prayer services, Greek Orthodox and Methodist, and did an hour of yoga. Then, I made myself some Greek coffee. Afterwards, I turned my cup over and turned it three times, then tapped it three times, as I’d watched my great-aunt do so many times the summer I lived in Greece about 10 years ago. She had taught me to read the grounds; she said I had a natural affinity for it. One thing I had learned from her is that the grounds rarely tell the future—usually, they give us better clarity about the present, and about what might happen if the present situation continues. We can often change our futures, at least to some extent.
Remembering this, I went for a hike and let the cup sit. I let myself breathe in the clean air, and noticed every change in the path—slight inclines, declines, needle-covered, grassy, and then, the sounds of the birds, more variety, it seemed, than I’d ever heard before. I want to control everything, I thought, and by doing that, I’ve totally lost control. I need to just let myself feel sad and angry about the things that don’t go well, to be in the moment, and then move on. I got a bit lost, but remembered again to trust the path, and again, although I’d started in an entirely different place, and crossed the road twice, the path returned me to my door. Does every single path come back to the beginning? I wondered.
When I returned, I turned over the cup and saw, clear as day, my own body, my hand on my back, and flames consuming me, devouring me. I wanted to weep. I thought I was almost done, but apparently, I was just beginning.
I acknowledged then in prayer that I knew I was causing S harm. I was being outright mean to her, yelling, or saying things I never thought I’d say to a child, much less my child. Nobody saw this, and nobody knew how bad it had gotten in the last month except the two of us and our therapists. They had been helpful, teaching us ideas for ways to react better in the moment, but it seemed that nothing had actually stuck for me. Just when I thought I’d figured out how to stay calm, she’d find a new way to hurt me, and I’d lash back. Or so I thought, but now, looking back, I wasn’t so sure that was how it always happened, and even if it was, it was no excuse. Cruelty and violence are coping mechanisms she’s learned from a life of abuse. She is 15. I’m 38, and I am supposed to be teaching her a better way.
I resolved to keep working. I got through pounding out five more people and situations, then went hiking, then came back to more.
Eventually, I was back at the pond, looking back over everything I’d written and finding themes. I realized my anger boiled down to three general themes: abandonment, jealousy, and righteous anger. All of them connected in some way to both my best and my worst impulses. I can reframe all of these triggers, if I can simply work toward understanding them, I realized.
I was angry at some people for abandoning me or S in some large or small way. Some had completely cut off communication or pulled away when things got hard; some had simply not responded to requests for help. Some had treated S. unfairly in one way or another, making her feel less loved or cared for than others. Some had refused S. the services or help or support she needed—or I needed—and then had tried to convince us there was nothing wrong with what they had done. Others had tried their best but said or done something to show they were not actually able to help.
No matter how the abandonment played out, or whether it was intentional or unintentional, large or small, it connected to the deep wounds of my childhood, when my mother abandoned me through death, and my father, through mental illness and abuse and an inability to be a father. Other adults did their best, but always, I felt that there was a hole in my center—not only the loss of my mother, but the loss of a person who would really see and listen to me consistently. I realized I had started out being that person for S but wasn’t anymore. I also realized that some of the time, when I raged at S, it was because she was treating me in ways that triggered my memory of abandonment—running away (she always returned within an hour), threatening suicide or homicide, saying hurtful or mindless things, not doing what I’d asked of her. It all went back to the same root of abandonment, for both of us, really. Her feelings of abandonment—and her reasons for feeling them—are so much larger and more profound.
I was mad at some people for treating S or me disrespectfully—for either not recognizing our gifts or talents, or not fulfilling their obligations, legal or ethical, to us, or for impeding our ability to grow or move forward. This category was closer to the righteous anger of Jesus when he cleared the temple—a verse I’d purposely ignored in my study because I was worried it would justify my rage. I was fighting for my own, or my daughter’s, right to be treated as a person of worth, and this was noble. Still, again, it was about how I handled this anger, how I treated the person who made me angry, rather than the anger itself, that was the problem, and I realized that now. Even justifiable anger needs to be handled with care. And even this category of anger connected to childhood-- when, if ever, was I treated respectfully, heard, understood, as a child? I can remember moments, but not a coherent narrative of this kind of care. This was a wound from childhood that I had allowed to affect how I treated myself, how hard I worked for things, how confident I was. I didn’t want to pass this on to S.
Everything was getting clearer.
The third category boiled down jealousy. I was mad at some people for not recognizing how much they had, or how much more they could have if they only weren’t so lazy or made better decisions. I thought again about Cain and Abel, and laughed because I had almost refused to read the story, thinking it had nothing to teach me. But when I find myself asking, “how dare so-and-so complain when all he’d have to do is such-and-such and his problems would be solved but he won’t do it,” or “how dare so-and-so not appreciate how much I do for her when her life is so much easier than mine” was not much different than thinking, “But my offering is just as good as his, damn it!” I needed to decide, in each situation, whether the other person truly had something I wanted, and if so, what to do about that—how to focus on setting goals to get what I wanted rather than envying what was not mine. I had to decide why this was any of my business in the first place (often, it wasn’t), or how clearly I was seeing the situation (often, I did not have enough information). What did I need to do to address the problem, if there actually was one? Often, I had a legitimate complaint—some laziness, and some bad decisions, did affect me, but often, I had not voiced my hurt to the person involved, so how could I expect them to know?
I decided to look at verses about jealousy. First, there were the Old Testament stories of God punishing harshly those who were jealous. I didn’t know what to make of these. They seemed to contradict what I’d already learned—that acts of violence due to rage are the problem, and not the rage itself. And then I realized that maybe God, too, has grown over the years (or, depending on one’s theology, our understanding of God had grown over the years), that maybe the Old Testament iterations of God were early versions of a much younger and less-wise being. Maybe that God needed to get directly involved, to talk to people, to punish people, but the older, wiser version had, at some point, backed off and began to trust us more. We have failed, time and again, of course, but we are running the show now, and God can only guide us through what we find in spiritual texts and in our hearts.
In chapter 3, James warned that “if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. “ The first step was simply admitting that one was feeling jealousy. James 3 and 4 and Galatians 5 had lists of antidotes to jealousy, with little help in how to attain these fruits of the spirit, which included self-control. I had to figure out a way to get to these better, more attentive ways of living.
I went back to my room and pounded out each incident or person who fit into the general “jealousy/bitterness” category, and then, after my anger was out, I put each case to the test. I wrote down which cases I simply had to let go, which cases helped me to clearly see goals I needed to set for myself, and which cases required me to be honest and direct about the fact that the other person’s bad decisions or laziness were hurting me. And, in the process, I realized that bad decisions and laziness—as well as directly expressed jealousy--are three of the biggest triggers that start fights between me and my daughter. Jealousy was often a trigger for my father’s rages—another reason it was an emotion I couldn’t comfortably admit I had—and his laziness and bad decisions were two of the causes of many of the problems in my childhood home. Again, I began to see how the triggers had as much, if not more, to do with my childhood than with current situations.
Most of the pounding was done by now, I thought, but I still felt angry. I went on another hike, to take a break from the pounding and the study, and that is when I stumbled on the labyrinth. It had been there all along, hidden in the midst of a field I’d walked before, but somehow, I hadn’t seen it. It wasn’t well marked; there was tall grass scattered everywhere, and lots of winding paths, so it wasn’t surprising that I didn’t recognize the labyrinth for what it was. I had walked labyrinths before, praying rote prayers on the way in, allowing myself to speak from the heart at the center, then praying my gratitude on the way out. I knew the experience was all about trusting the path, knowing that you can’t always see what is coming, can’t control when you’ll reach the center—and also about the delight and relief of finding rest at the heart-place, the whole-place, the center-place, when it is finally, and usually, suddenly encountered.
I expected, when I found the labyrinth, to have a similar experience. But, when I got to the center, the worst rage of all overtook me, and I found myself on the ground, pounding until my fists actually swelled, and, yes, finally, screaming—giving voice to the feelings of abandonment, to everything I had lost. There was no echo. It went on for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes, and when I stood up, I knew I was done with the rage; there would be no more pounding, at least, not this weekend.
Sometimes the center you have to come to is not peace or hope or love, but the root of the rage you are feeling, raw and beautiful and real in its own way. Sometimes the realization awaiting you is not related to your capacity for compassion or love, but your capacity for violence—real, murderous violence—and your ability to keep from acting on it, or at least, to keep from continuing to act on it. On the walk out of the labyrinth, I said out loud, “What now?” Was I finished? Maybe I could call my S’s college buddy and ask her to pick me up early. Then I literally heard a voice say, “I can take the pounding. Bring it to me whenever you have it to give. It is your offering.” It was a woman’s voice, and I knew it was the earth herself. I turned around and looked back at the inconspicuous center, where I had, not long ago, thrown myself to the ground. Already I felt like a different person than the woman who had been there. But rage as offering? That seemed…impossible, confusing. How in the world could my rage be an offering?
Later, I would ask myself that question again and, finally, weep and weep in my bed. It was the last night of my retreat, and finally, the tears I thought I would start with came to the surface. I realized that is all God, the earth, the universe had ever wanted from me was to walk bravely into the heart of the anger, and then walk out, so I could see clearly what its triggers were, so I could confront the deep pain in my life, so I could, yes, make anger a spiritual path, as real as prayer and yoga and all the others that, over the years, I have tried. Anger was my way in to humility—I could no longer pretend not to understand violence—and also my way into compassion—I could no longer choose to ignore what I was doing to myself and to others. It was my way of finding a balance between trying to control too much and having adequate control over myself. If I would let it, it would teach me to listen more carefully to what I needed; it would remind me when I had wandered too far from the present, when I was living in fear of the future or rage over the path. It could help me determine what to do next, and when to stop thinking about what to do next.
It felt good to finally weep. In the evening prayer service, when I got to the prayers of the people, I found myself finally able to pray for all of those who had hurt me. My heart widened to all I loved, all who were suffering, all who were surviving, all who had blessed my daughter and I so deeply that I couldn’t imagine being angry at them. My heart even enveloped those that had hurt me, and I began to feel real understanding, not condescension, for them—and, yes, to finally forgive. I felt, finally, whole again.
I read, just before falling asleep, the beautiful words in Isaiah 55:10-13: “The rain and the snow come down from heaven. They do not return to heaven without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater. In the same way, my word that goes out from my mouth will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” I remembered, again, the insight from earlier that day that God was expecting us to live out the word rather than speaking directly to us, that God knew we were capable of that kind of honor, that kind of responsibility. Since so much of my rage was about not being honored, not being treated as a whole person, I was comforted. But the verse goes on, “You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands. Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briars the myrtle will grow.”
The next morning, I went through my morning ritual again: services, yoga. I made Greek coffee, drank it, turned over the cup. I had not planned to do anything more, just to wait for my daughter and her college buddy to come back and get me. Absentmindedly, I opened the Unitarian hymnal, which I had abandoned completely when it couldn’t take me to the dark places. I opened to a poem by Mary Oliver that begins, “Every morning the world is created,” and includes these lines, which had new meaning to me, though the poem was familiar: “And if your spirit carries within it the thorn that is heavier than lead—if it’s all you can do to keep on trudging—There is still somewhere within you a beast shouting that the earth is exactly what it wanted.”
After reading those words, I decided I needed to end my retreat by going back to the labyrinth, by thanking the earth for accepting my offering of rage. But first, I wanted to walk the wooded path I loved most, which conveniently ended, if I could remember the right turns, at the field where the labyrinth was. On the way in, I allowed my mind to totally empty, and tried to be, as much as possible, in the present moment. It had been so long since such attention had been possible; the rage had clouded everything, including my ability to see. I listened and looked and suddenly, before me, was a small piece of bark that seemed to be shaped like a bird with an offering of peace in its mouth. I picked it up, intending to take it home with me as a reminder of what had happened here.
When I got to the labyrinth, I sang the chorus of the hymn “Here I am, Lord,” on the way in: “Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord? I have heard you calling in the night. If you lead me, I will follow, I will hold your people in my heart.” As I was singing, I became aware that there were purple flowers everywhere. I thought at first that maybe I just hadn’t noticed them, but no, I remembered, on my way in, before my final, deepest rage, how I’d been somewhat disappointed by the weedy, brown grasses surrounding the labyrinth, had wanted to see color. Somehow, overnight, flowers that were so tightly budded I hadn’t seen them had opened. This was a gift from the earth, and I breathed it in.
At the center, I spontaneously placed the bark that looked like the bird of peace over the place I had beaten with my rage. Please accept this offering as you accepted my rage, I said out loud, and I felt my heart swelling again, open. I walked out, mind empty, aware of everything my senses could experience about this place. On the walk through the woods on the way back to my apartment, I noticed more flowers, lupine and columbine, purple everywhere. I’d seen these before, but they didn’t seem so beautiful yesterday. I felt an ache. I was missing my daughter. I love her so much, I said out loud.
When I got back to the cabin, just before packing, I turned over the cup and there I was, in the fire, though the flames were around my ankles now, not above my head. I felt my heart sink a little—the fire is not gone, I thought—but then I noticed that there were tall, thin, lovely trees surrounding me in every direction, and that I was stomping out the fire. I can come back here when I need to do so, I thought, perhaps physically, perhaps more often. But when I cannot be here physically, then I can still come to this place in my body. I can remember the pounding or find a quiet place to pound. I can remember the woods, the tall, graceful trees, the needled path, the open space of the field, the purple flowers dotting the path. I can remember the offerings I gave at the center of the labyrinth, how they were, in the end, “exactly what I needed.”
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