Anger

DeAnn Louise Daigle AWW 2/10/10

No, no I don't want to go back to

meditation or church or worshipping

groups of any kind.

No, no; all of that is past for me; there's no

telling about the future, of course.

Certainly, for now, all of that kind of

religious practice is out for me.

I had my share of it. I don't mind, but I'm

glad it's over. Instead, I've always wanted

to bring the actual practice of meditation

and worship to my daily life; somehow

integrate it, not as a separate matter but as

something lived. Or else, it all means

nothing to me.

None of it I would change, really. I met

some great and wonderful people and

some things were difficult for me, but grace

was always active. There's a religious term.

But I've found no substitute for the word

grace. Perhaps that hold-over can remain.

Grace -- a physical manifestation of an

invisible or spiritual power; the presence of

care and fortitude and benevolence.

Webster's Dictionary defines grace as 1 a:

unmerited divine assistance given humans for

their regeneration or sanctification b: a virtue

coming from God c: a state of sanctification

enjoyed through divine grace, and so on.

Anger too is grace, I think. Sometimes for

some of us, anger is the only thing that

wakes us up and pushes us forward. For

me, it's been that way, I know. Every major

decision I have made in my life has come

from the grace of anger.

I do not recommend this be so. I am only

stating that for me, it has been so.

Some sense of indignation has so riled me

that I was made to come to my senses by it.

When I refused to return to Fort Kent High

School to retrieve my records for the move

to Presque Isle High School, it was due to

the utter embarrassment I had experienced

at that school.

It caused me to weep -- even as an adult,

years later -- to recount what had happened

to me there. It was in part due to one

student's ability to so put me down and a

teacher's lack of understanding and a

principal's weighty need to punish a whole

class for the behavior of a few -- which for

me was utter chaos and injustice, the

breaking point of my humiliation.

It was anger and heartbreak that caused me

to do the right thing by my father when he

was in the hospital and dying. I would

return from Boston to spend the next three

years at home with my parents through the

events of my father's death and my

mother's grieving.

It was anger that people could so meddle in

my personal life as to cause me to move

away and into another way of life because I

felt the need to do something, but it had to

be on my own terms, not anyone else's.

It was anger that pushed me ahead once

again when I was compelled to leave one

way of life not knowing what lay ahead, but

certain that the decision was a forward

moving one.

It was anger and a sense of freedom at last

that provoked me to pull back from too

much activity in order to contemplate what

really mattered in my life and how my

involvement in the world as a peacemaker

had to begin with my own inner peace and

sense of solitude. I had to get at the root of

my anger in order to better realize that

peace would become a life choosing, not

just a by-product that came without effort.

Anger is grace when anger moves me

toward peace and the hard, hard work of

peace-making within myself and in my

relationships with the world around me.

Consciousness does not allow for in-

authenticity; consciousness frees me to

cooperate by choice with grace, and often

anger has been the wake-up call.