A simple solution to anger

When I was something that passed for being an athlete, we had one guy, just one guy, on our rival opponent that drove me wild. He I, uh, well, hated though I did not know him. Again hated, did not know. Never met. Didn’t greet. To my memory have never spoken a word to him.
But when he was pitching, he was infuriating. Don’t know why. Again, never met him.
Today I want to explore anger. We, in this country today, are an angry bunch. Many are saying the anger of one sect — in this case Caucasian men and to a small amount of Caucasian women — is fueling the candidacy of Donald Trump.
What are they mad about? Ask them. They might not even know. But I believe it all boils down to them (er, us) feeling an injustice has been done to them (er, us).
What injustice? I’m sorry to say the problem is Caucasian men who are not Democrats believe their rights are being trampled. What right? The right to own guns (Lord, help us all), the right to run things because we always have run things, and we did it right, gosh darn it.
So, we feel we still have the right to be in the majority, the right to intentionally or unintentionally keep minorities of all kinds out of leadership roles that we’ve designed s to be run by ourselves, and the right to allow Christians to run things because we always have and we are good people, gosh darn it again.
Never mind the injustice that has been done to very small minority groups in the name of whatever the opposite of keeping things the way they have always been.
Without question, this country is different than it was even 20 years ago when Bill Clinton took office. Whether better or worse I’ll let others decide, but clearly it is different.
For those who were in control but have not been for at least the eight years of the Obama administration, that’s enough to produce a slow boil.
But what makes us mad, folks, is normally when we see injustice being done to someone, most of the time that someone is you.
Let me ask it this way, as I sort of did this past Sunday even while I was fighting through illness for the thousandth time in the past year:
Have you ever been stuck in traffic and you see a vehicle come roaring past you on the right of way. Just blowing past you?
Have you ever been in a long line of traffic because you have to merge and you see a vehicle come roaring past you and you see it force its way into traffic?
Have you ever been in a long line of people at a movie theater and just as you get to the front of the line, the guy two people ahead of you allows six people into line?
Have you had people take credit for work you did?
Have you ever been blamed for something you didn’t do?
Have you ever had the people in front or the people in back of you at a movie theater talk the whole film?
Have you ever gone through the self checkout line only to discover that about every third item it freezes and you have to get someone to help? Or do the words “unexpected item in bagging area” drive you up the wall?
We are an angry bunch, controlled by our feelings, and sometimes those angry feelings are the trigger to the atom bomb ticking in our minds and we just out-and-out explode.
Here’s some quick solutions.
When you feel the anger about to burst out of you like that dang alien out of the man’s stomach in the movie Alien, slow everything down. Take it ssssssllllllooooowwwww.
Find your Bible, and do a word search on anger. The Bible has lots to say about anger, just as much as it has to say about sin and love and the meatier topics, whew. It has much more to say about anger than it has to say about abortion. And guess who gets angry? King David. Prophets, rabbis, apostles, New Testament writers. Sure. But even God gets mad, apparently.
Mad as wet hens. Mad as fire ants. Mad.
In fact, that word mad comes because we are, well, nuts at times.
Finally, to defeat the worst we have to show, wait on the Lord. Just stop what you’re doing and focus on Him. Focus on heaven. Focus on anything spiritual that isn’t what your anger is about.
Slow down. Locate. Wait.
It’s better than counting to 10. Now if I could just open the passenger door as than maniac roars by me on the right of way.
Billy Turner is a pastor of the United Methodist denomination and a retired journalist.