Anger

I've been struggling to write about anger, afraid that an admission of this strong emotion brands me as an "angry" person. I am a "glass is half full" optimist, someone who regularly doodles rainbows and happy faces in the margins of my journal. I know all the words to "Favorite Things" and I regularly dance around the house a la Julie Andrews. My life is full of "girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes" and "snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes."

But for the past few weeks, a small undercurrent of anger has been brewing and simmering inside of me. What began as a small flame has been fueled by incidents large and small. I am angry at the lack of common human decency shown to others; witnessing an irate driver barely miss hitting an elderly woman who was slowly crossing the street nearly brought me to tears. When I am at work, I am angry at the racism and sexism that festers in the academy. When I am at my house of worship, I am angry at the indifference to suffering and blatant homophobia that festers in the church. And when I am in the privacy of my home, I am angry that other people are not angry enough.

Yes, I want this anger to fuel my passion to love others more, to more fervently work towards justice. The anger that Christ expressed led not to sin, but to healing and mercy. But first, I am working on accepting my anger as a legitimate and necessary feeling. In working so hard, personally and professionally, to refute the stereotype of the "angry Black woman," I left myself no place to experience the rawness of this emotion. And so now, in written words and in spiritual language, I am working with my anger and working through my anger. I know, without a doubt, that a place of healing and mercy is at the end of this process. But for right now, I am allowing myself to feel what I feel.