Reflections by Rev. Joanne Anquist
This has been another week of unrest and uncertainty in our world. I don’t have to go through the many upheavals that are happening everywhere, not the least of which is our federal election!
I have been confronted this week with the question of what to do with all our “feelings” around these events. I find that I have become a bit numb to some of it – I put myself in a holding pattern to see how it all shakes out. Another woman I spoke with this week has become angry and anxious about all that is happening, unable to look away. She admits to spending too much time following the ins and outs of the latest travesty.
It is still an open question as to how we deal with the bombardment of too much information. I trust my numbness will thaw. I pray her anger will ease.
One short video that has been circulating insists we were never meant to have this much information. It relies on anthropologist Robin Dunbar’s theory that posits we can only maintain stable social relationships with roughly 150 people. Dr. John Eldredge argues that our souls were never meant to know the news of the world. We were meant to live in small communities of 150. He says “Your brain was not meant for omniscience. You’re not meant to know the tragedy of the world.” He argues that we need to reduce our news intake and that if we want to reduce anxiety in children we should make their world smaller.
Here is a link to this short video: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DHJVqwmu_-e/?igsh=MWlzZjVtbWxodWVoZw%3D%3D
We had quite a few conversations in my house about this idea of living in a smaller world. It holds a lot of appeal. In fact, I believe that as the world gets more chaotic, we need to rely more on our local communities – churches, community centers, justice organizations – that can bring some order to our lives.
But we also agreed that we can’t ignore the suffering of the world. That in an increasingly global world, sometimes we need to act and react globally to bring balance to the principalities and powers, the evil that infects so much of our world. After all, it was all great living in a community of 150 people like our ancestors did, until some enemy appeared on the doorstep with bigger weapons and a stronger army and life as you knew it was over.
As I was mulling over what to do with too much information that is unsettling and disturbing and anxiety inducing, I came across the concept of “rage prayer.” We’re often told as Christians that we need to reject anger. But there is a holy anger, demonstrated by the prophets, that rages against injustice, that cries to God in suffering, that insists that God meet us and relieve us in our human condition.
Elizabeth Ashman Riley is an Episcopal priest who wrote the book Rage Prayers. She says “if you’d rather rage and scream than breathe and meditate you are not alone. So here is what I do to find my center… I rage at God anyways because the idea that we should be meek, grateful, and obedient, isn’t holy – it’s sexist.” She always lights a candle as she rages at God and the world because, as she says, “it’s fancy.”
Here is the great gift of life in God: It’s messy and unwieldy and beautiful and peaceful all at once. We can approach God with our righteous anger and our holy courage when we are overwhelmed by the world that lives beyond our 150 people. So try this next time you’re reading the news: name the wrong before God – really let out those deep groanings that you try to contain. That is your righteous anger. Then pray that this anger and rage and anxiety and cellular disappointment will be transformed by love. That is your holy courage. Rage pray.
Brian McLaren was in conversation with Richard Rohr and Valarie Kaur about righteous anger. He offered this as a benediction which you can find on Bluesky (an app like X (former twitter but more gentle) @briandmclaren.bsky.social.
May you be blessed to see in your anger not just a danger but an opportunity.
May you be blessed to see in your anger a window into what you love.
May you be blessed to see your sadness not just as a danger but also as an opportunity.
May you be blessed to see in your anger a pathway into sadness, and may your sadness sweeten your anger until it is transformed into the energy of love.
May you come to see indifference, complacency, apathy, and self-centeredness within you as signs, not of your lack of anger, but of your lack of love.
May you welcome anger as a source of information ... about what you love, about what needs protection and repair, and about the courage and strength needed to make this world a more joyful and peaceful place.
May your anger lead you to sadness and may your sadness lead you to love, so that you meet the tears of things with a heart of bottomless compassion.
May you be angry about what deserves anger, and may you experience such a transformation of your own anger that you become an agent of loving transformation in our world.
May the deep wisdom of God guide you deep into your anger, so that you join with Jesus in weeping for the world, and so that you groan with the creative Spirit in the loving labor pains of a better tomorrow.
May it be so.