Valerie is a 42-year-old, single, Reformed Christian lady who lives in Baltimore. She doesn't remember a time
before she knew and loved Jesus, but she does remember accepting John Calvin into her heart in March of 2000.
Valerie is a member of Christ Reformed Evangelical Church in Annapolis.
Though her career aspiration is to be a housewife, Valerie has not yet found anyone suitable who wishes to hire
her for employment in that field (or, more properly, anyone suitable has not found her), so in the meantime she
earns her daily bread working in communications -- editing, writing, print design and website management.
Jonesing for Some Good Reading?
Doug Jones was kind enough to e-mail me the excellent exhortation he delivered at Christ Church a few weeks ago. I requested it because I...uh...have a...uh...friend who could really use a closer perusal of it. I republish it here (only slightly edited...no one is safe from my proofreading propensities, mwahaha!) for your reading pleasure...or for your conviction, whichever the case may be:
The British author Douglas Adams once noted, "In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
In truth, anger is an art, a rare art. In Scripture, God shows us holy and frightening anger. In Jeremiah 7, the Lord says, "Do they not provoke Me to anger?....'Behold, My anger and My fury will be poured out on this place -- on man and on beast, on the trees of the field and on the fruit of the ground. And it will burn and not be quenched.'" Terrifying anger. We also see it in the life of Jesus, when he overthrows the moneychangers at the Temple.
But this sort of anger is an art. Righteous anger is very rare. Because we see it so much in Scripture we assume that just any amateur can do it. It is truly something that should most often not be tried at home.
What we call anger in our families, especially in fathers, is usually a covering, a mask. Usually a mask for some unspoken guilt in the angry person himself. The angry person has failed in some way, feels guilty, has failed to carry out some responsibility, has abdicated in some petty way, and when someone else, maybe accidentally highlights his abdication, he covers it with an explosion of wrath.
Anger makes you look holy. It seems to raise you up to God's level, where no one dare question you again. It sends everyone scattering so no one can point out your sin. It gives you the moral high ground from which you judge all other complaints. Anger most often, then, is a gross lie. When we see a loss of temper, the angry should be on notice that the first question we will ask is What is he guilty of? What shame is he hiding? What failure does he wish to cover? That's what anger means 99 percent of the time.
Even Nietzsche noticed, "No one lies as much as the indignant do." In contrast, in Ecclesiastes we read, "The patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. Do not hasten in your spirit to be angry, for anger rests in the bosom of fools" (7:8-10).
That fifth paragraph, in particular, knocked my socks off.
I also commend to you the blog of Pastor Jones et alii, Scribblative Agincourting, which looks to be chock full o' interesting political and economic commentary that I will likely discover to be quite over my head.
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 9:12 PM
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2 Comments:
On February 7, 2008 11:13 AMmagistramaterwrote... Oh, thank you Valerie! Jones has clarified so much in my mind. I will NEVER forget his talk at the 1997 Ministerial Conference on Sabbath Celebration. Or the dazed lunch afterwards where we processed what we had just heard. Or the years since where we have tried to incorporate those words into our life.
I'm grateful for the blog link. Can I stand next to you under the interesting political and economic commentary? It's fun *trying* to understand, no?
