{"id":12073,"date":"2012-12-10T13:33:12","date_gmt":"2012-12-10T18:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=12073"},"modified":"2012-12-10T13:33:12","modified_gmt":"2012-12-10T18:33:12","slug":"anger-is-not-the-opposite-of-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/12\/10\/anger-is-not-the-opposite-of-love\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Anger is not the opposite of love’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Anger is also a messenger. It always has something to tell us about who we are and how we are connected with those around us. This is part of why anger can be so difficult and complicated: it reminds us what matters to us. We rarely become angry about something or someone we do not care about. In her groundbreaking essay \u201cThe Power of Anger in the Work of Love,\u201d Beverly Wildung Harrison writes, \u201cAnger is not the opposite of love. It is better understood as a feeling-signal that all is not well in our relation to other persons or groups or to the world around us. Anger is a mode of connectedness to others and it is always a vivid form of caring.\u201d She goes on to write, \u201cWhere anger rises, there the energy to act is present.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014 Jan Richardson, \u201cTender Anger: Sunday, Lent 3<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

* * * * * * * * * * * *<\/p>\n

Las Vegas Sun,<\/em> \u201cMother, stepfather arrested in beating death of 7-year-old<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

The boy\u2019s stepfather, Markiece Palmer, 34, and the boy\u2019s mother, Dina Palmer, 27, were arrested and charged with murder, child abuse and neglect in the beating death of Roderick Arrington, a second-grader at Roundy Elementary School.<\/p>\n

\u2026 Arrington was admitted to the UMC\u2019s pediatric intensive care unit in critical condition. A doctor reported that Arrington suffered from strokes and fixed pupils and had bruises on the arms, abdomen, back, legs, thighs and buttocks.<\/p>\n

\u2026 Arrington had surgery but died sometime after he was admitted to the hospital. Metro, in its news release Tuesday, said the boy died Friday.<\/p>\n

\u2026 Last Tuesday, Markiece Palmer admitted to police that he spanked Arrington because he allegedly lied about reading a chapter in the Bible.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Frederick Buechner<\/a>:<\/p>\n

These parents filled the scalding water with their child to punish him and, scalding and scalded, he died crying out in tongues as I heard it reported on the radio on my way back from of all places church and prayed to almighty God to kick to pieces such a world or to kick to pieces Himself and His Son and His Holy Ghost world without end standing there by the side of that screaming tub and doing nothing while with his scrawny little buttocks bare, the hopeless little 4-year-old whistle, the child was lowered in his mother\u2019s arms. \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Anger is not the opposite of love. It is better understood as a feeling-signal that all is not well in our relation to other persons or groups or to the world around us. Anger is a mode of connectedness to others and it is always a vivid form of caring.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[33],"class_list":["post-12073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-theodicy"],"yoast_head":"\n'Anger is not the opposite of love'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\""Anger is not the opposite of love. It is better understood as a feeling-signal that all is not well in our relation to other persons or groups or to the world around us. 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Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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