“The world is the closed door. It is a barrier. And at the same time it is the way through.
Two prisoners whose cells adjoin, communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing which separates them but it is also their means of communication … Every separation is a link.”
Simone Weil
I don’t think people have demons,
I think they have themselves
and things they aren’t ready to be honest about yet.
It is not easy to come to grips with the fact that we’re capable
of hurting people with the same instrument we love them with.
The heart is a hungry wolf
and it is made of glass.
King Longton
En so probeer ons die honger wolf met die “Versigtig:Breekbaar”-plakker op wegsteek. Deur nie te voel nie. Of liewer: deur nie te voel wat ons voel nie. So vergeet ons dat die mens eenvoudig nie in staat is om sy gevoelens selektief te verdoof nie, soos Brené Brown ons herinner wanneer sy oor die krag van kwesbaarheid praat. Wanneer ons poog om ons woede, hartseer en vrees te verdoof, verdoof ons outomaties ook ons blydskap. En op ‘n dag vra iemand jou om bietjie “voelers uit te steek” en jy besef jy weet nie waar jou voelers sit nie. Iemand oor wie jy regtig omgee vra jou om net een maal in die voelpoel in te duik en jy besef met ‘n skok jy’t nog nooit sonder vlerkies hierdie waters aangepak nie. Jou hart het verhard. Jy’t ongevoelig geword.
In Markus 3 is daar vyf baie insiggewende verse. Jesus, die maverick wat Hy is, lyk lus vir ‘n paar vrae vra en ‘n stukkie gesond maak … op die Sabbat. Oe’s en aa’s en oë wat rol en wat-gaan-die-mense-sê’s all round. En Hy sê vir hulle: “Is dit toelaatbaar om op die Sabbat goed te doen, of sleg te doen, om 'n lewe te red, of om dood te maak?” Hulle het egter stilgebly.
Nadat Hy woedend in die rondte na hulle gekyk het, diep bedroef oor die hardheid van hulle harte, sê Hy vir die man: “Steek uit jou hand!” Die man het sy hand uitgesteek, en dit het gesond geword.
Jesus word kwaad omdat Hy geweldig hartseer is oor die ongevoeligheid – die hardte van die harte – van mense.
If we are struggling to seek God single-heartedly, to learn to weep the anger out of ourselves is a matter of self-respect.
Maggie Ross
Ek het nou vir ‘n oomblik getwyfel wat “Hy verloor sy humeur” nou weer in Engels is. “He lost his humour” was die eerste file wat my brein getrek het. Maar dis seker eintlik presies wat gebeur. As ek kwaad word, verloor ek vir ‘n oomblik my humor. En dis goed. Want nie alles is snaaks nie. Ek lees iets raak wat ek ‘n paar jaar terug geskryf het: “Dis nie snaaks dat ‘n taxi verlede week vir Nomonde (die dierbare 62-jarige vrou wat by ons gewerk het) van haar voete af gery het by ‘n voetoorgang nie. Dis nie snaaks dat sy nou al vir dae duiselig rondloop en buikpyn het nie. Dis nie snaaks dat die polisie haar net afgelaai het by die kliniek en gesê het hulle kan niks vir haar doen nie – “daar’t dan niks gebreek nie”. Sy is kwaad. Ek is kwaad.
Faced with an outrage, anger is the price we pay for paying attention. It is the rage that ought to come out, because, when faced with an outrage, it is a sin not to be angry.
Allen Dwight Callahan
Die Bybel is ook taamlik dubbelsinnig oor woede: “Word toornig en moenie sondig nie; laat die son nie ondergaan oor julle toorn nie; en gee aan die duiwel geen plek nie. (Ef. 4:26-27). En ‘n paar verse later: “Alle bitterheid en woede en toorn en geskreeu en lastering moet van julle verwyder word, saam met alle boosheid.”
Die Message-vertaling lees: “Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry – but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry. Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life.”
Wat maak ons hiermee? Veral as die Bybel baie duidelik daaroor is dat Jesus wel kwaad geword het. Vir ‘n sisteem en skape in dié se kraal vir wie reëls belangriker geword het as die genesing van ander mense. In die tempel vleg Hy ‘n sweep, jaag mense weg, gooi geld uit en keer tafels om omdat hy verdeeldheid en uitbuiting van die kwesbares verag. Omdat hy nie glo dat God se liefde en genade en vergifnis enigsins gekoop kan word nie. Nou nie juis die toonbeeld van nice & numb nie. Wild en woedend en wonderbaarlik.
Love dancing with rage, rage dancing with love, becomes the greatest spiritual, moral, and political task in each generation.
Danté Stewart
Die muur wat woede in ons lewens vorm, kan net so opbouend wees as wat dit afbrekend kan wees. Ons het woede nodig om verkeerde goed reg te maak, om sosiale boosheid om te draai, om op te staan teen onderdrukking en ongelykheid. Verdriet alleen gaan dit nie vir ons doen nie. Beslis ook nie net blydskap of vrees nie. Die briljante animasie-film “Inside Out” illustreer dit op ‘n besondere manier. Woede is deel van ons hardeware. Ek kan nie te bowe kom wat ek nie insluit nie. Universele reël. Hoe en hoekom jy uiting gee aan jou woede, daar lê die ding.
The trick with anger is to let it inform us, maybe even to let it warm us if we have become too cold with indifference or apathy, but not to let the fire control or consume us.
Sara Jolena Wolcott
David Whyte se woorde oor die wonder van woede:
ANGER is the deepest form of compassion, for another, for the world, for the self, for a life, for the body, for a family and for all our ideals, all vulnerable and all, possibly about to be hurt. Stripped of physical imprisonment and violent reaction, anger is the purest form of care, the internal living flame of anger always illuminates what we belong to, what we wish to protect and what we are willing to hazard ourselves for. What we usually call anger is only what is left of its essence when we are overwhelmed by its accompanying vulnerability, when it reaches the lost surface of our mind or our body’s incapacity to hold it, or when it touches the limits of our understanding. What we name as anger is actually only the incoherent physical incapacity to sustain this deep form of care in our outer daily life; the unwillingness to be large enough and generous enough to hold what we love helplessly in our bodies or our mind with the clarity and breadth of our whole being.
What we have named as anger on the surface is the violent outer response to our own inner powerlessness, a powerlessness connected to such a profound sense of rawness and care that it can find no proper outer body or identity or voice, or way of life to hold it. What we call anger is often simply the unwillingness to live the full measure of our fears or of our not knowing, in the face of our love for a wife, in the depth of our caring for a son, in our wanting the best, in the face of simply being alive and loving those with whom we live.
Our anger breaks to the surface most often through our feeling there is something profoundly wrong with this powerlessness and vulnerability… Anger in its pure state is the measure of the way we are implicated in the world and made vulnerable through love in all its specifics.
Anger truly felt at its center is the essential living flame of being fully alive and fully here; it is a quality to be followed to its source, to be prized, to be tended, and an invitation to finding a way to bring that source fully into the world through making the mind clearer and more generous, the heart more compassionate and the body larger and strong enough to hold it. What we call anger on the surface only serves to define its true underlying quality by being a complete but absolute mirror-opposite of its true internal essence.
Deur Frieda van den Heever