I had an encounter that made me angry.  And every time I thought about that incident for weeks after, I got angry all over again.  Clearly – a lot of unfinished business here.

The episode occurred as I was picking up my five year old granddaughter from school.  We were parked on the side street adjacent to the school.  We got in the car, and as my wife was in the back seat buckling in our little one, I was preparing to drive away.  A car rolled up next to me just as I turned on my blinker to pull out.  I waited for them to pass, but they pulled directly in front of me and then backed up.  I had my blinker on and I honked my horn as they were backing up – clearly trying to signal that I just needed to pull out.  But the car proceeded to back so closely that I was blocked in.  I honked again and threw up my hands asking – in effect – WTF?

No response.

My inclination was to walk over to the car and ask them to let me out, but knowing my own state of mind and how the other driver didn’t seem to care, I decided that causing a confrontation in front of my granddaughter wasn’t worth it.  So, I sat and fumed. 

What made matters worse was that the car blocking me in was an expensive, Lexus SUV.  So as I simmered in anger, I imagined the owner to be a white, wealthy, and entitled SOB.

Not my most Quakerly moment.

I have since spent time in prayer and reflection trying to understand the seeds of my anger.  Part of it is the anger I inherited from my father who was openly suspicious of anyone in a position of wealth and power.  His anger rested in the fact that his family was made homeless after his father was killed in a coal mine explosion and the coal company evicted his grieving family - a widow with five children - from the company house and cut off credit to the company store.

But there is more going on under the surface with me than the latent anger inherited from my father.  My anger also grew from a sense of powerlessness I felt.  If I wasn’t willing to cause a confrontation, then there was really nothing I could do but sit and seethe and wait for the offending car to leave. 

Another source of anger I identified  was a sense of sorrow for a  loss of community, and of a lack of support for the common good.  I found myself grieving over a way of life that seemed to be swiftly washing away.  Things like civility, honesty, community, common good, respect, caring, democracy, all words that once defined the best of America in the not so distant past, now seem quaint… and meaningless.

As I sat and pondered over this sense of loss, I realized that the words I used to define a longed for past, are the very same words used to describe the same sense of loss also felt by those who so ardently support the movement towards the far right and towards autocracy in America today.  They too feel that the country they knew and love and felt secure in, is being quickly eroded by the “radical left”, by immigrants taking their jobs, by a drug epidemic that ravaged their community, by urban machines that “steal” elections, and so much more.

Ironic isn’t it?  That if one digs deeply into the feelings of angst and anger, be it a farmer from Elroy Wisconsin or a store clerk on Burleigh Street in Milwaukee, we find a common sense of loss of community and a common sense of a loss of power to affect change.

Feelings of anger and powerlessness seem to predominate in our culture at this moment.  Black and Latinx anger certainly were on in the streets during the 500+ protests throughout the summer of 2020.  White anger seems to have driven the failed coup attempt on January 6th.  If you have friends on Facebook who are conservative, you can see the almost daily posts of anger over a loss of culture and country expressed on the memes they share.

Where will it all end?  How do we begin to heal?  Does it all have to come crashing down before we are shocked into a time of mass healing?

I know that the answer to my anger is love.  But I have to confess, that loving the SOB in the Lexus wasn’t my first reaction…or my second…or my tenth.  In fact, it wasn’t until deep reflection that I even considered love as an answer.
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The only thing that stopped me from an angry confrontation with the Lexus driver was the love I have for my granddaughter.  I didn’t want to be a poor example of how to handle my frustration in her eyes.

What would have happened if I would have sat in my car and thought about ways to show love to the Lexus owner instead of fuming and heaping assumptions of privilege upon him?  Would I have felt my anger bubble up again and again each time I remembered this encounter?

What would have happened if I would have simply prayed – asking for guidance on how to proceed or how to perceive the whole thing in a more divine light?

If showing love for our enemies is a step too far, perhaps then prayer is the best answer.  I don’t mean prayers for God to make everything OK or for the Divine to right all wrongs.  I’m talking about a more basic kind of prayer, one that asks for simple guidance.  Perhaps the best prayer is this:

“Lord, I know your light is in my heart.  Help me to let it shine on this moment.” 
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Such a prayer puts the onus on us to become the light of God in the world.  It takes us from a point of powerlessness and anger and moves us to divine action.  Now that’s an example I’d be proud share with my granddaughter.

One can’t understand gratitude without embracing grace.  It is by reflecting on the grace that befalls us every day that we begin to develop a deepening sense of gratitude.  On good days, it is easy to see the grace all around us; in the warm breeze, in the touch of a lover’s hand, in the laughter and innocence of a child. 

Poet Mary Oliver noted that “Attention without feeling… is only a report. An openness …is necessary if the attention is to matter.“ Oliver was a master at holding up the wonder of the world for all of us to reflect upon.  A honking goose, a grasshopper, the rain or sun, the trees or clouds – all were means she used in her poetry to help us uncover something deeper and richer emanating from our soul.  The grace of the world provides an ongoing invitation to experience the whisper of God from within.

It is a small step to go from recognizing the grace that abounds to being grateful for our many blessings.  G.K. Chesterton wrote that “…gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”  First, we marvel at the grace that showers us and then we cannot help but to become grateful for the bounty the Divine has granted.

Of course – identifying grace and showing our gratitude for it is easy when life is going our way.  But, what about when life is hard? How do we find grace and gratitude when we are in debilitating pain, or when we have lost a loved one, or when we have been fired from our job or when a family member has succumbed to drugs or alcohol, or when we have been abused?  What then?
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Many a good believer has turned sour on the Spirit when life becomes crushing and prayers go unanswered.  The silence of God during desperate times can be the harshest cruelty to befall a struggling soul.

An excerpt from Psalm 102 aptly sums up this sense of existential void:

For I have eaten ashes like bread
and mixed my drink with tears…
for You have picked me up and cast me aside…
and I wither away like grass.
 
It is when such spiritual darkness consumes us, when the thought of God’s grace is mocking us, when gratitude is beyond us, it is then we find whether we are led by faith. Only faith can sustain us when our troubled hearts and minds have crowded out grace and gratitude.  

Grace is bestowed upon us freely whether or not we desire it or feel we deserve it.  Gratitude is a byproduct of our embrace of grace.  But faith comes from the foundation of our relationship with the Divine who is always calling to us. 
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We build up our faith when we work to quiet our ego and strive to hear the voice of our inward teacher.  The more we open ourselves up to God, the brighter does the light from within illuminate our path.

It is no accident that the Christmas celebration of the light of God incarnate comes during the darkest days of the year.  Even before the birth of Jesus, people celebrated the winter solstice (December 21st) as the point when the dark days begin to wane, and light conquers darkness.

Some have said that we either walk by faith or we walk in fear.  I don’t think the world is ever that clear.  Our lives are a paradox filled with the ebb and flow of grace and gratitude, woundedness and despair. We cannot evade the darkness in the world or the darkness in our souls.  But we can take solace in knowing that light abounds; that grace abounds; that love abounds…

and that the darkness will end.

The light of God abounds, and such is the grace we have been given. For this unearned grace, I am profoundly grateful.