Social beings that we are, we expect and depend upon affirmation by friends and relatives who do not challenge our ways of understanding life. An encounter with someone who is relatively challenging to us leaves us in what we call anxiety — that is, a state in which we feel somewhat powerless, finding few clues as to what to do next.

There are ways out of the powerless, confused state of anxiety. The chronicle of human events demonstrates to us that there are ways of responding to anxiety which may provide immediate gratification but which leave us nowhere with regard to the larger issues of reaching understanding in human society. Physical violence is an outstanding example of this sort of lamentable "solution."

We all need some insight into ourselves as feeling beings. One great help to us is to understand that we can move out of an anxious state into a much more focused state as we identify the feelings of love, fear, and anger within us.

For the sake of simplicity, I am going to concentrate on the feeling of anger. Fear and love are every bit as fascinating as anger, but what I have to say about anger can be applied to these other feelings as well.

We, especially we who adhere to a religion, have a definite language problem with the feeling of anger. We tend to think of anger as a sin. In fact, we need to understand the feeling of anger as something spontaneous, preceding any action on our part toward willing to do anything. None of us wills to have a pulse or blood pressure; these aspects of our physical make-up are just there. We do not need to apologize to anyone over the fact that we have a pulse or blood pressure.

And so with anger: this feeling is a spontaneous state when we find ourselves in the midst of something "wrong" — wrong in this case simply meaning "displeasing to us." With reflection we can move toward asking ourselves: "What is displeasing, and how do I respond in a way which is consistent with my human and religious values?"

Our values tell us that we have the opportunity to learn from, and even to enjoy, the personalities of people who differ from us. We acknowledge to ourselves that a feeling of anger is a normal occurrence under circumstances of challenge. It is thoroughly liberating to be able to say to oneself: I feel my anger; this anger is a normal, indeed a healthy, part of me; I choose to live with this anger and open myself to all the possibilities which present themselves when I have this opportunity to explore challenges to my way of looking at life.

We could say that anger gets us out of bed in the morning. It is our felt sense that we must be contenders in the struggle of life. Our God has given us the opportunity to direct our energies toward facing challenges as deep as "Why doesn't so-and-so see things the way I do?" Along the way, we find ourselves asking: "What are the personal views that I hold most dear, and why do I hold them?" Exploring the views of another person can help us to know ourselves much better.