Value of anger

Considering how to rid myself of feelings of ill will, some questions came up about the value of anger. I had already thought of it as providing energy and determination for efforts to remedy some problem. Now a new idea came to me, anger might help avoid and counteract some demoralizing effects of some of our experiences.

I won't try to find all the possible benefits of anger. I'll just imagine that there are others besides the ones I see, and that if I work on some examples of how to rid myself of enduring feelings of ill will against individuals, without losing the benefits of anger that I see, some part of me will do whatever else needs to be done.

I'll try to practice putting my anger to good use in those two ways that I've already thought of, and at the same time try to rid myself of feelings of ill will against any person. One way I see to rid myself of ill will against a person, is to seek rewarding experiences with that person, if possible, otherwise to fantasize rewarding experiences with that person.

Another thing that helps me is to remember times when I've been tempted to do what the other person did that angered me, and times when I've failed to resist temptations that I wanted to resist.

While I was considering all this, a thought came to me that I sometimes stoke my anger, by dwelling on whatever made me angry. That might be something I could do without quite safely, whatever the value of anger might be.

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Questions and answers

Fantasize rewarding experiences?
Maybe by thinking of someone in my life that the person reminds me of, and remembering rewarding experiences with that person.

Now I'm seeing a long and lonely road ahead, and it's bringing me down out of the clouds.

1. I want to practice finding things to love in some of the people whose ideology is most opposed to mine, and in some of the people who are hardest for me to love; and practice fellowship with them. I also want to practice speaking well of them to others.

2. I want to try to rid myself of all depreciating thoughts about people, and all enduring feelings of ill will.

3. I want to find ways to make all that appealing to other people, so they will want to do it too. Maybe, if I find treasures along the way, I can tell people about them.

4. I want to continue organizing my ideas; about practicing and promoting fellowship across ideological divides; and about freedom from backbiting, not to publish them but to make better use of them.

Lying awake in the middle of the night, my mind racing, I realized that I was starting to build a mountain of words, and putting words ahead of deeds, the exact opposite of what I want to practice and promote! I've been trying to organize my ideas about how to practice and promote loving people, and fellowship, across ideological divides; and freedom from backbiting; to write about them to some friends, and post on my blog.

Now I want to try to practice first, then write about my experience.

- Part of the foundation I want to practice and promote is praying and making efforts to learn to love God more. I'm trying to memorize, and learn to say and write, a prayer and a passage in Chinese. The prayer is "From the sweet-scented streams ..." and the passage is "Let the flame of the love of God ..."

- I have a long list of ideas I compiled, some of my own, and some from friends, about learning to love God more. One is to spend more time in communion with nature, as part of my communion with God. I've been spending more time with some trees and shrubs near our home.

- Part of what I want to practice is an idea I got from Abdu'l-Baha, praising people. Some people I want to practice praising, for these initiatives, are people with ideologies opposed to mine. Who, what, where, when, how? Here, in this blog? Privately, to friends I'm writing to about these initiatives? On Facebook? In the forum where I've been posting? The names of some of the first people who came to mind, were notorious in some religious feuding on the Internet, and I'm not sure of the wisdom of singing praises of them here, now.

I just thought of one of the hardest people for me to love right now, and I tried to find something to love in him. I've always loved his avatar, and I still do!

I decided to practice praising people by writing to some of the people themselves, to express my appreciation for some things they're doing, so I just now wrote to three of them.

"My imprisonment doeth Me no harm, neither the tribulations I suffer, nor the things that have befallen Me at the hands of My oppressors. That which harmeth Me is the conduct of those who, though they bear My name, yet commit that which maketh My heart and My pen to lament."[1]

"All these things bring joy to the heart, and yet 'Abdu'l-Bahá is sunk deep in an ocean of grief, and pain and anguish have so affected my limbs and members that utter weakness hath overtaken my whole body. ... there hath arisen a dust cloud of ill will amongst the believers themselves. ... this doth lay upon the heart of 'Abdu'l-Bahá a heavy burden of grief, of inconceivable grief. For no tempest more perilous than this could ever assail the Cause of God, nor could anything else so diminish the influence of His Word."[2]

"Does not 'Abdu'l-Bahá wish us, as He looks down upon us with loving expectation from His glorious Station, to obliterate as much as possible all traces of censure, of conflicting discussions, of cooling remarks, of petty unnecessary observations that impede the onward march of the Cause, that damp the zeal of the firm believer and detract from the sublimity of the Bahá'í Cause in the eyes of the inquirer?"[3]

"With every day that passes, danger grows that the rising fires of religious prejudice will ignite a worldwide conflagration the consequences of which are unthinkable."[4]

"... the disease of sectarian hatreds, if not decisively checked, threatens harrowing consequences that will leave few areas of the world unaffected."[5]

For twenty years, from the earliest days of the Internet, the most popular Baha'i Internet forums have been divided into opposing ideological sanctuaries, with Baha'is in every forum continually maligning Baha'is with views opposed to theirs, often using Baha'i writings, and the words of Baha'i institutions and Baha'i celebrities, as excuses and instruments for their maligning. I've seen that same maligning in some of the most popular Baha'i Blogs and Web pages, and in the writings of Baha'i scholars; and I've seen the same division into opposing camps in Baha'i facebook groups.

I see that maligning as a symptom of divisions that have always existed within the Baha'i community, all over the world and at every level, and at the same time I see it threatening to deepen and widen those divisions. I also see it breaking hearts, staining the reputation of the Faith and repelling people away from it, and undermining the zeal and even the faith of some of its members.

I see a need for more individual initiatives to help calm that tempest. I'll be posting some relevant guidance I've found for those initiatives, and some ideas for strategies and lines of action. I would welcome any ideas from anyone, regardless of your ideology!

References:
[1] (Baha'u'llah, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 23)
[2] (Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 229)
[3] (Shoghi Effendi, 5 March 1922, to the Baha'is of the British Isles)
[4] (The Universal House of Justice, 2002 April, to the World's Religious Leaders)
[5] (The Universal House of Justice, Naw-Rúz, 2005, One Common Faith)