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Contents © 2006
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

CONFESSIONS
September/October 2006

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WRATH, RAGE, ANGER, AND SLOTH

"I'm sorry for the outburst, Father."

"It's okay, don't worry about it. We're all hot."

This is part of why I love Father Luke, the distant-cousin priest who has, twice now, joined us for our grand family gatherings -- last year in California, this time at my brother's small farm in upstate New York. What a fantastically polite answer. And not just polite, but true -- it was hot. And surely the heat, the way it weighed on a body, had something to do with the way I had just chewed out my nine-year-old son.

But of course, it was more than the heat. It was my own wretched habit, too. I don't explode the way I used to, but I still get angry -- gut-twisted, jaw-tightened, eyes-glaring angry. I get angry because he gets hard -- refusing to see where he's wrong, focusing only on where he is wronged. Perversely attached to his sense of violated justice. Refusing to see his blessings. Cold and unfeeling towards his siblings. Oh, do I get angry.

I have no distance. Five kids in, and I still can't sit back and say, "The boy is nine. He's emotionally immature. He's learning. If you are forever attempting to break him down when he hardens up on you, aren't you the nagging father that Paul warns against? What kind of son are you creating when you treat him this way?" I have seen in others the effects of a nagging father, a bullish father. I don't want that for my son.

If my wife intervenes, if she brings my rage to my attention, I can sometimes back away. But otherwise, when he pushes my buttons, I respond. I hate this about myself. What I should have done was pulled Father Luke aside and asked for confession, plus spiritual counsel.

"It'll kill you," warns my mother, fear in her eyes. And she's probably right. The doctors say I've got a coronary artery that tends towards spasm. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to opine about the effects of stress on such a condition.

Every Sunday, I wince as folks shake my hand and say, "Peace be with you." Peace? The peace of Christ is something that endures, that holds steady amid the gales of passion. Me, I flap about like a weathervane. I am unmanned. Honestly, I do better praising God for suffering than I do managing these surges of anger. My wife recently suggested that I sit down and really contemplate my greatest sin, really start attacking it. I don't even know where to start, except to name it. It takes self-possession to step back and pray for peace when I feel anger coming on, and self-possession is precisely what I lack in such moments.

A close second to wrath? Sloth. I came back from New York before my wife, with all sorts of intentions to get all sorts of things done. It hasn't been a complete disaster, but too often, I'm paralyzed in a kind of silly depression, just sitting at home, being alone, and doing very little. What's the matter with me? Is this my true self -- take away the direct impetus of wife and family and all the air goes out of the bag? It might not be so bad -- I'm still getting the baseline amount of paying work done. But when there's undone work and the kids are around, there are a lot of things that don't happen. The playhouse doesn't get built. Baseball doesn't get taught. Books don't get read aloud. Weekend camping trips don't happen.

This is love, dummy -- forget yourself and do what you're supposed to do. I will, I will, I ... didn't. "If you take steps and try to remedy this, I won't be upset with you," says the wife, trying to be understanding. But just as anger wars with the self-possession required to neutralize it, sloth wars with the notion of taking any steps at all. Even prayer becomes a chore. Too lazy to pray for the grace to stop being lazy.

Old news. Tired news. I've been lazy and wrathful for years now. Endless resolutions to change. Maybe there's been progress. I don't shout as much. I do get more work done than I used to. But no dramatic transformation in Christ, no testament for all to see. Heck, for me to see -- no great interior manifestation of the reality of God's grace. I've wondered before if this is why my father reads conversion stories -- the thrill of seeing real and dramatic change. Here in the fold -- at least, in this lifelong member of the fold -- sin is the rule, the same old sin, the same one I'll probably be fighting all my life.

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