Anger – Part One

Do you ever get angry?  I do.

I guess most of us are susceptible to it.  For me, anger is a sneaky dangerous enemy.  He creeps upon me unawares and whips me out of a positive patient mood before I have chance to defend.  Only on the odd occasion can I remember ‘losing it’ but you don’t need to relinquish your finger nail grip on your temper to cause problems.  Because anger disorientates and clouds judgement.  You say the wrong thing and make foolish decisions.

I’ve noticed little children go through fazes where they don’t need much to get angry about.  They already have it in there bursting to get out and run rampage.  It is a natural difficulty of the human condition.

The only remedy I have for keeping control of my angry beast is to tap into the unquenchable peace that somehow and supernaturally comes from God.  There will always be things that provoke anger, and the cliché anger management techniques usually will keep it at bay to an extent, but the simplest and easiest thing to do is this….I ask God to make me peaceful and help me do the right things and make the right decisions and love other people as he loves them.  And it works 

Strange people read my blog

My blog is clever and tells me the things people type into search engines before they are directed to read my blog.

Here are some of the more notable ones – the mind boggles to think what some people were hoping to find:

• rada washing machines
• tiger woods alien
• difference between none and no one
• candle song kendrick reflection (twice!)
• lesbians in sheffield
• he wore wellies
• embroidery in sheffield

Spot the difference

Scenario 1:

A man is left by his wife in October.  By December he’s seriously depressed and drinks too much at the office Christmas party.  On his way home he loses control of his BMW and crashes into a wall.  He is cut free from the car with abdominal and leg injuries, spends 3 days in hospital and is disqualified from driving for 12 months and receives a £240 fine for drink driving.

Scenario 2:

A man is left by his wife in October.  By December he’s seriously depressed and drinks too much at the office Christmas party.  On his way home he loses control of his BMW, hits and kills a 63 year old lady who is out walking her dog and crashes into a wall.  He is cut free from the car with abdominal and leg injuries, spends 3 days in hospital and is sentenced to 6 years in prison for causing death by dangerous driving whilst under the influence of drink.

David and/is Goliath

Click the image to see it in more detail.  The black and white scarf denotes a Palestinian.

Rage Against the Machine swear on 5 Live

I am loving this campaign to get Rage to number one ahead of X-Factor Joe.  Appearing on Radio 5 Live this morning, Rage Against the Machine argue that Simon Cowell has so much control over what people think and what people spend their money on.  I like Rage’s point that, whether it is a small thing like getting someone different to the top of the charts or whether it is something big like war and peace, when the silent majority act together then the world order of things can be turned on its head.

This is such an important lesson for us to learn.  We are so indoctrinated by culture…we are fed values and expectations that tell us we have to have sex to be normal, we have to get drunk to feel good, we have to own ’stuff’ to be worth anything.  I hate these values…they rip families part, exploit the young and destroy the poor.

But these values will not stop being preached by the media until more people stand up against them.  Whether or not X-Factor lose their chart crown is petty but the concept behind the campaign is devestatingly important. Sheila off 5 Live demonstrated the passive pathetic attitude that is typical of us, the consumer public.  She told the audience to buy Joe’s record because Rage started swearing.  Yeah, it’s ok to say something different until it offends people and then they run to the safety of what they know – materialism, celebrity obsession, self-centredness, escapism……

I’m off to download Killing in the Name!

X-Factor v Sports Personality

I’m really chuffed with the results.  I’m chuffed Jessica Ennis was voted 3rd – she’s a great athlete and she’s from my club so I guess I’m biased.  Must have been an incredible event for her in Sheffield.

I’m pleased that Jenson Button didn’t win, he’s done amazing things this year but no way near deserving to be the winner.

And it was great watching Ryan Giggs receive the award.  I loved the humility that he hadn’t bothered to rehearse a winner’s speach.  He was utterly stunned!

In my opinion, in comparison to X-Factor, Sports Personality is one of the most inspiring moments of the year.  When you look at the collection of sports stars, what they have achieved, what they have been through to achieve it and the legacy they leave, it really makes Olly and Joe (as good as they may be) look like an over-hyped pair of karaoke wannabes.

But to be honest, that is my opinion.  I have always loved sport and disliked pop music.  What is important, whether you watch X-Factor or Sports Personality of the Year, is that you are inspired by normal people who have taken their opportunities and achieved their dreams.  That is something we can all do.

Tiger walking barefoot with vipers

Almost two weeks ago I blogged about how ridiculous our obsession with celebrity is.  There were two headlines that day – one about a Russian train disaster and terrorist attack, another about a man who bumped his car.

The first story has been lost, who knows anything about any of the victims yet or what the fallout of the incident is?

The second story has become a worldwide media flesh feast.  I noticed there is a Facebook group titled, ‘I’ve slept with Tiger Woods’.  So what!?  He is one man who appears to have little control of his willy and from what has been said the world of golf already knew this.  He is a hero who has fallen but in reality he was fallen before he was even famous.  Why are we that surprised and that obsessed?

If he is guilty of all this unfaithfulness, in a way, I am pleased he is getting all this bad press – but only in as much as the media often glorifies promiscuity no matter who gets hurt or screwed over.  But when it comes down to it I don’t think anybody should have their life torn apart so publicly and so viciously.

To negotiate a lifestyle of fame is to walk barefoot in a nest of vipers.

Forgiveness

If you forgive you can be set free.  If you fail to forgive you will live with the consequences.

There are certain people, and certain things that they have done, that we struggle to forgive.  There is a part of us that is proud, proud that we are in control of the situation and maybe that we can pour out bad feeling onto the person who wronged us.

Sometimes it is obvious, when people make snide comments in their facebook statuses for the whole world to see.  Sometimes it is totally hidden, and the negativity is carefully kept secret.

The terrible and ironic thing about unforgiveness is that, when we fail to forgive, it is not the original perpetrator who suffers most – it is yourself.  A little unforgiveness in your life will leave you with a nagging discomfort in your soul, as if you are living in a room with a bad smell.  However, should you build up the bitterness towards others, or obsess about a particular hurt that you were dealt, then an acrid poison will infiltrate your mind and your feelings.  You will find it difficult to think straight because of the grip that bitterness has on you.  It will control your thought processes so that you automatically think the worst of people and then hold onto those misguided feelings and you build negative, destructive feelings about people who have hardly done you any wrong.

Forgiveness is fresh and life giving.  To employ an attitude of forgiveness is like having a perfectly tuned and clean engine.  You will achieve more, you will feel more joy in life and you will enjoy being with other people, even those who have wronged you.

However, forgiveness is not easy.  It is not a nice feeling that creeps upon you.  Forgiveness is a choice.  There are a few situations in my life that, for several days and weeks, I have had to repeat the sentence to myself, “I forgive _____, I forgive _______”.  To begin with it has felt futile and, to be honest, made me feel stupid.  But as time went on I began to feel neutral towards the other person.  If I have continued with the positive thinking after the neutral stage than I have even begun to have positive thoughts about the person that I felt had dealt me a major wrong.

Please don’t live trapped.  Start to forgive today.

Israel attempting to rid the world of anti-semitism

How do you help?

Spotted this on Lee & Baz’s blog.  A challenging video.

Are you helping?

Rather than just slagging off the embarrassing, socially inept street preacher it’d be better for me to be constructive.

I try and live my whole life serving God.  I hope that lots of the little things I do actually, in some tiny way, ‘help’:

• eating dinner with my family
• taking time to listen to a friend at work
• playing footy with the lads on a Monday night
• being an advocate for disempowered young people
• sharing my experience with a trainee youth worker
• praying with someone who’s stressed
• popping in for 10 minutes to see a friend
• taking Anya swimming
• writing a blog post(!?)
• taking time out the day to meditate on who God is
• writing to a politician about the situation in Palestine

The list goes on.  How are you helping?