Rector’s Blog, Listening for Love - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

First a word on anger: Anger is not anti-love. And it is a misguided understanding of love that makes us equate anger with hatred. As I wrote last year, God gets angry. And God is Love. Our Scriptures paint a consistent picture of a God who gets angry when they see people in positions of power marginalize and oppress the powerless in God's name. God's anger is not arbitrary but is inflamed by injustice and inhumanity. And God's anger is not hate. It is an extension of love. My parishioner's expression of anger was an expression of love and an act of courage. And it reminded me of all the times I had sat on my thumbs and kept myself from confronting friends or family when they dehumanized others, because I didn't want to rock the boat. I didn't want to be unpleasant myself. When we deny ourselves the natural emotion of anger as a response to injustice, marginalization, or dehumanization, we are denying the voice of God that stirs within us. And when I deem a woman's anger unattractive, unseemly, undesired, I am denying the presence of that same God that dwells within them.