14
CTRL. Alt. Delete.
I was five, running through the house with a blue towel tied at my neck like a cape. It was evening, and I can remember the florescent light of the kitchen and the aerator on the aquarium gurgling. I was Batman, with no mask, no crime to fight and plenty of pre-bed energy to expend.
My dad staggered out of the back hall in his underwear, infuriated at not being asleep. He was working swing shifts as a young State Highway Patrolman. Mom had been shushing me, but Batman had managed to awaken a real, exhausted crimefighter anyway. He grabbed my towel as I ran by in an impulse of irritability.
I had not just awakened him. I had made him really angry.
We learned as young children a person’s mood and enjoyment of life were a contingency. A contingency others controlled.
Your noise level, willingness to eat vegetables, your punctuality, attention to detail, grades, room cleanliness; all were the major determiners of mom and dad’s mood, and how you might be treated as a result of that mood.
In other words, you’ve known most of your life you were in control of people, especially powerful people, and they were in control of you.
My mom says it happened in less than a second. The towel jerked tight in my dad’s strong hand, my feeble knot slipped open. My little frame spun like an Irish dreidel into the kitchen table, my forehead gashing open on one of the spindly legs. The rest of the memory is a whirling blur of my apologetic father holding me in his arms, carrying me into the brightly lit emergency room, surgical sheets over my head, the sting of the needle as they injected a local, dad holding my hand as they stitched me up, dad petting me, dad making jokes. Most significantly, I remember I had never seen my dad so upset, so accommodating, so willing to eat out of my hand.
I clearly remember his anger, as well as the strange satisfaction of his remorse. The anger I had caused, waking him from much-needed sleep and my innocent insensitivity to how tired he was.
But I had influenced his remorse too. And I fanned the flames of this remorse, mindful in my five-year-old way that it was my hand on the dial of his guilt. I was punishing him, and it was working. A long history of a father and a son puppeteering the mood of the other was born.
When I walked into the front room recently, my son’s socks were crumpled on the couch next to his shoes, his legos, a book and some trash from a snack. I bellowed his name, demanding he clean it up. I felt the anger and frustration coursing through my veins. I would have said it to my friends like this.
It pisses me off when the kids don’t listen.
The kids really infuriate me with their disrespect.
This is to say, I’m a grown man and my children have the power to dictate my mood to me. And they suffer for it, because I believe they’ve caused suffering. So I perpetuate the silly, devastating lie that my children caused my upset. Worse, my children don’t learn in cases like this the supposed moral value of a clean house or taking responsibility or being respectful or any such manure I tell myself I’m trying to instill during my tirades.
I transfer the teacher far more than the teaching. Container far more than contents.
I’m teaching in those moments that children control their parents. I’m teaching in those moments that when they grow up, when they encounter something they don’t like, they should blow up. Upset themselves as though controlled by all the world but themselves.
My kids aren’t learning the value of a clean home, if a “clean home” even has any value beyond individual preference. Whoever first said cleanliness is next to Godliness was probably unaware of the hellish false equivalency they were immortalizing forever. When I become angered at my children for their performance, I am teaching them that when the universe doesn’t conform to their will, just throw an adult tantrum and season it with a pinch of moral justification. Then everything will be just how they want.
My son didn’t learn about picking up Legos. My son learned yelling about Legos.
You “made them angry” or “saddened them” or “ruined their morning”, our parents. In some truly unfortunate cases, kids even heard parents or relatives tell them, “you make me sick” for simply behaving like a kid. Same with teachers and other adults. You and I were given control over them, and then had to suffer the consequences for handling this insane responsibility badly.
It’s a stupid thing to do, handing children control over adult happiness. It’s control the younger version of us thought we wanted and perhaps even thought we’d mastered early on. Children love puppets after all. But by the time we realize that the inability of our parents to deal with all our unbridle-able youth will generally result in our own misery, it’s far too late to give the remote control back.
Jesus, teach us to pray.
“Our Father, who art in heaven….”
Uh oh.
Good or bad, how we perceive parents of course informs how we see God. Parents and teachers are probably our first gods.
A tangent on the wrath of God, in light of the direct connection we make to our parents, is in order: How many times in the last year have you heard that a person or a group has beliefs or behaviors that anger God? That God’s wrath is kindled by someone’s ideas and actions, the clear implication being God’s mood was ruined by human action in the same way dad’s could be by leaving your bike in the yard for the third time. It’s an arrogant message for sure; little you and I, controlling the Lord of the Universe’s ability to enjoy all that’s been made.
God was having a great day until you arrived.
That’s one powerful little sinner. God as a shower head raining down on us whatever temperature we dial up on the faucets. A God that can’t claim the All in Almighty.
This is perhaps why it’s so hard for some to respect the Object of Christian faith. We depict God as a god whose creations can dictate his state of mind. For people who believe humanity has free will, it’s interesting to conclude humanity’s God does not. For people who don’t believe in free will, it’s even more interesting, since now we’re talking about anger God causes God’s self.
There are numerous passages and entire stories in the scriptures which highlight the wrath of God. Most of us couldn’t understand the point of our faith, or the fundamental narrative of the Bible without God’s wrath. But in our constantly morphing view of the Almighty, isn’t it possible, perhaps even likely, that depicting God as angry was the most effective way to show that God is not indifferent? That God is interested and involved and has, for example, taken notice of those victimizing others with their abuse of power. With time aren’t we learning, like Dallas Willard insisted, that “anything you can do with anger you can do better without it”? Aren’t we becoming aware that anger is a physiological reaction, an emotion, caused by something being in the way of what you want? Do we really believe God angers because God is thwarted?
Or look at it this way; if a person gets angry and behaves accordingly, that person also very likely has the ability to be happy – elated even – and laugh. Both are emotional responses to external stimuli. But the Bible never depicts God as having a good laugh. Mocking heathens and scoffing at them, yes, but the scripture never presents God as so much as chuckling.
Are we really excited to spend eternity with a God capable of wrath and not laughter? A God infuriated by liberals online, but who doesn’t laugh at cat videos? If we’re not excited, we’re probably too terrified to admit it.
Jesus said if you’ve seen me you’ve seen the Father. Someone else said that Christ is an exact stamp of what God is. And this Christ didn’t go around getting things done with intimidation. This Christ actually told people not to be intimidated. Probably because he knew that if you are scared that your behavior could spoil the Cosmic mood, you’ll hide and never have the peace people of faith are supposed to have. You will lie. You will avoid. And even if you call the way you hide your inner world “holiness,” it’s still an awful, anxiety-ridden lie.
A man tells his new bride he’ll be ten minutes late. She huffs in a display of aggravation. When he gets home, she has a certain edge to her mood. The next time it happens the same way. His punctuality is proving to be the knob controlling her joy.
A manager becomes a relational minefield when store numbers are low. Especially toward the end of the quarter. The performance of the team doesn’t just affect revenue. It actually controls their manager’s mood with subsequent effects on the office atmosphere.
A kid tells her parent that her grades are slipping and asks for help. Rather than a supportive response for help and understanding, disappointment fogs the room. Dad is not happy now.
In each case, people discover that someone becomes unsafe when they’re told the truth. They have the same problem Jack Nicholson accused Tom Cruise of. And so they are motivated to protect both themselves and the other from the whole story, because moody beings tend to have little capacity for what’s true.
The man calls his wife and says he’ll be home in 5 minutes, knowing he’s 20 minutes away. He’ll blame traffic or something later. For now, pacify with lies. He’s wrong to lie. But he’s preserving himself.
Many of the members of the sales team pad their numbers, make up sales call reports, inflate numbers and more, because their overseer is so easily overwhelmed. The truth may come out later, but for now they pacify with lies. These lies are wrong, but the tactic preserves at least a semblance of peace.
The child did everything in her understanding to improve grades. It didn’t work. So she blames a surprise test. She hides report cards. She figures out an “F” can be transformed into a “B” with no artistic effort at all. Mom and dad showed themselves unable to remain happy unless things were just so. In the absence of having what’s needed to “make them happy”, the girl lies. She’s wrong for doing so, but her parents’ bad mood is under her control and who willingly tanks others’ moods when they know how to avoid doing so?
Some aren’t willing to lie. But they are willing to avoid you or not tell you anything at all. Same motivator. When someone’s mood proves to be circumstantial, their joy conditional- nobody wants to mess with those circumstances and conditions. If you show that your happiness and approval are dependent on specific outcomes and performances, you will often be lied to, sometimes avoided, and sometimes deliberately left out of the loop “for your own protection.”
Paul listed nine words that reflect tangible evidence that the Spirit, rather than the tick, are influencing our behavior:
Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Goodness. Faithfulness. Gentleness. And….
Self-control.
Again, these words are about what we provide to the experience of others. The arrows turned more away than toward the self. The evidence of the Spirit’s sway in my life begins with love of others and ends, for Paul, with me controlling me. Not you. Not circumstances. Not the weather. Not the outcome of the election. Frankly, not even God despite the loftiness of the request that God take me over.
Apparently my refusal to allow anyone power over what I am or how I feel is an act of courageous compassion. I take from you the ability to shape my mood. I withdraw from you my blame, my faultfinding, my enjoyment of life. I control me, not you. You’re welcome.
There are days where I wish the fruit of the spirit was that I got to control others. Or control circumstances to confirm them to my liking. And there are just as many days that I wish the fruit of the spirit was an inspired ability to assign blame for all those responsible for my soured disposition and lack of happiness.
And yet, there’s a real sense of power that comes from knowing my Christ wants to teach me the Compassion and the strength of not being so subject to the (mis)behavior and (s)words of others. To take back the remote and responsibility for the enjoyment of my own life.