A few weeks ago, I knocked a table in a coffee shop, where I was having breakfast with my family. The man whose coffee I'd spilled (slightly) unleashed a verbal volley of rage in our direction as a result. "You knock that table again, and I'll knock your f***** head off", he spurted, without the asterisks and in full view of my four small children. My four year-old son, still impacted and shaken by the incident, continues to ask regularly why he did.
Earlier this week, I was enjoying the uniquely British pursuit of queueing, at peak time in my local supermarket. The woman behind me became enraged after the checkout attendant – who's deaf, incidentally – got confused and caused a slight hold up. We'd been waiting for approximately three minutes when she hit boiling point; throwing down a basket full of groceries and causing a more spectacular chain reaction than she was perhaps intending. Unrepentant, she too blasted out a couple of four-letter words before stomping out of the shop, sans Dove moisturising lotion and copy of TV Quick.
Rage seems to be a constant, menacing presence in our culture. Once the temperature is raised in any situation – an overcrowded train carriage; an unexpected delay – so many of us feel entitled to a moment of bad feeling, a few minutes of grumpy muttering, or even losing it completely.
Partly this is due to our culture of individualism and entitlement, where consumer ideals teach us that, as the old advertising slogan goes, we're worth it. We're the star in our own lives, so when things don't go our way, we're conditioned to react.
We're also a profoundly time-poor generation; or at least we've convinced ourselves that's the case. The pressures of work and family life (and church, and our community) are enhanced by those same consumer values that say we should be able to have and do everything we want, right away. As a result our daily lives are often tightly timetabled; always at risk of tripping out of step.
Once we've become aware of this problem however, we can address it. Here are just a few thoughts on what we can do to defuse our own predisposition to simmering tension... and outright rage.
Slow down
If part of our culture's anger problem stems from the tension of our over-stuffed schedules and the fear of betraying them, then maybe it's time to have less in the diary. Often we fill our lives with too much out of a sense that we 'ought' to be busy. It's as if a highly active social life, over-commitment at church and a relentless programme of home or self-improvement are signs of personal success. In truth, they're often the things that drive us to burn out. So trying to live a bit more simply, and even building in some actual 'spare' time in our lives could be a great step toward lowering our overall tension levels.
Practise submission
We're all susceptible to the creeping culture of entitlement. Fortunately, the Christian faith has the perfect antidote: the discipline of submission. Don't be scared off by that word; Jesus was up to something gloriously counter-cultural when he suggested "if anyone would be first, they should be last, and the servant to all." He turns individualism on its head by inviting his followers to put every other person's needs before their own. It's much harder to get angry with people when you're genuinely pursuing their priorities instead of yours. It might seem difficult to do, but there's a glorious logic to it: if everyone prefers everyone else, then actually, everyone gets put first...
Pursue peace
When Jesus blesses peacemakers in Matthew 5:9, he's not just talking about armies and governments. Peace, forgiveness and reconciliation are at the heart of Jesus' message, and when we actively prioritise these things, our rage-fuses naturally lengthen. Christians are meant to be people who live in harmony; who can't even worship God until they've reconciled their broken relationships (Matthew 5:23-24) we have to lead the way in ensuring that people in conflict resolve it in peace. In so doing, we take a whole lot of the anger out of our communities.
Do less, put others first, mend relationships. Three little ideas that aren't particularly radical, but that together might just help us to get along better.
Martin Saunders is a Contributing Editor for Christian Today and the Deputy CEO of Youthscape. You can follow him on Twitter: @martinsaunders
