The universe certainly gave professor Henry Lewis Gates, Jr. of Harvard a big smooch.
It arrived at his doorstep dressed as a police officer. Of course it wasn’t really a police officer. It never is. It was, rather, metaphysically speaking, a mirror. Its purpose was to show the well-honored professor a part of himself that, should he choose to pay attention to it, would grow his self-understanding, and thus his compassion.
“Oh, youhoo, professor Gates,” said the universe, “you have at least one pretty big belief that’s weighing you down, you beautiful creature. Here, let us show it to you; maybe you don’t need to hold it so tightly.”
And so, honoring the principle that anger is the rooster of spiritual awakening, the universe presented professor Gates with an event designed specifically to trigger within him a loud cock-a-doodle-do.
"Check out a belief that you have allowed to make you miserable,” the universe said, “the belief that certain behaviors of others define your peace of mind.”(As unproductive beliefs go, that one may be the most common among us humans.)
“Absolutely, racial profiling is harmful, painful, pernicious and deserves all the healing attention we can give it,” the universe said to professor Gates. “And golly, if you feel moved to shout about it so forcefully that no one in the world can ignore you, please do. But why does anger have to be part of it? Why allow the attitudes or actions of another to determine your sense of self? Surely a lovely smart fellow like yourself isn’t implying that officer Crowley ‘made’ you angry, that you had no say in the matter because you’re a puppet yanked this way and that by the strings of circumstance.’’To be sure, it wasn’t just professor Gates the universe was performing for. The same message was offered to the officer who arrested him, Sergeant James Crowley. Professor Gates was a mirror for the good sergeant.
More to the point, that message is offered to us all.
Every person and event that each of us encounters is primarily (some would say exclusively) a mirror for us, showing us ourselves––and, sometimes, what we need to address to become ourselves at our best...no matter what sort of insanity is staring us in the face.Getting angry is certainly understandable. It’s a big part of everyone’s life until we get really good at managing fear, for that’s what anger is: fear on steroids you might say. But all human emotions are gifts; they exist to serve us, to help us become bigger, more expansive, more able to embrace the vastness of human experience...even while working like hell to alter some of that experience. The gift of anger is that it shows us in no uncertain terms some part of us that is asking for our attention. For this reason, anger is to be honored, even welcomed as a great teacher. However, while anger is understandable, it is never justified. Anger always harms. Always. It harms us, and it harms others. Anger keeps us small, tight, rigid, inflexible––like viewing life through a drinking straw. Only our ego, our small self, addicted to being right in all its many forms (such as the drug of righteous indignation), calls anger justifiable. Our heart, our true self, which knows only love, knows that anger is, more than anything else, a cue that our ego nature is deeply afraid of something. Anger, then, is a door to greater self-understanding, for it is a call to pay attention.
Anger is just energy. Resisting it or denying it will not make it go away. But we can join it with our breath and consciously allow it to flow from us into the earth. Very much like how a grounding wire serves an electrical current. When the current goes a little haywire, instead of causing damage its is discharged into the ground. This is a practice we can learn. It can take a while to get good at it (I, for one, am far from that place), but every step is rewarding.The healthiest people we will ever meet are those who know in their bones that no one has ever made them angry. Anger, like love, is a choice.
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