It’s fine to be angry, but what we want is resolve, not anger.

Anger coalesces around a perceived injustice, and assumes hope that things could be better, so in proportion it is good. But anger does not intrinsically suggest a course of action, so repeatedly arousing and manifesting anger is an exhausting cycle.

On the other hand, just attempting to still anger, to shut it down and make it go away, involves denying that sense of justice or abandoning that hope. That’s not a good idea at all; although in cases a malformed conscience or a traumatized emotional makeup may have a hair-trigger for an out-of-proportion response to certain injustices, the solution is to recognize and correct that disproportion. And while some wishful thinking masquerades as hope, only well-grounded expectations of real goods–real hope–can possibly serve in the place of hope. And, for what it’s worth, real hope is always an infused virtue, something the Holy Spirit makes real in you, directed toward the triumph of the Son of God in your life and in the world.

So we must not commit the grave sins of despair or of stifling truth and justice. But anger by itself is just exhausting, a ready pathway to acedia.  And when we begin to feel the despair of anger unlinked from effective action, we start to lash out at others and to engage in emotional blackmail (bitterness also isolates us, which starts the “misery loves company” wheel turning).

We should strive to resist both emasculation and enervation.

What we need is resolve, friends.

Let me allow a pagan with an out-of-proportion sense of this virtue to stir up your thinking on the matter:

Although all things are not to be judged in this manner, I mention it in the investigation of the Way of the Samurai. When the time comes, there is no moment for reasoning. And if you have not done your inquiring beforehand , there is most often shame. Reading books and listening to people’s talk are for the purpose of prior resolution. Above all, the Way of the Samurai should be in being aware that you do not know what is going to happen next, and in querying every item day and night. Victory and defeat are matters of the temporary force of circumstances.

(source: Yamamoto Tsunetomo – Wikiquote)

Tsunetomo also criticizes the legendary Forty-Seven Samurai for waiting a year to make circumspect plans (in fact, history suggests they were politicking to protect their families and other interests), rather than either attacking at once or committing seppukku (the real role of ritual suicide in historical Japanese culture is an extensive conversation best saved for another time, but let’s just say that for Tsunetomo it was a mostly legendary act in a mostly legendary story).  He says:

Concerning the night assault of Lord Asano’s ronin, the fact that they did not commit seppuku at the Sengakuji was an error, for there was a long delay between the time their lord was struck down and the time when they struck down the enemy. If Lord Kira had died of illness within that period, it would have been extremely regrettable.

(source: Yamamoto Tsunetomo – Wikiquote)

Now, important things are missing in this account during a relatively settled period of the Shogunate, but there is an insight into virtue that is solidly present in Tsunetomo that is missing elsewhere.

If your anger is justified–that is, if you have just cause and you have hope that change can be effected–then translate it into action by the shortest path possible.

And on an ongoing basis, continue to express and to call forth in others the resolution to act, to take the shortest path from identifying a wrong to righting it, every day.

Do not judge the value of a resolution by its likelihood of success, but by whether the action itself is possible, just, and has reasonable hope of succeeding.  Many a necessary action is unlikely to achieve all you desire, but is there something you can do that will in fact make a difference?

Do not forget to pray.  And do not forget that prayer which is merely wishing, which is unlinked from hope–reasonable expectation of good, based in God’s promises well understood–is unlikely to be effective.  (Do it anyway, but don’t do it alone; that’s how you heal your prayers and actions both.)

In this way, it is possible to know peace and also to insist that others act, to insist vehemently and with conviction, without constantly stirring up anger in ever-increasing doses with ever-less hope.

It is hard to do, I know.  Our circumstances, and our outraged loves, are constant invitations to despair.  You must move beyond anger to resolve, though, to keep hope alive.

Yes, it is hard.

It is necessary for you to do it.