Here I sit in anger management class for a crime I did not commit, listening to the woes of the human race, led by a "teacher" who is "just doing her job" as she puts words in the mouths of all of us trying to explain why we are in here.  She is giving it all she has.  I am trying my best to jump on the band wagon of this psychology shit while at the same time holding my precious little teacher and anger manager close to my heart.  For woe unto anyone who dares mention God, the very One who breathed life into us, or anything that smacked of real help that may come from our Creator. Cain was so angry he slew Abel and his blood is coursing through our veins even today.  We come into the world angry and leave the world angry.  Ahhhh, but there is a remedy.

    One day a friend of mine says, "I just saw an interesting bumper sticker that read, 'If you are not angry, you are still asleep',"  sleep being "living in illusion".  And I began to wonder.  Is there a gradual spiritual awakening going in America and are we all being faced with looking at ourselves and living in reality???

    Is the looking through a "glass darkly" referred to in scripture giving way to seeing God face-to-face actually taking place???

    Personally, I find anger is like a fire burning inside of me that motivates me to take brave stands against wrong doing - for bringing righteousness into our very asleep and deadly society.  Anger the likes of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, our forefathers and many today angry because of oppressive government.  With no anger whatsoever on his part the dragon of illusion is devouring our life, destroying our homes, our freedoms, and the people find it much easier to remain passive and comfortable because to show anger just may destroy the religious mask we all are hiding behind looking all sweet and good.

    Well, little by little that seed God has planted in each of us which is held in a grave until this hour is beginning to sprout and it is pissed off - I mean pissed off to the point that without God Himself controlling this anger, we could all blow each other off the globe and think we are indeed getting rid of all our problems.  Now for the dilemma.  The laws of God are like a womb holding an age until the fullness of time.  The Ten Commandments kept the human race under some semblance of peace until now when it is time to awaken and change and swim the river into a new age.  In other words - don't take time to kill your neighbor, just swim the fucking river into a new age.  The river will take care of your anger by taking your blood, the blood that has vengeful anger.  Anger is the motivating force behind the growth and breaking out of the tomb in which we are all held captive.  So how will we channel it into that purpose???

    More dangerous than anger is the sweet talk predators that would woo one back into complacency, back into the womb.  It is called religion.  And it will not only destroy your life, but destroy your soul.  Keep the peace at any price is its motto.  But God says, "When they say peace and safety," sudden destruction will come upon them.

    So, what is the answer to the use of such a dangerous yet necessary weapon as anger?  As I walked through the land mines of anger, revenge, and then the sweet, deadly mines of wooing voices saying, "Be nice, don't disturb the status quo, look good and all will be fine," I found a scripture that began me on a path of dying daily, humbling myself under unfair circumstances, doing unto others what I would want done unto me, preferring others more than self, and that scripture was this, "We will not all sleep, but we will all change",  and change we must if we are to make it into the age that is already upon us.  As I changed, I found a secret to life - living the gospel, patience became a virtue, a reward that is the antidote to anger. We can try all the methods, all the psychology, all the man made mind-benders, but only one path will lead us to a life of peace, and joy, and that is God Himself through our Savior, Jesus Christ.

    And so today my anger bubbles up like a fountain warding off any contamination to my soul and standing with the righteousness of God as a beacon lighting the way out of a society of scapegoats to blame, self pity to the point of suicide, greed and jealousy to the point of murder, suppressed anger remedied by pills, alcohol and yes, anger that comes from our greedy little, self righteous hearts instead of that righteous anger that is the bubbling force of the Tree of Life.

This is a mandatory Anger Management lesson.
Anger - righteous anger provokes people out of passivity to bravery and changing situations that are unfair and hurtful, and oppressive to persons or societies.

Monday  - A hungry vagrant comes to the back door for food.  My probation officer threatens jail sentence if I feed said vagrant.  I feel our society has a deadly cancer that is eating away all of the substance on which our nation was founded.  I feel my rights are violated.

Am I angry????  You damn right I am angry.  Not at the vagrant but at the hemorrhoid that is giving me a pain in the ass, namely our police, our justice system.    How do I manage this abuse???  Well, mostly, I weep, not for myself, nor for the vagrant but for the cruel, heartless people who will not let me feed the hungry - and also for the sleeping American bobble heads.   Don’t cry for me U. S. A... weep for yourselves.  I share with the other Piecemakers.  Sharing with people who understand dispels anger.

Tuesday - Goals in life are necessary.  Because the goal for every Piecemaker is to become humble like our example, Jesus Christ, (our core being founded on God’s laws) we are being disciplined by the Holy Spirit and we help one another to overcome not only angry but pride, arrogance, vanity, in other words we give up our will to get God’s will for our life.  Forgiving one another daily is not necessary as we do not condemn one another.

Now for the incident.  Although we are all stubborn and willful, some have a more difficult time conforming to our lowly savior.  One member in particular is hell bent on doing her will, independently doing what she thinks is right.  Her pride and arrogance are stumbling blocks.  Correcting her is difficult as she either plugs her ears to correction or gets so angry we leave her alone.

My reaction - anger - then grief - then leave her alone although her lack of willingness to change affects the entire body.  Forbearing with one another is part of our walk. 
Forbearance is a fruit one gets by having to contend with the arrogant and willful.  Grudges are no option at Piecemakers.  We forbear with one another and cherish one another as we all are working out our salvation together as one body.

Wednesday  - I have a dog named Alice.  I did not want the dog.  I did not name the dog.  I still do not really care if I have a dog.  But I have a dog.  My granddaughter gets her fulfillment in life by bringing home animals she feels for.  So Alice really is my granddaughter’s dog but grandma takes care of her.  As a matter of fact, granddaughter is in an apartment over the garage and Alice is in the house with eight of us, five cats, and Freckles a little cocker.  Alice is a dingo.  On her hind legs she towers over me.  I say this to tell you she can get whatever is left on the counter or any other high place.  Well  one day she ate the roasted chicken we had planned for dinner, other days we see candy wrappers, what’s left of a box of bars.  Her nose leads her to unforeseen places.  But today it is a bunch of raw eggs. Some shells left.

Am I angry????  You bet I am.  However Alice is much smarter than I am.  She was never trained, beaten, rewarded, nothing to teach her what not to do and yet she shepherds me around as if I am a sheep — she looks guilty before I find out what she has done wrong, she has a please forgive me look that somehow melts away any anger and I scold her, she runs and hides as if we are playing a game and all is forgotten until the next time when her stomach rules her good sense. And we play the anger game all over again.  That is life and I am looney enough to enjoy it just the way it is.

Thursday - Well, the week is well on the way and the mail has come in with no threats from the government thus far.   It is Thursday and wammo, the city sends us another bill for a vender fee of 5 dollars for each vendor we had at the craft fair.  We had already paid for our license but they refuse to give it unless we pay more.  Now I am really pissed.  Alice I can deal with but the God damn government that is eating away at the substance of our country — predators jailing the innocent... making their fear tactics legal, well,  I take pen in hand and write a long list of reasons they will get no more blood money out  of this turnip.  $800 in permits, hiring peace officers when we should be able to call our already paid police, getting our food done at another restaurant because our clean kitchen is not up to their insane codes, buying permits for our vendors from the county, well, they can just go to hell.  And I trashed the threatening letter.  My anger subsides until I get home and there is a letter from another government agency.

Friday - This letter is to Judy and it threatens her for not responding to the last jury call.  Well, Judy was in the most corrupt court system this side of hell.  She  controlled herself from being in contempt of court as she heard a judge get away with lying, jury tampering, flirting, rolling her eyes and then convicting her of things not done.  Again, I was beside myself with rage.  She had been on a jury that convicted a young man because of theft.  Sentence — life imprisonment due to the fact that three strikes and you have the ax lowered.  With the sentence not fitting the crime,  corruption abounding —  I with Judy’s permission just wrote the truth and nothing but the truth.  She was more angry than I as she has to spend 240 hours picking up trash on the freeway as punishment for working her ass off so she can pay her taxes and keep the dragon system going.  “To whom it may concern, I want nothing to do with your corrupt system.  Take me off your mailing list.”  Judy said, amen signed it and we both felt better  writing for me is a catharsis.

Saturday - Some of the ways I have overcome anger, that is petty anger one has for not getting my own way in things that really do not matter. I stopped insisting I am right, even though I may be right.

Silence can be golden, so I strive to keep the peace letting whomever I am striving with have his/her way, bow my stubborn neck and keeping my mouth shut.  And then asking God for help in helping me to change.  My core slowly changing into a new foundation, new energy, new life.

Sunday - I am thinking of next Monday and our store being invaded by the D.A., a new OCHCA CEO — the one who put me in jail was released from his job, our probation officer and whomever more it takes to do the job of one person.  I seethe over the waste of taxpayers’ money, of the fear of our country being totally annihilated because of our foolishness, and corruption or this foreign entity once more marching through as if they owned my store, my life blood, my life.  I pick up the Bible and I read.  “And in that day you will be protected as you see the reward of the wicked.”  And “I will sever the wicked from among the just.”  “Blessed are those who are persecuted for standing up for what is right for theirs is the kingdom of God”.


Marie Kolasinski