Unlike most people, Diane and I don’t watch the news. A long time ago, we tuned in to the MacNeil Lehrer News Hour on PBS but, barring some crisis, we just don’t watch the TV news. Instead, I get my news online, via a number of aggregating web sites. As I reflect on yesterday morning, there seemed to be a slight downtick in war rhetoric with the North Koreans. On the other hand, another surge in tensions and violence between the far right and the far left.

A ways back when I taught my Political Science classes, I commonly used the terms reactionary and radical to define the right and left fringes, with conservative and liberal as closer to the center line. With the arrival in a big way of a thing we are now calling “identity politics,” new labels and groups are cropping up all over the place. Two of them are referred to as the “Alt Right” and the “Antifa.” The former term has been around for only about a decade but has remained largely undercover until recently. They reject conservatism and embrace something often referred to as white nationalism. They fear that their “whiteness” is at risk. Difficult to clearly define, they encompass angry people on the far right and include self-defined racists, anti-semites, anti-gay and even neo-Nazis. While their numbers still remain extremely small and they are clearly a fringe group, they are growing in response to what they see as the excesses of the far left. At the opposite end we find a number of  loosely aligned groups, one of them being the Antifa, which is a compression of the words anti and fascist. The name was first coined in the 1930s as a reaction to the rise of fascism in Europe. Back then, they included a large number of avowed communists. Now, their ranks include modern day communists and anarchists among others. They reject more temperate and traditional liberalism as weak and ineffective. I suspect few of those demonstrating as Alt Right have ever read Nietzsche or Hitler’s Mein Kampf. And, I suspect few of those demonstrating as the Antifa have read Engel’s Das Kapital or anarchists such as Kropotkin or Proudhon. Both of these two groups embrace violence as a means to their idealistic ends. And, that violence is a clear expression of anger.

I mention this because, as I was reflecting yesterday afternoon, since arising, I had witnessed great anger and great kindness. Anger reflected in the news and the associated commentaries and observations. Kindness in a delightful meeting Diane and I attended in the morning.

It got me to thinking a bit more about what brings us to anger and what brings out kindness. I decided to write about it a bit in the hopes it would help me understand these things a bit better and help me navigate life in the midst of both.

Some things just set us off. They may set us off slowly as we move through stages until we are truly and fully angry. Or they may set us off spontaneously, as with a very short fuse or a hair trigger. I don’t know about you but for me it has to do with something that just isn’t “right.” In other words, I feel that thing (behavior, condition, expression, etc…) is not “just.” It is a violation of principles that govern my life. Since I’m big on respect, I have a short fuse when it comes to disrespect in its many forms. Bullying and oppression are pronounced forms of disrespect and they make me angry, sometimes very much so. Of course, I consider my anger “righteous,” as in I have a right to be angry.

For me, at least, there’s a chemical change in my body when I get angry. I can feel it in my chest, maybe even my head. Things tighten up. I’ve learned to check in with the state of my heart (in a figurative sense as much as a literal sense) and I have to say that anger hardens the heart. It’s quite difficult to feel content and loving when angry.

It puzzles me when I see something I consider unjust, when my focus becomes more narrow and pointed and the adrenaline begins to surge and I look around and don’t see a similar reaction from others. That makes me more angry. What’s wrong with these people? Why don’t they see what’s happening? I’m just not a fan of passivity in the face of what I consider to be injustice. Accordingly, I’ve been known to jump in, sometimes without thinking through the risks. Injustice requires action. End of story.

I bring this up as a way of addressing what I see going on. As we become more polarized in our society, the extremes feed on one another in this ever-escalating cycle, centered around (in my analysis) the same thing: A feeling of injustice. Of disrespect. Gushing fuel onto the fire is media … another way of describing how we communicate with one another. Be it mass media or social (more targeted) media, we are upping the ante at hyper speed. Strapped to our technology, whatever the screen size, and linked increasingly to the narrowing bands of acquired information, our engines are atuned to the slightest spark, quickly able to reach red line. This condition is ripe for the demagogues of all stripes, who cleverly or not so cleverly stoke the coals, hoping for flames. A number of names come to mind.

I’m flashing right now on one of our nation’s most impassioned displays of anger: Patrick Henry’s 1775 speech wherein he (probably loudly) proclaimed, “Give me liberty or give me death!” His anger at the perceived injustice of King George III and the British Empire, helped rally his audience which included fellow Virginians George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. They took his point and Virginia raised the troop level of the new colonial army. However, there was no instant reply from King George, followed by CNN or Fox News or Twitter or thousands of likes on Facebook. In other words, that momentary anger was probably followed by some level heads getting together at a tavern to plot strategy, rather than waiting an instant to up the ante when the immediate response came back. Which is, perhaps one reason, we have our Constitution, something that could never, ever be crafted in the atmosphere we have today.

When anger becomes the default condition and seething is the stream flowing just under the surface, how is it possible to construct a life of true love, where kindness blossoms? Famously, the French Revolution began with the cry of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité! (Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood). Very nice stuff and a reasonable retort to the terrible excesses of the Ancien Régime. However, in relatively short order, that revolution ate its young and concluded with the Reign of Terror, something to be replicated to the tune of many tens of millions dying in similar enterprises in Russia and China. High ideals replaced by evil.

Kindness requires a soft heart that is pumping slowly. It requires a mind that is focused on the immediate needs of another, rather than in proving a point or achieving some specific external objective. Kindness requires empathy. Empathy requires listening. It should go without saying that listening is not one of the attributes of anger.

Kindness requires humility that is in increasingly short supply in this hyper-sensationalized world we currently occupy. In my experience, humble people are much slower to anger than proud people. Humble people see in the mirror reflections of those they encounter elsewhere … people who suffer and are in need of support. People who understand that life is complicated and judgment should be embraced sparingly.

We’ve all seen the bumper sticker, Practice Random Acts of Kindness. Catchy and well-intentioned as it is, I think it slightly misses the point. There is nothing random about practicing kindness. It’s specific and intentional and the result of a state of mind that is all about seeking the best in another, not assuming the worst.

Kindness often requires conversation, no matter how brief or lengthy. It’s usually accompanied by a smile, that universal disarming behavior that invites. I don’t think it’s possible to be kind when building barriers with a frown, not to mention yelling.

Kindness breeds familiarity which is another way of saying we are family, we are joined and in this together. We are not fighting across barriers in the street. We have a common purpose and respect for one another.

Now, lest I be described as Pollyanna (after the title character in that children’s novel from a century ago who took optimism and cheerfulness to a whole other dimension), there are limits to kindness and there are legitimate reasons to be angry. Kindness at the risk of missing evil is not warranted just as anger at the risk of contempt is a very slippery slope.

It should come as no surprise that I look to Jesus for guidance in all of this. Jesus taught renovation of the heart (I steal the phrase from the title of a book by the same name by Dallas Willard) which leads to seeing others as God sees them, not as we are naturally conditioned to do. Believe me, this takes a lot of practice, patience, and attention. Nothing random about it. A renovated heart is (in my phrasing and prayer) slow to judge, quick to love. I think I’m better at this (thank God) than a decade ago but it’s a long slow climb.

The air-brushed version of Christ often pictures him sitting down with cuddly lambs and children, gentleness and love flowing throughout. I have no doubt that he sat down in fields with people and creatures of all sorts and treated them with the utmost kindness and love. Especially, he sat down with those that were outcasts and condemned by those who were excessively judgmental. He also sat down with the wealthy, which has puzzled many. The common denominator is that he communed with those who surrendered their sense of entitlement, which is the antithesis of humility. Jesus modeled humility. At the risk of drawing some ire, I have to say that Jesus was neither a liberal or a conservative. But he did have the purest, most refined ability to balance love and truth.

There is another picture of Jesus. He is gazing at the self-righteous who are conducting their version of a demonstration against the threat of his existence. They are firm in their resolve and they are hell-bent at getting their way. To put it mildly, they have hard hearts, something Jesus does not manage to have, yet he remains angry at their behavior. He stares at them with a steely-eyed vision and poses a question.“Who shall cast the first stone?” “You would condemn this woman but don’t know the evil in your own souls,” so to speak. They are struck dumb at the truth that cuts at them as he turns and gently raises the woman and tells her she is forgiven and to go and sin no more. This is played out so many times in so many different settings. Jesus stands firm in the face of evil and injustice, sometimes grievously and sometimes angrily, ultimately leading to his death.

His is a superhuman example but there are lessons here for all of us. We can be firm without yelling. We can invite conversation by asking and answering questions before judging and condemning. We can picture the person in front of us as worthy of our time and attention. We can be quick to smile, encourage and support. We can restrain ourselves from leading by preaching. Preaching can be a perilous thing although certainly appropriate when used sparingly. When kindness is rejected and where evil flourishes, we find ourselves boxed in and the going is rough. Some well known modern figures used Jesus as a template when confronted by this dilemma. The names Gandhi, King, Bonhoeffer, and Mandela come to mind. Maybe you will see it differently, but I can’t picture them manning the lines on the streets these days with the current crop of protesters. Nor can I picture them seething in anger, although there is no doubt they were angry. Simply, the anger didn’t control them and they drew from resources that are, sadly it seems, in increasingly short supply.

There is this word, “holy.” It is a word used both commonly and specifically. I have my own take on it and may write more at some point. But, I think it applies in the context of this discussion. To me, it implies something altogether different. Set apart. A thing or place that is pure, inviolate. It is a place where truth and love mix freely and there is no contradiction. It is a place of both battle and surrender and if we discover the key to that place, we are blessed indeed. Slow to judge. Slow to anger. But firm in our resolve to live out a set of very specific principles. Quick to love, seeking and expressing kindness throughout each day. Which side of this competition for our attention do we give the most weight? Which impulses best control our regular behavior?

This is a very challenging balancing act and we cannot accomplish it within our own echo chambers, walled off from voices unlike our own, giving ourselves over to the din as the volume knob is cranked up. Let us practice daily the exercise of greeting strangers, not knowing their particular beliefs, nor primarily caring about those beliefs. It is hard to be angry when reaching out a hand. So, when anger comes, as it surely must in this life, it will be the great exception, not the rule. God bless.