62 Sermon Illustrations on Rage

A questionaire and study guide dealing with the topic of anger. Biblical case studies are given, then study questions, and finally a self test on anger.

A man who became enraged that his Thanksgiving turkey was not defrosted was charged with assaulting his wife with the frozen bird, police said. Scott Nelson, 33, spent part of Thanksgiving in jail after his wife, Jackie, signed a complaint accusing him of assault, police said. Jackie Nelson, 24, told police her husband got angry and threw the turkey and a pie into the parking lot at their apartment complex [in Midwest City, Oklahoma] after he discovered the bird was not thawed. When she gathered up her child to leave, she said Nelson hurled the frozen bird at the car, breaking the windshield.

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Frozen turkeys also make good weapons for good:

Stopped. Cold turkey. North Carolina authorities say a shopper clubbed an alleged carjacker with a frozen turkey as he tried to steal a woman’s car in a grocery store parking lot Sunday.

Police say 30-year-old Fred Louis Ervin of Raleigh stole money from a gas station before running across the street to a Harris Teeter store in a town just south of Raleigh. Garner police say he began beating Irene Moorman Bailey while stealing her car.

Other shoppers came to her rescue, including one who hit Ervin with the turkey. Police did not release the person’s name.

Despite serious head injuries, Ervin got away in Bailey’s car and hit several other cars as he fled. But police arrested him a short time later.

He faces several charges including assault inflicting serious injury. Ervin was hospitalized Monday in good condition, a hospital spokeswoman said.

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Nov. 24, 2008, The Associated Press

There are three unhealthy approaches to handling our anger. All three tend to perpetuate anger rather than facing it in a way that leads to growth. (Each is given a checklist of descriptive behaviors.)

1. Suppressing anger.

They hesitate to admit their own anger and stoically put on a good

front. They feel powerful emotions are not acceptable. Or,

perfectionism or a need for approval may prevent you from revealing

any "weakness."

2. Open aggression.

Arises from focusing so strongly on your personal needs that you are

insensitive to the needs of others. This pattern results when (1)

emotional energy is expended on trivial matters and (2) deep

insecurity leads to exaggerated efforts to be heard.

3. Passive aggression.

Caused by a need to have control with the least amount of

vulnerability. Such a person knows they are angry but assumes it is

too risky to be open, so they frustrate others by subtle sabotage.

STAYING ANGRY PROTECTS US FROM GETTING HURT AGAIN, BUT AT WHAT PRICE?

THEN PETER CAME AND SAID TO HIM, "LORD, IF ANOTHER MEMBER OF THE CHURCH SINS AGAINST ME, HOW OFTEN SHOULD I FORGIVE? AS MANY AS SEVEN TIMES?" JESUS SAID TO HIM, "NOT SEVEN TIMES, BUT, I TELL YOU, SEVENTY-SEVEN TIMES." (MATT. 18:21-22, NRSV)

In case you have not noticed, Christianity is a religion in which the sinners have all the advantages. They can step on your feet 50 times and you are supposed to keep smiling. They can talk bad about you every time you leave the room and it is your job to excuse them with no thought of getting even. The burden is on you, because you have been forgiven yourself, and God expects you to do unto others as God has done unto you.

This is not a bad motivation for learning how to forgive. If God is willing to stay with me in spite of my meanness, my weakness, my stubborn self-righteousness, then who am I to hold those same things against someone else? Better I should confess my own sins than keep track of yours, only it is hard to stay focused on my shortcomings. I would so much rather stay focused on yours, especially when they are hurtful to me.

Staying angry with you is how I protect myself from you. Refusing to forgive you is not only how I punish you; it is also how I keep you from getting close enough to hurt me again, and nine times out of ten it works -- only there is a serious side effect. It is called bitterness, and it can do terrible things to the human body and soul.

Once on a trip into Atlanta I stopped at a gift shop to buy a couple of wedding presents, some nice brass picture frames, which I asked the clerk to wrap. "Well, what is the occasion?" she snarled. "Are you going to tell me or am I supposed to guess?" I looked at her then for the first time and saw a heavy, middle-aged woman whose brow was all bunched up over two hard, cold eyes. Her mouth turned down at the sides like she had just tasted something rancid, and she had both her hands planted on the glass counter, leaning against it with such malice that I thought she might push it over on me if I irritated her any further.

Generally speaking, I get mad when someone comes at me like that, but this time I just got scared because I could see what her anger had done to her, and I wanted to get away from it before it did something similar to me. Actually, it was something stronger than plain anger that had twisted that woman's face. All by itself, anger is not that damaging. It is not much more than that quick rush of adrenaline you feel when you are being threatened. It tells you that something you hold dear is in danger -- your property, your beliefs, your physical safety. I think of anger as a kind of flashing yellow light. "Caution," it says, "something is going on here. Slow down and see if you can figure out what it is."

When I do slow down, I can usually learn something from my anger, and if I am lucky I can use the energy of it to push for change in myself or in my relationships with others. Often I can see my own part in what I am angry about, and that helps, because if I had a hand in it, then I can concentrate on getting my hand back out of it again instead of spinning my wheels in blame. I can, in other words, figure out what my anger has to teach me and then let it go, but when my anger goes on and on without my learning or changing anything, then it is not plain anger anymore. It has become bitterness instead. It has become resentment, which a friend of mine calls "arthritis of the spirit."

So there is another motivation for learning how to forgive -- not only because we owe it to God, but because we owe it to ourselves. Because resentment deforms us. Because unforgiveness is a boomerang. We use it to protect ourselves -- to hurt back before we can be hurt again -- but it has a sinister way of circling right back at us so that we become the victims of our own ill will.

One summer the NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW ran a series on the deadly sins. Joyce Carol Oates wrote on despair, Gore Vidal wrote on pride, and John Updike, of all people, wrote on lust. Mary Gordon's essay on anger was a real beauty, chiefly because she was willing to admit she knew a lot about it. One hot August afternoon, she wrote, she was in the kitchen preparing dinner for ten. Although the house was full of people, no one offered to help her chop, stir, or set the table. She was stewing in her own juices, she said, when her two small children and her 78-year-old mother insisted that she stop what she was doing and take them swimming.

They positioned themselves in the car, she said, leaning on the horn and shouting her name out the window so all the neighbors could hear them, loudly reminding her that she had promised to take them to the pond. That, Gordon said, was when she lost it. She flew outside and jumped on the hood of the car. She pounded on the windshield. She told her mother and her children that she was never, ever going to take any of them anywhere, and none of them was ever going to have one friend in any house of hers until the hour of their death -- which, she said, she hoped was soon.

Then the frightening thing happened. "I became a huge bird," she said. "A carrion crow. My legs became hard stalks, my eyes were sharp and vicious. I developed a murderous beak. Greasy black feathers took the place of arms. I flapped and flapped. I blotted out the sun's light with my flapping." Even after she had been forced off the hood of the car, she said, it took her a while to come back to herself, and when she did, she was appalled, because she realized she had genuinely frightened her children. Her son said to her, "I was scared because I didn't know who you were."

"Sin makes the sinner unrecognizable," Gordon concluded, and the only antidote to it is forgiveness; but the problem is that anger is so exciting, so enlivening, that forgiveness can seem like a limp surrender. If you have ever cherished a resentment, you know how right it can make you feel to have someone in the world whom you believe is all wrong. You may not be up to admitting it yet, but one of the great benefits of having an enemy is that you get to look good by comparison. It also helps to have someone to blame for why your life is not turning out the way it was supposed to.

Several years ago on National Public Radio I heard Linda Wertheimer talking to a correspondent in the Middle East about the amazing moves toward peace that were then happening there between Israelis and Palestinians. "How are people reacting?" she asked him. "After all, losing an enemy is as upsetting as losing a friend." I hadn't thought about it that way before, but she is right. When you allow your enemy to stop being your enemy, all the rules change. Nobody knows how to act anymore, because forgiveness is an act of transformation. It does not offer the adrenaline rush of anger, nor the feeling of power that comes from a well-established resentment. It is a quiet revolution, as easy to miss as a fist uncurling to become an open hand, but it changes people in ways that anger only wishes it could.

So why don't we do it more often? Because it is scary, to lay down your arms like that, to trade in your pride and your power on the off-chance that you may discover something more valuable than either of them. "To forgive," writes Mary Gordon, "is to give up the exhilaration of one's own unassailable rightness." And there is loss in that, only it is the loss of an illusion, and what is gained is unmistakably real: the chance to live again, free from the bitterness that draws the sweetness from our lives, that gives us scary faces and turns us into carrion crows who blot out the sun with our flapping. No one else does this to us. We do it to ourselves, but we do not have to.

We are being forgiven every day of our lives. We are being set free by someone who has arranged things so that we have all the advantages. We have choices. We have will. And we have an advocate, who seems to know that we need lots of practice at this forgiveness business. How often should we forgive? Will seven times take care of it? "Not seven times," Jesus says, "but, I tell you, seventy-seven times." This is no chore. This is a promise, because forgiveness is the way of life. It is God's cure for the deformity our resentments cause us. It is how we discover our true shape, and every time we do it we get to be a little more alive. What God knows and we don't yet is that once we get the hang of it, seventy times seven won't be enough, not to mention seventy-seven. We'll be so carried away by it that we'll hope it never ends.

________________________

Barbara Brown Taylor has been named one of the most effective preachers in the English-speaking world by Baylor University. Reprinted from Gospel Medicine, published by Cowley Publications, 28 Temple Place, Boston, Massachusetts. To order, call 1-800-225-1534.

Copyright(c) 1998 by the author or Christianity Today, Inc./Christianity Today magazine. February 9, 1998, vol. 42, no. 2, page 61

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Lou had had enough. He learned that his wife was having an affair. And, even after he confronted her, she continued to cheat on him. So after his wife left the house one day to meet her paramour at a restaurant, Lou followed. When he saw them together, he beat the lover senseless with a motorcycle helmet, and then rammed the guy's SUV into a fire hydrant.

But instead of throwing the book at Lou, the court sent him to school -- anger management school, that is.

Lou is one of the thousands of offenders who have been ordered to attend classes on how to control their temper. Included in these court-ordered "time outs" are rock stars Tommy Lee and Courtney Love, and that paragon of self-control, boxer Mike Tyson.

The classes aren't limited to those who have broken the law. As Time magazine reported, many private firms are sending their irascible employees to these kinds of classes, as well. The best-known example of such a referral is Latrell Sprewell, the basketball star. After choking his coach -- twice -- Sprewell was ordered by the NBA to attend classes on how to control his rage.

What do Lou, Latrell, and all the others learn in these classes? Nothing that our parents shouldn't have already taught us: Count to ten when you get angry. Don't let little things upset you. And accept another person's opinion without going ballistic.

This advice is so obvious that people like Pamela Hollenhort, of the University of Wisconsin, are wondering about the wisdom of using such programs. She questions whether many of the people referred to anger management classes really have a problem with their tempers, or whether, in her estimation, many of them are simply "cruel" and "manipulative."

She's right. Anger management, like the rest of what has been called the "therapeutic culture," proceeds from a flawed understanding of human nature -- a false worldview.

It assumes that people are basically good and that episodes like the ones that land them in these classes are aberrations. If this is true, then all that's required is learning techniques to help us handle stressful moments gracefully. We can teach people to be "nice."

But as thousands of years of recorded human history -- as well as Scripture -- teaches us clearly, mankind is not basically good -- we're fallen. We're inclined to self-centeredness and selfishness. In some of us, this results in a willingness to hurt others when we get our own feelings hurt, or don't get our way.

Therefore, there are only two ways to address the problem. The first is by building character in young people, teaching them to respect others. And the other? Conversion.

In twenty years of prison ministry, I've seen men and women with real rage problems, and I've seen them change completely. The difference Christ makes is so profound that it's hard to believe that these offenders were ever capable of committing the crimes that landed them in prison.

So the next time you hear about some celebrity or athlete being ordered to attend anger management classes, take the opportunity to tell your neighbors why these programs -- and all the rest of our therapeutic culture -- simply can't work. And tell them that if we really want to make a difference, we need to throw a different book at these offenders.

___________________

Copyright (c) 2000 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

*

The young woman was nervous because it was her first day on her new job in a fine restaurant. A nice looking couple arrived for dinner and was seated at her table. Somehow she mixed up the order and the customer went into a rage! After sternly reprimanding the waitress, he informed her that he intended to take the complaint to the manager! The young woman was devastated and removed herself to a back room while sobbing in both embarrassment and insult.

Meanwhile, the irate customer justified himself by reaffirming his right to do as he had done. He reasoned, "If she is going to get paid in this line of work, she ought to learn to do it right!" When he and his wife finished the meal, he left one cent on the table as her tip. He knew that she would remember him for that and provide better service next time.

Back home again, the man gathered his study guides for use in the home Bible study he was scheduled to teach that evening. Another member of the congregation had set up the study with a new family in town. The two of them arrived at the appointed time and were met at the door by the young husband. While escorting them into the den to meet his wife he said, "please be patient and understanding if she appears upset. This was her first day on a new job and she has had a very difficult day at work. Some uncaring and insulting customer totally humiliated her."

A few minutes later, as they walked back to the car, the question was asked, "Was it worth it to lose your temper?"

--The Harvester, Trenton, TN

Joseph Zamboni is a trooper for the state of Maine. He received a call to a home where he found a man who had been stabbed with a kitchen knife by his wife. After dispatching the man to the hospital, he arrested and handcuffed the wife. As they left for the police station she asked if she could get the knife back. She said it was important for her to retrieve it because it was part of a set she had received as a wedding present.

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[Original illustration at this number was deleted for being out-of-date]

I call them “meanies,” those men and women who spend their days spreading vitriol on the Internet. Nameless, faceless, they lurk in the shadows of many websites and blogs, waiting for any opportunity to tear those with whom they disagree to shreds.

With a toolbox full of putdowns and vulgarities, they work hard at trying to show that their opponents are not only wrong, not only stupid, but actually evil. Mean-spiritedness is not a new problem, but never before have “meanies” had such a public platform from which to spew their venom, and rarely has society been so willing to celebrate meanness and odium. The problem is so widespread that political parties and major policy organizations rely on meanness and anger in promoting their message.

Peter Wood, in his recent book “A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America Now,” says there is a difference between New Anger, which is everywhere today, and Old Anger. There has never been a time when men and women did not get angry. Yet, at one point, anger was seen as a passion to be restrained whenever possible. Self-control and self-mastery were considered virtues; a man who was quick to anger was seen as weak and unstable. For a political leader to burn with anger in public on a regular basis was certainly considered a red flag.

In his review of Wood’s book, Howard Kurtz says this about New Anger:

“New Anger is everything that Old Anger was not: flamboyant, self-righteous, and proud. As a way to ‘empowerment’ for ethnic groups, women, political parties, and children, New Anger serves as a mark of identity and a badge of authenticity. The Civil War, and America’s past political campaigns, may have witnessed plenty of anger, yet not until recently, says Wood, have Americans actually congratulated themselves for getting angry. Anger has turned into a coping mechanism, something to get in touch with, a prize to exhibit in public, and a proof of righteous sincerity.”

New Anger has certainly found a home on cable news channels and on the blogosphere. This unhealthy anger is coupled with what legal scholar Cass Sunstein calls “ideological amplification.” According to Sunstein, ideological amplification is a process whereby one’s ideological opinions become more extreme as they encounter fewer opposing viewpoints. This is an especially big problem on the blogosphere, where men and women self-select the sites they visit. As Alan Jacobs points out in his Christianity Today web article, “Amplifying Charity,” a conservative is unlikely to defend President Bush on a liberal blog like the DailyKos when “her views -- along with her personality, her character, her intelligence, and her friends, family members, and pets -- [are] instantly subjected to a barrage of, shall we say, critical scrutiny.” A liberal is equally disinclined to dialogue with conservatives on extreme conservative blogs.

The end result is the creation of “echo chambers” or “information cocoons” in which New Anger boils over into utter hatred and malice. Jacobs has also noticed this trend: “Among the ideas that get amplified [on monolithic blogs], one of the most pernicious and (alas) common is the idea that people who are not among the Faithful deviate from the True Path not just because they make different political judgments, or have different beliefs about how best to form a just political order, but because they are, well, evil.”

The antidote to the rising heat in political debate today, according to Sunstein and Jacobs, is “political charity.” When men and women exhibit political charity they do not automatically assume that their opponents have evil motives, but they try to see their opponents’ motives in the best possible light. Those with political charity also try to identify the positive moral principle at the heart of their opponents’ views and endorse those principles whenever possible. In other words, political charity should drive those on either side of the aisle to see political counterparts as real people who mean well, not as the diabolical monsters that some people self-righteously create in their own minds. While it is true that there is real evil in the world, and that we should never be shy about identifying true evil, it is also becoming clear that in the blogosphere, on talk radio, and on some cable TV shows, we are allowing New Anger to destroy mature political discourse.

In the final analysis, self-government requires self-control. It requires from us the ability to patiently and rationally discuss our varying viewpoints as we work together for the common good. If passions like anger and hatred take over, we will completely lose the ability to reason together as a people, meaning we will have become incapable of governing ourselves. Democracy itself is on the line. As we move toward the 2008 presidential elections, there is little doubt that some blogs, liberal and conservative, will be cauldrons of animosity and acrimony. Rest assured that both of the major political parties will try to tap into these searing emotions to their own benefit.

One can also predict that some supposedly Christian groups will try to take advantage of these unholy passions to mobilize voters. Despite all of this, we will do well to remember that Christ himself called us to love our neighbors ... and even our enemies. The survival of democracy itself may depend on our ability to show true political charity.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #9068]

BUCKLEY - Cynthia and Crystal Mikula have apologized for getting drunk and disrupting an international flight in April and said "that's not who we are" in a syndicated television appearance to air tonight.

The 22-year-old Mikula twins of Buckley are to appear on the TV tabloid news show "Inside Edition," which will air on WGTU & WGTQ TV 29&8 late tonight - actually at 12:35 a.m. Thursday - after "Politically Incorrect."

In a news release for the program, Cynthia Mikula is quoted as saying "We want to apologize to everybody on the airline - the crew and passengers."

"We really are good-hearted people and we care about our friends and family," she said.

She and Crystal were aboard a United Airlines flight to Shanghai, China, on April 19 heading to an international modeling competition when they got drunk, argued with each other, shouted profanity and smoked in the airliner's restroom.

They resumed their argument outside the restroom and, when flight crew members tried to intervene, Cynthia Mikula struck a female flight attendant and bloodied her nose. She also hit a male attendant and the captain, according to court documents.

The plane was diverted to Anchorage, Alaska, where the 231 passengers spent the night before going on to Shanghai the next day. The Mikulas were arrested.

A passenger videotaped a portion of the fracas and it made national news shows.

"We know that it's really sensitive right now with everything that's going on in the world, but we just want people to understand that that's not who we are," Cynthia will explain, according to the release.

Cynthia was charged with interfering with a flight crew and received five years probation and was ordered to pay $87,000 in restitution for the cost of rerouting the flight.

Crystal was charged with misdemeanor assault and received two years probation and a $150 fine.

Both must perform 231 hours of community service, one hour for each passenger on the flight.

Cynthia says she shouldn't have had anything to drink on the flight.

"I'm not a heavy drinker so it had a little bit more impact on me than it should have," she said.

Cynthia also said she made peace with the flight attendant she punched.

"She told me she understood," Cynthia said. "She knows I'm not a bad person. We just talked for a little bit and got to know each other."

Crystal said the sisters had never flown that far over the ocean.

"I think it made us kind of nervous," she said.

She also says she had a lot of time to think while in jail.

"I was mostly thinking about what I did wrong and what I could do to try to make it right so that it would never happen again," she said. "I would say that it has made us better people."

Arsenic-laced coffee served at the Gustaf Adolph Evangelical Lutheran Church in New Sweden, Maine, during a church reception killed 78-year-old Walter Morrill. Fifteen others fell ill, at least three of critically.

Police are looking at the church's inner workings as part of their investigation of motive for the poisonings, officials said. Appleton said church members initially weren't as candid as they could have been to police, but apparently later decided “we better just bare our souls.” He didn't give specifics but said police are confident that the poisonings are related to the church community and are looking closely at the “dynamics” of the church.

“In the end we may find that they don't sound like logical explanations for murder or poisoning. ... It probably was something that was grinding at some people for some time,” Appleton said.

Church member Daniel Bondeson, who committed suicide a few days later, is the main suspect in the case.

*

In a relativistic, therapeutic society, it is not surprising that moral indignation and retribution have fallen on hard times. After all, who are we to judge? And how can we countenance bitterness?

Listening to talk radio a few days after the trauma of Sept. 11, I heard one caller give his testimony of mental healing. Someone had murdered his brother and, at the time, he wanted to kill the guy who did it. He had the same impulse when they acquitted the accused. But then he realized that none of this would bring his brother back, so he got over it. He thought this was good medicine for the United States -- we need to stop thinking retaliation, for it won't bring those folks back.

A second caller faulted our leaders for "having that male testosterone thing going." Just then I drove by a once-Baptist church, more excited about the Parliament of the World's Religions and the normalization of homosexuality than expository preaching and evangelism. The posted sermon title concerned "fighting our inward terrorist."

Back home, I turned on the television in time to see a young lady emerging from a candlelight service, rhetorically asking the interviewer, "We can't think of retribution, can we?" I turned to a stack of newspapers, where I found clerics and politicians condemning "vengeance" and "revenge."

Okay, okay. Yes, vengeance is the Lord's. Yes, anger can make you stupid. Yes, the fruit of the Spirit is gentleness. But if that's all your Bible says on the subject, you have a heavily edited Bible. Something's missing.

I think we do well to turn to the writing of a divine of another day, Bishop of Durham Joseph Butler (1692-1752). In his extraordinary "Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel," he drew a careful distinction between two sorts of resentment, hasty/sudden and settled/deliberate. The first is prone to evil, the second is a God-given spur to do the necessary things of justice, as noted, for instance, in Romans 13:1-7.

In Butler's words: "Since therefore it is necessary for the very subsistence of the world, that injury, injustice and cruelty should be punished; and since compassion, which is so natural to mankind, would render that execution of justice exceedingly difficult and uneasy; indignation against vice and wickedness is, and may be allowed to be, a balance to that weakness of pity, and also to anything else which would prevent the necessary methods of severity."

Without the spur of settled indignation, growing out of our innate capacity to judge the gravity of evil, we would be lost -- serenely turning not only our own other cheek, but also our neighbor's other cheek.

"Blaspheming" indignation is not as serious as blaspheming the Holy Spirit, but it is wicked nonetheless. Indignation may be aided by testosterone, but who put the testosterone in place?

I'm grateful that Lance Morrow addressed the issue in his Time essay after the Sept. 11 tragedy: "For once, let's have no 'grief counselors' standing by with banal consolations, as if the purpose, in the midst of all this, were merely to make everyone feel better as quickly as possible. We shouldn't feel better.

"For once, let's have no fatuous rhetoric about 'healing.' Healing is inappropriate now, and dangerous. There will be a time later for the tears of sorrow.

"A day cannot live in infamy without the nourishment of rage. Let's have rage."

Well, we don't have to endorse rage to appreciate his message. Rather, we should cherish the still, small (or large) voice that remains when the rage has died, the one that gets and keeps us on the moral track to settle the things of duty.

*

GALVESTON, Texas - A Texas jury on Wednesday found Thomas Mitchell guilty of aggravated assault for shooting his girlfriend because he thought she was about to say the words "New Jersey."

His attorney unsuccessfully sought his exoneration on grounds that certain words set off an uncontrollable rage in Mitchell, who has a history of mental illness.

Words that triggered a bad reaction in Mitchell included "New Jersey," "Wisconsin," "Snickers" and "Mars," lawyer Maria Mercado told the court.

Throughout the three-day trial, Mitchell, 54, covered his ears when he thought the words were going to be spoken. Witnesses used flashcards with the words written out instead of saying them in court.

"When he has one of these episodes, he isn't focused," lawyer Mercado said.

Prosecutors contended that Mitchell was troubled, but not crazy.

He was convicted for shooting girlfriend Barbara Jenkins three times on March 19, 1999, when he believed she was about to utter the phrase "New Jersey." She survived the attack, but died from unrelated causes just before the trial.

In a statement, Mitchell told police: "I had seen that word at my mom's house and then Barbara said what she said (and) I just snapped."

*

In 1999 on Halloween night a girl driving a Volkswagen Jetta with several passengers in it pulled out onto highway 114 right in front of Steven Kolhonen, who was driving a large Ford Expedition. Kolhonen hit the brakes and avoided ramming into the back of the Volkswagen but it made him angry. So when the Volkswagen slowed for a stoplight, Kolhonen did ram into the back of the Volkswagen Jetta pushing it through the intersection. He continued to pursue the Volkswagen down the highway ramming it again and again. At one point it was reportedly pushing the Volkswagen down the highway at 55mph, with the Volkswagen’s brakes fully applied. It was about as flagrant and frightening an act of road rage as I could imagine short of using other weapons.

Eventually both cars pulled off the road. There was much screaming and yelling at Kolhonen who sat in his vehicle and just stared straight ahead. The police were called and charges were filed. Five days later, someone set fire to Kolhonen’s Ford Expedition and it burned up in his driveway.

What do you think about that? I had been thinking that he ought to lose his drivers license for the rest of his life or twenty years or something, but I must admit that I chuckled because I didn’t think that burning his car was a bad alternative. However, when his house was burned down two days later, it became apparent that revenge is no solution. The anticlimactic postscript to the story was that revenge had nothing to do with it, as some months later, Kolhonen was found guilty of burning his own car and his own house, hoping to collect the insurance money.

By now, we have all seen the footage from the near-riot that broke out at a recent game between the Detroit Pistons and the Indiana Pacers in the NBA.

There have been plenty of attempts to figure out what conclusions, if any, we should draw from what happened. Some sportswriters, like Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post, insist that it was an isolated incident. Others, like Bryan Burwell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, see what happened as a consequence of cultural trends within the NBA, such as younger, less-mature players and the NBA's uncritical embrace of hip-hop culture.

While I tend to agree with Burwell, I think that there are other, more widespread and troubling, cultural trends that contributed to what happened on November 19, 2004. In our ministry here at Prison Fellowship, we see the results every day in the constant filling up of our prisons.

One trend is the coarseness and incivility that has permeated American culture. Friends of mine tell me that they dread taking their kids to professional sporting events. The combination of profanity, drunkenness, and boorish behavior on the part of fans makes us all uncomfortable and, worse, sets a bad example for any child.

Ten years ago unruly “fans” would have been asked to shut up or leave — now it's those who want to enjoy the game in peace who are faced with that choice. And this problem isn't limited to professional sports. A reporter for USA TODAY wrote about a fight that broke out at a co-ed slow-pitch softball game he attended. It's as if the entire country has, as we say in Virginia, forgotten its manners.

This coarseness and incivility is fueled by a belief that self-expression is always good and inhibition of any kind is always bad. The past few decades have seen the triumph of what author Rochelle Gurstein called “the party of exposure.” This “party” turned ideas such as manners, propriety, and decorum into synonyms for repression. It convinced our culture that, as Robert Bork ironically put it, “Let all be told, let all be shown, and we will be a society of well-balanced individuals.”

Of course, no such thing happened. A culture that has renounced inner restraints only has the cudgel of law to keep people from acting on their own worst impulses. If shame isn't enough to keep you from making a drunken spectacle of yourself, then the sight of a “rent-a-cop” isn't going to stop you from throwing your beer on the court — or charging into the stands swinging, only to go on talk shows the next morning to promote your new CD.

What makes this even worse is that athletes are, in many instances, the closest things kids have to heroes. The NBA and its advertisers have used this admiration to make our kids the biggest market for NBA-licensed apparel and expensive shoes and soft drinks. Whether they want to admit it or not, these guys are role models, and they failed miserably that night.

While thankfully events like the “brawl at the Palace” are the exception to the rule, the beliefs that helped make it possible are not. We see the results every day in prisons all across America. And while expulsions, suspensions, and even criminal prosecutions are in order, these won't change what most needs changing: a culture that has forgotten its manners. Only a good dose of repentance before a holy God is the necessary medicine for this cultural sickness.

FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:

• Tony Kornheiser, “A Stern Test for the NBA,” Washington Post, 23 November 2004, D01.

• Bryan Burwell, “The NBA is hip-hopping its way out of the mainstream,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 22 November 2004.

• Jeff Zillgitt, “Fans make the world go 'round and other brawl theories,” USA Today, 29 November 2004.

• “Sell sport, not thuggery,” Palm Beach Post, 24 November 2004.

• Bill Simmons, “Tale of the tape,” ESPN, 22 November 2004.

• George Neumayr, “Rap Sheets,” American Spectator, 23 November 2004.

• Shawn Macomber, “Sporting Chance,” American Spectator, 29 November 2004.

• Ben Mathis-Lilley, “Fight! Fight! Fight!“ Slate, 23 November 2004.

• Sally Jenkins, “With Artest, a Human Quality,” Washington Post, 26 November 2004, D01.

• Mike Wise and Sally Jenkins, “An Enigma in the Hall of Infamy,” Washington Post, 28 November 2004, A01.

• Bill Littlefield, “Full Court Mess,” Washington Post, 28 November 2004, B01.

• Daniel Henninger, “From McLuhan to Artest,” Wall Street Journal, 3 December 2004.

• Todd Boyd, “Beyond black and white,” Charlotte Observer, 1 December 2004.

• Alan Drooz, “Playing the blame game: Maybe we need to blame the game,” San Diego Union-Tribune, 29 November 2004.

• Rochelle Gurstein, The Repeal of Reticence (Hill & Wang, 1996).

• Karen Santorum, Everyday Graces: A Child's Book of Good Manners (ISI Books, 2003). Bono of U2 refers to this book as “also a book of manners for rock stars.” We might add it's useful for college and professional athletes as well.

• Hugh Hewitt, In But Not Of: A Guide to Christian Ambition (Nelson, 2003). This book provides readers with valuable insights, wisdom, personal experiences, and advice on how to rise in the world and achieve the kind of radical success that honors God.

________

Copyright (c) 2004 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

*

While taking a class in Valparaiso, Indiana, Teresa Prenderville, 32, allegedly became irate when another student asked if the seat next to her was taken. Prenderville allegedly told the man, “I'm going to put a cap in you and send you to heaven” with such intensity, the man started crying. Prenderville then stormed out to the school's lobby, broke a display case, and then punched a door so hard she bent its frame, police say, noting she was so agitated they had to restrain her after her arrest for intimidation and criminal mischief. The class? You guessed it: Anger Management.

________

Northwest Indiana Times

David L. Reasby, 51, the pastor of the Lighthouse Full Gospel Baptist Church in Des Moines, Iowa, allegedly told a 14-year-old mentally disabled boy who attended a child-care facility in his home to stop knocking on his door. When the boy did it again, police say, Reasby opened the door and shot the boy twice in the buttocks with a BB gun. He has been charged with assault with a weapon. Reasby was a police officer in Des Moines but left the department two years ago -- after he was “involved” in a different assault incident.

________

Des Moines Register

They sharpen their tongues like swords

and aim their words like deadly arrows.

They shoot from ambush at the innocent man;

they shoot at him suddenly, without fear.”

(Psalm 64:3-4)

“Keep your shirt on!” A couple of centuries ago, only a very well-to-do gentleman owned several shirts, so getting into a fight was no reason to ruin what might very well be your one and only. Too, fabrics were homespun, coarser, and more constricting, so a common step before launching into a fight was to remove one’s shirt.

For example, Sam and Ben have words; Sam then sees Ben unbuttoning his shirt. Unless Sam is eager to fight Ben, Sam will cry out, “Keep your shirt on!” In other words, “Let’s not be hasty about getting into a fight.” Today “keep your shirt on” still means “don’t be in such a hurry,” but it no longer refers to preparing angrily for a fight.

How does the Bible word it? “Do not let the sun go down on your anger” (Ephesians 4:26b). Heard that before, haven’t you? But can you quote the next verse, which is the completion of the sentence? “And don’t give the devil an opportunity” (Ephesians 4:27). In other words, lose your temper and attract the tempter. Grudge-holding is wrong, and the only thing it accomplishes is to show Satan the chink in your armor.

Certainly situations will arise that make us angry and sometimes downright furious. But as followers of the Gentle Lamb of God, what are we to do? Get over it. If we refuse to do so, we open up a wound through which Satan’s forces invade our spirit and fester our feelings of self-pity and woundedness. Next thing you know, you’re ready to give somebody, maybe even anybody, a piece of your mind. All of us know at least one person who’s given so many people a piece of his mind, he doesn’t have much left to work with!

How about you? Are you quick to anger? Right now I’m dealing with a situation where a friend believes I’ve committed a wrong which I haven’t done, and she refuses to forgive. I’ve pleaded with her to talk with me. I’ve tried to show her I’ve done nothing to hurt her. I’ve asked for her forgiveness. Forgiveness? I hear you, “But you just said you haven’t done anything to cause this!” I haven’t. But see, it’s not about who’s right or wrong -- it’s about preventing bitterness from growing.

Unfortunately this Christian sister continues to hold onto her grudge, and her bitterness is becoming more and more apparent to all who see and hear her talk about the situation -- and believe me, she’s talking. Am I out there telling my side of the story? No. I’m praying for the Lord to touch her heart and heal our relationship. I’m praying for the Lord not to allow me to harbor any resentment for what is being said in the meantime.

Jesus Christ is the only Defender I need. He is the only Defender you need. If you find yourself in a spot like I’m in, do what you can to diffuse the problem. Then leave it in God’s hands. He will never take the side of anyone who refuses to forgive -- and that, my friend, includes you and me.

Don’t withhold forgiveness. You need it too much yourself. I need it too much for myself. Jesus said in the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:12) that we are to pray for the Lord to “forgive us our sins, just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us.”

How much has the Lord forgiven you? How much are you forgiving others? Beloved, we can’t afford to hold grudges.

Sermon in Book of James series, #11. James 4:1-4

WHAT RAGES WITHIN?

==================

I. The problem that hasn't been solved.

A. Is anyone immune to it?

B. Violence is an issue around the world.

II. Violence among *us*?

A. James is talking to Christians.

B. Probably exaggeration for effect.

III. Where does violence come from?

A. An inside problem.

B. Self-seeking pleasure and lust.

IV. A self-seeking attitude will warp your spirituality.

A. People stop praying. 4:2

B. People pray wrong.

C. James calls it "spiritual adultery." 4:4

V. God loves you and can heal your rage.

A. Three basic truths in this passage.

B. Our church should be a reconciling family.

C. God understands, because Jesus was beaten and abused.

A woman I’ll call “Marleen” went to her pastor for help. “My husband is abusing me,” she told him. “Last week he knocked me down and kicked me. He broke one of my ribs.”

Marleen’s pastor was sympathetic. He prayed with Marleen — and then he sent her home. “Try to be more submissive,” he advised. “After all, your husband is your spiritual head.”

Two weeks later, Marleen was dead — killed by an abusive husband. Her church could not believe it. Marleen’s husband was a Sunday school teacher and a deacon. How could he have done such a thing?

Tragically, studies reveal that spousal abuse is just as common within the evangelical churches as anywhere else. This means that about 25 percent of Christian homes witness abuse of some kind.

These numbers may shock you — and they certainly shocked me — so you may be wondering if the studies were done by secular researchers hostile to the church. I can assure you, sadly, they were not.

Denise George, a gifted writer and the wife of theologian Timothy George, has published a new book called What Women Wish Pastors Knew. “Spouse abuse shocks us,” George writes. “We just cannot believe that a church deacon or member goes home after worship ... and beats his wife.” Tragically, however, George notes, some of these men justify their violence “by citing biblical passages.”

Well, obviously they’re misinterpreting Scripture. In Ephesians 5:22, husbands are told to love their wives as Christ loved the church; beating wives black-and-blue hardly constitutes Christian love. First Peter tells husbands to live with their wives considerately. And the Bible makes it clear that the church has no business closing its eyes to violent men. In 1 Timothy 3:3, the church is told that when it comes to choosing leaders, they must find men who are “not violent but gentle,” sober, and temperate.

The amount of domestic abuse in Christian homes is horrifying, and the church ought to be doing something about it — not leaving the problem to secular agencies. But this is one mission field where the church is largely missing in action. And sometimes pastors, albeit with good intentions, do more harm than good.

George sites a survey in which nearly 6,000 pastors were asked how they would counsel women who came to them for help with domestic violence. Twenty-six percent would counsel them the same way Marleen’s pastor did: to continue to “submit” to her husband, no matter what. Twenty-five percent told wives the abuse was their own fault — for failing to submit in the first place. Astonishingly, 50 percent said women should be willing to “tolerate some level of violence” because it is better than divorce.

Advice like this, George warns, often puts women “in grave danger” — and in some cases, can be a death warrant.

Pastors need to acknowledge that domestic abuse in the church is a problem, and learn how to counsel women wisely.

Obviously, Christians must uphold the sanctity of marriage. But we should never ignore the dangers of violent spouses — men who use the Bible to justify abusing, and even killing, their wives.

________

Copyright (c) 2009 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

Bitter behavior is so common and deeply destructive that some psychiatrists are urging it be identified as a mental illness under the name post-traumatic embitterment disorder.

________

You know them. I know them. And, increasingly, psychiatrists know them. People who feel they have been wronged by someone and are so bitter they can barely function other than to ruminate about their circumstances.

This behavior is so common -- and so deeply destructive -- that some psychiatrists are urging it be identified as a mental illness under the name post-traumatic embitterment disorder. The behavior was discussed before an enthusiastic audience last week at a meeting of the American Psychiatric Assn. in San Francisco.

The disorder is modeled after post-traumatic stress disorder because it too is a response to a trauma that endures. People with PTSD are left fearful and anxious. Embittered people are left seething for revenge.

“They feel the world has treated them unfairly. It’s one step more complex than anger. They’re angry plus helpless,” says Dr. Michael Linden, a German psychiatrist who named the behavior.

Embittered people are typically good people who have worked hard at something important, such as a job, relationship or activity, Linden says. When something unexpectedly awful happens -- they don’t get the promotion, their spouse files for divorce or they fail to make the Olympic team -- a profound sense of injustice overtakes them. Instead of dealing with the loss with the help of family and friends, they cannot let go of the feeling of being victimized. Almost immediately after the traumatic event, they become angry, pessimistic, aggressive, hopeless haters.

“Embitterment is a violation of basic beliefs,” Linden says. “It causes a very severe emotional reaction.... We are always coping with negative life events. It’s the reaction that varies.”

There are only a handful of studies on the condition, but psychiatrists at the meeting agreed that much more research is needed on identifying and helping these people. One estimate is that 1% to 2% of the population is embittered, says Linden, who has published several studies on the condition.

“These people usually don’t come to treatment because ‘the world has to change, not me,’” Linden says. “They are almost treatment resistant.... Revenge is not a treatment.”

Nevertheless, Linden suggests that people once known as loving, normal individuals who suddenly snap and kill their family and themselves may have post-traumatic embitterment syndrome. That’s reason enough for researchers to study how to treat the destructive emotion of bitterness.

________

Copyright 2009 Los Angeles Times

David Cross’s wife bought a van from the Portsmouth (New Hampshire) Used Car Superstore. “It was a piece of [garbage]” Cross said. He says the van had multiple issues including a broken odometer and damage from a previous wreck, so he took it back to the dealer. The dealer not only refused to refund his money, but wouldn’t even negotiate the price on another van.

So Cross returned that night and drove the van onto the lot -- and into multiple vehicles. “I hit the first $25,000 car I could see,” Cross said. “I didn’t hit a car under $20,000. Then I moved a van that they wouldn’t come down on the price for. I moved it with the lemon they sold me. I just held it to the floor until I couldn’t move it any more.” In all, he says, “I took out seven vehicles, including my own.” He then flagged down a police cruiser and turned himself in.

“I woke up this morning and wondered if it was a dream,” he said, “but then I looked over and there’s my bail papers.”

________

Portsmouth Herald

Life is a continuous series of choices. Big ones are obvious. Go to this college. Marry this woman. Break off the engagement. Take that job. Start a business.

Buy that company. Have children. Move to this city. Have the operation. Buy that house. Make this investment. Retire now. Retire here. These and other major decisions alter outcomes in ways hard to see at the time.

What if you’d married your high school girlfriend? Chosen to start in another city? Gone to a different college? Majored in something else? Stayed with your first company? Remained single? Questions. Roads not taken.

The possibilities are inexhaustible. If only we’d known the thousands of outcomes available to us when we were laying out the blueprint of our lives and making our choices.

Where do good choices come from? Experience plays a big part. Healthy people want more of the good and less of the bad. We learn at an early age that choosing bad behavior has consequences. That it’s better to be praised and hugged than scolded and punished. Our choices influence the quality of our life and the lives of those around us.

While growing up, I saw plenty of good choices and plenty of bad. My father could be tender and pleasant to be with -- until something snapped and he turned dark. We never knew when Mr. Hyde would show up and all hell would break loose.

I figured that was just the way it was and navigated around his tantrums. My mother’s reaction was to lock us in the basement or pack us up in the car for a quick getaway until the storm blew through and Good Dad returned.

My mother was the main target of his vitriol. He hated and loved her, but with an infantile love. Like a child with a temper railing against his parents, he enjoyed being the “enfant terrible.” We were led to believe he was mentally ill, with a split personality.

While a reasonable explanation at the time, it confused me because I also observed him at work and out in public. Mr. Hyde never showed up in those places. The safety and security of our home was his private stomping ground. There, he frequently gave in to his lower nature. He possessed the ability to behave otherwise, but allowed self-centered, sinful urges to take charge. Bad choices.

It wasn’t until I was married, and saw milder versions of the same patterns in my behavior toward Sandy, that I got it. I saw in myself some of the urges my father must have seen. The choices with which he was likely confronted, and the lower road he took.

Fortunately, with the help of my wife, I learned to see the wisdom of a different path. She’s gentle and loving in every respect and hates conflict of all sorts. She let me know in no uncertain terms, however, that disrespectful, rude and childish behavior had no place in her life and our home.

This was announced early in our third year of marriage, while we sat with my mother on our screened side porch with a spread of corned beef, Swiss cheese, mustard, rye, full-sour pickles, potato salad and mixed fruit salad -- courtesy of my mother.

I’d just made up my sandwich and plate. It was on my lap. I gave thanks to God for the food, but not to my mother. Sandy prompted me to thank her too. Simple enough, wouldn’t you say? Not for me. Not back then. It made me feel like a child being scolded, rather than a husband being reminded.

My Old Man pride and caveman defenses kicked in, coming out as, “I’ll thank her in my time and on my terms. But thank you (sarcastically) for the lesson in manners.”

Bad choice! As soon as the words were out of my mouth, my life flashed in front of me. I knew I’d crossed into the dangerous territory I later came to know and refer to as “Sandy’s Red Line.” This is a place you don’t want to go. One reserved for those rare instances in which she’s provoked to a point of no return. And there I was. I knew it. She knew it. My mother sensed it.

After a few seconds, which seemed like minutes, Sandy calmly got up, walked over, tipped my well-prepared plate all over me, and walked into the house.

I was speechless. My mother was dumbfounded. I’m sure she was also privately pleased, wishing she’d done the tipping.

I just sat there. Food dripping. Mustard staining. Lunch lost. Utter absurdity. Foolish behavior met by an appropriate response. I knew I had met my match.

That incident stood out as a declaration of war. It might as well have read, “WARNING: From this time forward, all nasty behavior will be met with a proper response.” Like a defiant child, I crossed that line all too often in our early years and was justifiably smacked down. Sandy showed me the consequences of my bad behavior, of choosing to indulge my Old Man.

I’ve wised up over the years as my New Man has occupied more real estate in my life. I’ve discovered that living with love and harmony is sweeter than snarling from the doghouse. That enjoying a good sandwich with my wife is better than cleaning up a tossed one.

This has been more than a Pavlovian response to punishment avoidance. It’s been a conscious preference to live out of my New Man, to choose and continue to choose, day by day, sometimes minute by minute, my higher nature.

I cut someone off in traffic yesterday. I’m a good driver, but I pulled out right in front of this guy, who of course leaned on his horn ... hard.

Then, as luck would have it, we pulled into the SAME store parking lot. Yay! I knew it was coming.

He arranged it so he would be standing in front of his vehicle as I rolled by slowly, looking for a spot to park. There he was, middle finger in the air (big surprise) shoving it aggressively toward me while yelling.

I braked, threw it into reverse, came up beside him, rolled down my window, and ... just listened. I let him rant.

“LEARN HOW TO %#%€ing DRIVE FOR #%#!SAKE!!”

That was probably the nicest thing he said in all of it.

When he was done, I said in an even tone that I have perfected for escalations at home: “You have a right to be upset. I cut you off, and I’m really sorry. I’m usually a pretty good driver, but that was a really stupid mistake and I’m sorry I put us both in danger.”

He sort of stuttered, still mad, but visibly trying to process what I’d just said. Then I said, “Thank you for being on the ball, and saving us BOTH today with your quick reflexes.”

He literally mumbled, “Geez ... just be careful ....” He had his head down and was still adjusting to someone being kind to him, someone who he had just called every name in the book and f-bombed about 500 times in public ... loudly.

It did shake me up, but not the way it did him.

I’ve found that I’m so much more prepared for the unexpected than the average person. I’ve also learned, through my son, that everything is a teachable moment, that one should always act with grace and good intention, and that whenever possible, give someone a chance to show their best side.

And that’s what he did.

I was pushing my cart around the store, and all of a sudden there was a tap on my shoulder. It’s the angry dude. Only he isn’t angry, he’s humble.

“You said sorry to me, but I’m the one who owes you an apology. I had a really bad morning, some bad news at work. Thank you for reminding me that everyone makes mistakes, including me. I acted really [badly] calling you names and stuff. I’m really sorry for that.”

“Thank you,” I said and smiled. Then he smiled, too. We told each other to have a nice day and I think we both did just that. We BOTH stepped out of our comfort zone to thank someone else for their actions. And it felt ... good.

[My son] Chevy has taught me that. He has taught me patience, and grace. He has taught me that however bad things may be at the moment, there is always something to learn from it and a chance to do it better the next time.”

Shared with permission via Connie Manning

Andrew Jackson was known for being unforgiving and having a terrible temper. In a duel with Charles Dickinson, Jackson was wounded but had not yet fired. A gentleman would aim and fire into the air, but Jackson aimed and fired into his heart. His mean streak haunted him throughout his political life.

Version in sermon:

======================================================

Forgiveness as a character issue.

As New Jersey's presidential primary approaches, one consideration every voter must face is the character of the candidates. Negative campaigning is nothing new in American politics and neither is the character issue. More than 180 years ago a candidate for President had to confront rumors that neither Bush nor Clinton have had to face. Even though he was a forceful and proven leader, it was his inability to forgive that called his character into question. I am speaking, of course, of Andrew Jackson.

One scholar has said that when Andrew Jackson hated, it often became a grand passion. He could hate with a Biblical fury. He would resort to petty and vindictive acts to nurture his hatred and keep it bright and strong and ferocious. He needed revenge. He always struck back.

On May 30, 1806, Jackson met crackshot Charles Dickinson in a duel at Harrison's Mills, Kentucky. It appears that Dickinson had made some rude comments about Jackson's wife. Others had too - she wasn't actually divorced when Jackson married her.

So that morning they paced off for the duel. Upon the signal to "Fire!," Dickinson instantly raised his pistol and, as expected, got off the first shot. Kicking up dust from Jackson's coat as it entered, the bullet stuck him full in the chest. Everyone watching knew that Jackson had been hit. Astonishingly, Jackson did not fall but remained standing, ramrod straight. The 70-caliber ball had chipped off his breastbone, broken two ribs, plowed through chest muscle to come within an inch of his heart. Blood drained down his leg and began to fill his boot.

Dumbfounded, Dickinson had to remain on his mark to await his fate. He was now at Jackson's mercy.

A man in Jackson's situation customarily raised his pistol, aimed it at his disarmed opponent, then pointed it at the sky and fired. It was the gentlemanly thing to do and earned you much respect. Dickinson stood frozen, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes fixed on the ground. Jackson raised his pistol, took level aim - and pulled the trigger. A harmless "click" followed. The hammer had mercifully failed to strike.

Jackson now had a second chance to consider his actions, to remind himself that Dickinson's wife was pregnant. Jackson himself was born after his father's death and knew the hardship of growing up fatherless on the frontier. As Dickinson waited helplessly in place, Jackson carefully recocked his pistol and again took deliberate aim at his opponent. And for the second time he pulled the trigger. This time the weapon did not misfire, and Dickinson fell mortally wounded. Jackson showed no remorse for having shot Dickinson in cold blood.

The episode would haunt Jackson the rest of his life. The full ounce of lead was lodged so close to his heart that doctors never dared to try to remove it. Thereafter he experienced sporadic chest pain that increased with old age.

During his first presidential campaign in 1828, the opposition compiled a list of his brutality and printed a handbill with 18 coffins on it. Each had the name of an individual killed by Jackson's gun or order. His harshness and inability to forgive almost cost him the presidency, not to mention his life.

Life is a continuous series of choices. Big ones are obvious. Go to this college. Marry this woman. Break off the engagement. Take that job. Start a business.

Buy that company. Have children. Move to this city. Have the operation. Buy that house. Make this investment. Retire now. Retire here. These and other major decisions alter outcomes in ways hard to see at the time.

What if you’d married your high school girlfriend? Chosen to start in another city? Gone to a different college? Majored in something else? Stayed with your first company? Remained single? Questions. Roads not taken.

The possibilities are inexhaustible. If only we’d known the thousands of outcomes available to us when we were laying out the blueprint of our lives and making our choices.

Where do good choices come from? Experience plays a big part. Healthy people want more of the good and less of the bad. We learn at an early age that choosing bad behavior has consequences. That it’s better to be praised and hugged than scolded and punished. Our choices influence the quality of our life and the lives of those around us.

While growing up, I saw plenty of good choices and plenty of bad. My father could be tender and pleasant to be with -- until something snapped and he turned dark. We never knew when Mr. Hyde would show up and all hell would break loose.

I figured that was just the way it was and navigated around his tantrums. My mother’s reaction was to lock us in the basement or pack us up in the car for a quick getaway until the storm blew through and Good Dad returned.

My mother was the main target of his vitriol. He hated and loved her, but with an infantile love. Like a child with a temper railing against his parents, he enjoyed being the “enfant terrible.” We were led to believe he was mentally ill, with a split personality.

While a reasonable explanation at the time, it confused me because I also observed him at work and out in public. Mr. Hyde never showed up in those places. The safety and security of our home was his private stomping ground. There, he frequently gave in to his lower nature. He possessed the ability to behave otherwise, but allowed self-centered, sinful urges to take charge. Bad choices.

It wasn’t until I was married, and saw milder versions of the same patterns in my behavior toward Sandy, that I got it. I saw in myself some of the urges my father must have seen. The choices with which he was likely confronted, and the lower road he took.

Fortunately, with the help of my wife, I learned to see the wisdom of a different path. She’s gentle and loving in every respect and hates conflict of all sorts. She let me know in no uncertain terms, however, that disrespectful, rude and childish behavior had no place in her life and our home.

This was announced early in our third year of marriage, while we sat with my mother on our screened side porch with a spread of corned beef, Swiss cheese, mustard, rye, full-sour pickles, potato salad and mixed fruit salad -- courtesy of my mother.

I’d just made up my sandwich and plate. It was on my lap. I gave thanks to God for the food, but not to my mother. Sandy prompted me to thank her too. Simple enough, wouldn’t you say? Not for me. Not back then. It made me feel like a child being scolded, rather than a husband being reminded.

My Old Man pride and caveman defenses kicked in, coming out as, “I’ll thank her in my time and on my terms. But thank you (sarcastically) for the lesson in manners.”

Bad choice! As soon as the words were out of my mouth, my life flashed in front of me. I knew I’d crossed into the dangerous territory I later came to know and refer to as “Sandy’s Red Line.” This is a place you don’t want to go. One reserved for those rare instances in which she’s provoked to a point of no return. And there I was. I knew it. She knew it. My mother sensed it.

After a few seconds, which seemed like minutes, Sandy calmly got up, walked over, tipped my well-prepared plate all over me, and walked into the house.

I was speechless. My mother was dumbfounded. I’m sure she was also privately pleased, wishing she’d done the tipping.

I just sat there. Food dripping. Mustard staining. Lunch lost. Utter absurdity. Foolish behavior met by an appropriate response. I knew I had met my match.

That incident stood out as a declaration of war. It might as well have read, “WARNING: From this time forward, all nasty behavior will be met with a proper response.” Like a defiant child, I crossed that line all too often in our early years and was justifiably smacked down. Sandy showed me the consequences of my bad behavior, of choosing to indulge my Old Man.

I’ve wised up over the years as my New Man has occupied more real estate in my life. I’ve discovered that living with love and harmony is sweeter than snarling from the doghouse. That enjoying a good sandwich with my wife is better than cleaning up a tossed one.

This has been more than a Pavlovian response to punishment avoidance. It’s been a conscious preference to live out of my New Man, to choose and continue to choose, day by day, sometimes minute by minute, my higher nature.