cc: file, Diane Cluff, Darrell and Nancy Krueger, Sara and Des Penny, Grandma Hafen via Tony Hafen, Claude and Katherine Warner, and Lloyd and Luana Warner.
"I learned an important lesson this week. It was regarding anger. It seems appropriate to write about my lesson and about anger because I am not at all angry. Thanks largely to PAIRS I think I have been able to work through issues I did not understand and find some deep and lasting peace. This does not mean I don't get angry at Einstein when he does his thing on the newly cleaned carpets. It does mean I am getting pretty good at making the punishment fit the crime and not overreacting out of an unrealistic fear my entire world is collapsing.
The circumstance for my lesson was I called Rob to see if he still wanted to go to a movie he had mentioned he wanted to see. He said yes and asked if anyone had come to see me. I quizzed him and discovered Ben and Sarah had been in town for Spring Break and Melanie had been in town since Wednesday. I made some sarcastic comment about how I must be a really bad guy for my kids to not want to come and see me. Rob, you said you would call me back, and yet I had the distinct impression you would not. As I often do these days, I played and replayed the conversation back in my mind, and tried to listen for anything that would discourage you from calling back.
In the book `Emotional Intelligence' (Daniel Goleman: Bantam Books, 1995, page 50) I learned about `emotional flatness.' This is:
Your Mom has told me several times it is not what I say, as much as the tone of voice I say it in. I do not hear this tone, and I have consistently found, particularly in PAIRS, it is extremely hard for me to put words around my emotions. I feel them very, very strongly. I struggle to put words around my feelings (as I struggle to write these Thoughtlets). As I went back over my reaction to not being visited by you kids over your Spring Break I was hurt, I was disappointed, and I was angry. I was able to figure out I didn't expect Rob to call me back because I had an angry tone to my voice.
As I went to bed Friday night, I was reading from a book I had set aside about a year ago. It is called `Eternal Companions - Advice from LDS Counselors and Educators on Building a Forever Marriage' (edited by Douglas E. Brinley and Daniel K. Judd). I quote from page 58 and 59:
I have read these verses many, many times. I have contemplated them with serious intent and thought. And yet, as I read them Friday night, it really hit me: `I have sinned.' My getting angry has been more than a mistake, it has been a sin. As I considered the steps of repentance (recognize a sin, feel remorse, confess your sin, make restitution where possible, and recommit yourself), I felt terrible. It seemed like every angry word I have ever said flooded my mind. I learned something. Thanks Rob, even though you didn't know you were being my teacher.
I remember a stake farm assignment to cut trees for firewood when we lived in Dallas. I have always worked hard, and was not at all aware of how intent I was in swinging the ax as I cut a tree into small logs. There was a wise old priesthood leader who watched me for quite some time, and then he said `You must be really angry about something. It is not natural for someone to swing an ax with so much force and for so long.' I do not remember what I was angry about. I do remember feeling like I had been caught with my hand in the cookie jar. I remember learning something which I didn't really know how to put into words.
Roice, I am sorry I got angry the night you and Joy were in Melanie's room watching a movie late and I asked you to come downstairs. Ben, I'm sorry I was angry when you didn't want to go to Simonton for the scout campout and forced you to go. Paul, I'm sorry I was angry when I found the burned papers next to the garage and tried to force you and all of your siblings to tell me who had been playing with matches and almost burned down our house. Melanie, I'm sorry I was angry when your friends brought beer into the house. Sara, I'm sorry I got angry when you and your friends watched an R-rated video into the house. Rob, I'm sorry I tore up and threw away your magic cards the night you ran away and didn't come in time to go to Ken Turner's open house with us. I realize these are not the only times I have got angry. I now realize anger is an uncontrolled outward expression of fear. However, I hope that by recognizing in a deep internal way anger is a sin, feeling remorse, and confessing my sin to those of you I have offended, it is a positive step towards making restitution and recommitting myself to better serve my Savior and those I love.
There is one example in my life where my anger resulted in something I can not fix. I was about 16 years old. I had caught a wild cat and was trying to tame it so it would stay around the house and catch mice. I had it in one of Dad's old mink cages out in the garage. I was very careful to always pick it up with a pair of thick leather gloves on. One day when I was holding it and it seemed to calm down some, I took off one of the gloves and was petting it. It's head got loose enough it turned and bit me. My instanteous angry reaction was to throw the cat down on the ground. As I licked my wound and looked down on the ground I realized I had killed the cat in anger. That experience has haunted me since then, for even though the church didn't mean much to me in those days, I knew in my heart I had sinned.
In the book Eternal Companions I also read on page 52 and 53:
After we are about eight years old we are each responsible for our own choices. We might carry a lot of baggage around with us, and it might be we are 48 years old before we learn something about the baggage (and some never learn). However, we are each responsible for our own choices. Repeating an e-mail sent to Roice this week: `I will strive to listen and not preach, to take it with a grain of salt and not too seriously, try to understand and not make you think like me, and hope you can someday accept you never need to apologize for saying what you feel to me. If I expected an apology, it would be for untruths, not for truths. I have found my peace and joy in my Savior, who I do not know as well as I would like to, and sometimes doubt I ever will. Yet I know he loves me, even when it seems no one else does. I know he loves those I love, especially when they feel alone. I feel close to him and I feel hope when I sing a hymn or read the scriptures.' And quoting from one of the new songs I have recently written, which I sang for Melanie when she had lunch with me on Sunday:
One of the hopes I found in the book Emotional Intelligence is the fact we can improve our emotionally intelligence at any stage of our life. Unlike I.Q., spatial intelligence, or physical prowess, we are not born with an innate upper limit. If we work on it we can learn to recognize, put words around, control, and actually enjoy emotions like anger.
Rob, thanks for teaching me this important lesson. When you came over Saturday to borrow a video tape, and I asked why you didn't call me back about the movie the night before, it was funny to me to hear you say `Oh I forgot. Sara's friends were at the house and I was talking to them and just forgot to call you back.' Isn't that the way it is with most of the important lessons of life? You just forgot to call me back, it was not because I had an angry tone to my voice. We really can learn from the normal events passing by us every day.