But I'm angry!!!

Yesterday evening I had the...pleasure...of working with an inmate who was being disruptive.  He had been promised the opportunity to work, but circumstances made it such that he couldn't.  He was told he wouldn't be able to, but that he could work the next day.

The inmate got angry.  More angry, in fact, than any rational person ever needs to be.  When the chips settled, he was in paper clothing, sitting on a concrete bunk, with hard restraints on his hands, feet, and around his waist.  I accompanied the lieutenant as he spoke with the inmate, trying to convince the inmate to just settle down so they could take off the restraints.

What the inmate said was troubling and may reflect some of the opinions we hold here on the outside.  Over and over again, the inmate repeated, "I was angry," as if that explained and even excused his aggression against staff and other inmates.  It seemed to me that the inmate believed that he had been required to act on his anger by engaging in highly disruptive behavior.

Do we believe that our emotions require action?  The vast majority of us won't end up in prison, nor will we do the things inmates do.  But do we also do self-destructive things simply because we are angry, confused, lonely, or upset?  Do we allow hunger, thirst, lust, fear, or even boredom to dictate our actions?

I believe that the main purpose of mortality is the have us learn to experience, and to master, these impulses.  They are given to us by God, so they are important, and we have much to learn from them.  But we must learn from them, and not be directed by them.  Instead, we are directed by reason and by faith.

When our Lord and Savior was on the earth, he lived a normal life perfectly.  It was filled with fear, hunger, thirst, and even despair ("My god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me?")  He felt all things we feel, and yet He had the goodness to do the right regardless of what mortal impulses were yelling at him to do.

He is our Exemplar.  When we have a trial we do not want to face, a hunger that must be sated NOW, regardless of consequences, when we are tired and don't want to bother with the next difficult thing the Lord would have us do, we should remember His example.  His willingness to master Himself saved us all, and now He gives us the chance to do so ourselves.