Hello Hump Day readers. God has gifted us another year, and how we face this year will make all the difference for us. Not sure about you, but I quit making New Year Resolutions a long time ago–because we rarely put them into action and then we get the joy of life kicked out of us because we don’t put those resolutions to any good!

In two days of New Year holidays, I found the news to be profoundly violent; in fact, violence topped the list! One particularly heinous crime was the young man who brought a machete to Times Square and attacked 3 policemen—thankfully they are doing OK—thank God! Asked why he did this his reply: “I deserve to be angry; no one cares about me-everyone else gets what they want and I get nothin so I’m coming for them’”—when police came to inform his mother of the crime and that he was shot and in the hospital, she let them into his bedroom and laptop where they found out he believes in a hard-line Jihad for anyone, along with many other violent tendencies. His mother had no idea and sobbed to the point of fainting in a policeman’s arms.  In our society this is almost a daily occurrence—the anger, the rage!

Jim Taylor, Ph.D., specializes in the psychology of sport and parenting; he’s a consultant to the USA and Japan’s Ski Teams, the US Tennis Association, USA Triathlon, a speaker by the Olympic committees of the U.S., Spain, France, and Poland. He has worked with professional and Olympic athletes in tennis, skiing, triathlon, football, baseball, cycling, golf, and many other sports. Jim speaks regularly at elementary and secondary schools and youth-sports programs around the country and internationally.

Why do I share this? Because he is a man of faith who cares about young men and women, especially those going into the sports arena. One of the biggest challenges they have is anger. Not only the anger of losing by the athlete, but the parents who blame everyone else, and the crowds that get angry enough to harm the athletes! Here is a short story of his long-time friend, Ralphie, who was visiting at his home. It’s a tad hilarious but it’s a reminder of what anger does to us (and others):

“I heard Ralphie wake up at 5:00 am shouting at something thumping on my roof. In his pajamas and groggy from just waking up, he walked out into the backyard to investigate what was making the noise. I knew it was our pesty woodpecker and sure enough, Ralphie saw him pounding his little brains out on the metal pole of our TV antenna. I was trying not to laugh as Ralphie yelled every epithet to get the annoying bird to leave. I could have intervened and told him it would do no good, but I knew my friend’s quick-trigger-anger and held my words—I didn’t want to be the recipient of his anger. Shortly his faced turned so red with anger and he picked up a large rock and threw it at the bird. Instead of hitting him, it sailed over my house and broke the windshield of Ralphie’s car in the driveway! Now Ralphie exploded and reared back kicking another large rock that hit my window but worse than that—Ralphie forgot he was barefoot! Need I say anymore?!”

The wisdom of Solomon in Ecclesiastes 7:9 is powerful, and the Message translates it a most convincing if not succinct, set of words:

“Don’t be quick to fly off the handle. Anger boomerangs. You can spot a fool by the lumps on his head.”

Dr. Taylor says “Anger is a very interesting animal. There are times that anger, when it’s controlled, can be good. Then there are those fits of uncontrolled anger that often have consequences that were never intended. That’s the kind of anger that should be avoided.” We can all certainly agree with that in our own anger episodes or those who have slung anger at us. How easy it is to “be the fool with the lumps on our heads?!”

As our world and especially here in the USA, gets angrier every day, we are seeing a culture of anger that invades every sector of life. No one is untouched and everyone is affected. And in our pursuit of sensationalism, it is the power of anger that draws us to news, movies, and sadly, in the arena of sports which starts from youngsters in school to the grid-iron. We need to think deeply about this problem. In fact, read a few of Taylor’s books, they are powerful and give you great thoughts and solutions on how to tame your anger when it turns into hurtfulness to someone else and yourself.

In closing, I propose that we all need to embrace Spirit-led choices in how we express ourselves—especially our feelings. After all, who really wants to live in negativity which knocks the joy out of life. We just finished the celebration of Jesus who gave up everything to come to earth and live among us and show us how to live. His gift of JOY is something we need not just when we get angry but every day. Think about it—perhaps Year 2023 just might be the best-ever if we decide to embrace this joy-filled gift? Just sayin’ … AMEN.