Our Society is Angry

So...starting at the Corrymeela site I mentioned in my last post...I followed links here and there and everywhere....and I have bits of info and quotes from a lot of different places...without a clear idea of how to present them in So...starting at the Corrymeela site I mentioned in my last post...I followed links here and there and everywhere....and I have bits of info and quotes from a lot of different places...without a clear idea of how to present them in an orderly series of posts.  So I'm just going to jump right in and start.....

First a quote from
Dr. Fred Luskin, Ph.D.....a Stanford trained counselor, and co-director of the the Stanford/Northern Ireland HOPE Project (Healing Our Past Experiences), an ongoing project that investigates the effectiveness of his forgiveness methods on the victims of political violence.

Healing
Our
Past
Experiences

I like that.....

Anyway....the quote:

We're experiencing the consequences of a culture that is excessively angry. There is such damage done to relationships, people and health through anger, blame and a kind of self-righteous aggression. We live in a culture that's stressed and angry. People are hungering for solutions - a corrective has to emerge. And the most complete, strongest corrective is forgiveness.

One reason to forgive?  If we don't it damages our health....

The negative physical responses when you're frustrated or angry are meant to exist for a short period only. Our body has exquisitely designed mechanisms to alert us to danger and to give us energy to get out. After that short period, it's wearing on your body. Without the skills to turn it off, you store that piece of anger - and then the next one, and the next one, and the next one. Each one of those is corroding your body's finely tuned balance. It can wear out your nervous system because it simply violates the way we were designed to operate.

Another reason to forgive....If we don't it damages our outlook on life.....

The other problem is that if you don't forgive, then you are in some ways prejudging your future - that you are on guard and defended and helpless, that there's a residual bitterness that influences your capacity for happiness because you haven't resolved something from your past.

 People who experience anger too much forget that life is still beautiful and joyful. It robs them of an ability to slow down enough to appreciate their relationships, to give thanks.

Tomorrow some of the steps we might follow to forgive.....

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