Anger...

I've always had a difficult time with anger. Scratch that. I've had a difficult time expressing anger in a way that creates value.

As a young boy, my uncle recently took pleasure in reminding me, I was known to have a temper tantrum...or two...or four.

My recollection of these episodes paints a picture of young boy who did not know how to express anger so it came out in yelling and screaming and twirling (even in my temper I couldn't resist a gay flare!). In response I was sent to my room for a period of about 20 minutes and then joined in my room by a male parent who used his belt to "get your attention" and then tell me he did it because he loved me. I am fairly certain this is how I learned to retroflect* my anger (a-la-CVWWI).

As an adult I've used food to swallow my anger. I must have had a lot of anger because over the years I have swallowed a boat load of food. I am by no means alone in this creative adjustment, but alone I have often felt.

*RETROFLECTION (doing to myself what I want to do to you, but fear the consequences. For instance, I want to strangle you so I choke myself. I want to give you a box of chocolates but I'm afraid you'll spurn me so I eat them myself.

Lately and presently, I am angry. However, I am determined to create value with my anger.

If you've been a friend on Facebook, you've seen my unrelenting posts about all of the recent suicides of young LGBT people or those perceived to be LGBT, the hateful rhetoric from church and government leaders, and DADT and DOMA. I have refused to not post on these issues but I also understood it is inevitable that my posts would slow and then trickle and then stop. They have.

This near-obsessive posting has been the only way I have been able to express my anger about how these issues are being debated.

I am screaming.

Even this primarily positive spot on MSNBC (positive in that it generally supports us homosexuals) makes me crazy. Gay men (woman are generally left behind of the homosexual debates which is infuriating in and of itself) and queers in general have been and continue to be folly for news agencies, many religions, and politicians and mostly with self-aggrandizing motives.

Here and now, as I write this, I am experiencing that stutter, pause, stop. There are so many aspects to the lunacy, hypocrisy, evil, hatred, and idiocy of this debate. A public debate about the dignity, value, respect and right to live an honest life! Seriously? Yes.

So how do I create value with this anger?

My impulse is to say, "I don't know." Start a blog. But really, what does that accomplish? A well rehearsed choir.

Speak up! Well, these days, when everyone has a bull horn no one is heard.

Chant daimoku*! One approach that I have plenty of experience with both in the way of seeing positive results and avoiding until the crisis moment. That's not enough! I'm not enough to make meaningful change happen. Oh. That's an important realization.

I do not believe I will resolve this question/determination in this post. But I will continue to seek in my anger. Maybe that is how I will create value, in the seeking.

*Daimoku [題目] ( Jpn) (1) The title of a sutra, in particular the title of the Lotus Sutra of the Wonderful Law (Chin Miao-fa-lien-hua-ching; JpnMyoho-renge-kyo ). The title of a sutra represents the essence of the sutra. Miao-lo (711-782) says in The Annotations on "The Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra," "When for the sake of brevity one mentions only the daimoku, or title, the entire sutra is by implication included therein." (2) The invocation of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo in Nichiren's teachings. One of his Three Great Secret Laws.