There is an odd law in the Bible about misbehaving oxen. If your ox has a bad day and gores your neighbor in an unexpected flash of ire, the consequences are moderate. But if your beast has a history of stabbing people and you do not follow through on protecting unsuspecting passersby, the repercussions are much stiffer. 

 

I do not own any four legged creatures. It would be easy to hop over this particular verse as irrelevant. There are plenty of others to keep me busy. But John framed this passage as pertinent to anger. Many of us are guilty of the unexpected outburst. I have slapped my child hard enough to leave fingerprints on his cheek. I can still see the three red lines in the Unforgivable compartment of my brain. Yet when anger becomes a pattern, with heavy blankets of denial and justification flung over the scream scenes, it is time to make a plan.

 

There is a bridge I drive over every day. This morning the water was lolling across the rocks, enjoying the first stabs of light through thick overgrowth. But last week after a flood watch it was a brown and rushing torrent, tearing at the banks. I worried about a friend who lives upstream. But when I saw her she calmly assured me that they had put in many hours fortifying the basement after the flood a year ago. 

 

She learned from past mistakes. When the waters came again she was ready.

 

 

Photo by Chara Odhner

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