Inigo Montoya You killed my father. Prepare to die.
This is what I had on my name badge when I ran into the Bishop at the LDS-sponsored community service event last November.
I know he looked at it, and I’m not sure what passed through his head as we parleyed about my family’s departure from the Church.
I’ve changed a lot in the eight months since that encounter. I’m mostly at peace concerning religion. So much so that I chose to abandon a career studying it.
This was not a casual decision. I pursued this dream for over six years, investing most of my free time and a great deal of emotional energy. I realized, however, that my obsession with religion was fueled by my sense of frustration and helplessness. I had to face daily the Mormon teachings I rejected in my heart–I wore its holy garments and went to its Church. It dictated what I could eat, say, and think. When I left the Church, there was little left to fuel this dark energy, though it took a while for me to cool down.
I miss my passion. I feel empty without my anger. I can relate to Inigo when he says, towards the end of the Princess Bride,
I’ve been in the revenge business so long, now that it’s over, I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life.
Of course, I was never in the business of vengeance, and I haven’t considered a career in piracy. Hmmm…
I am by nature a passionate being. For all my affinity for Quakerism, I’m not comfortable being at peace. One of my favorite quotes (and perhaps one of the only good things to come out of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier) is this quote from Kirk:
I don’t want my pain taken away! I NEED my pain!
I’m looking for my pain, because that is where I will find my passion.
18 responses so far ↓
1 Miko // Jul 31, 2007 at 6:27 pm
I sympathize. I’m still in the must-research-religion part of my leaving a major faith. I hope someday to be at peace with it. I read somewhere that the most powerful tool women have (and I’m sure men have it, too) is righteous anger. When we are righteously angry, we vote, we picket, we write our senators, we boycott, we tell our friends, we do something. I hope you find your pain, your passion, your righteous anger. The world needs the change you can only affect when you channel it.
2 Bored in Vernal // Jul 31, 2007 at 7:17 pm
I am by nature a passionate being…I’m not comfortable being at peace.
Fascinating. I can relate to this, too. I’m always on a Quest. And it wasn’t until the past few years that I even realized that many people are at peace, and content to remain so.
I don’t know whether it’s best to tell you to learn to bask in the peace, or to go and search for a Journey! But I am confident the Universe will provide you what you need.
3 mel // Jul 31, 2007 at 8:47 pm
John — your lack of peace is a highly compelling thing. It draws people top you … people like me.
Peace is for the dead.
Let’s make a pact right now to rabble-rouse until we drop. Burnin’ down the house.
4 Chris Rusch // Aug 1, 2007 at 12:37 am
So if I understand correctly, you are not doing your masters anymore?
5 John // Aug 1, 2007 at 6:02 am
Miko, my capacity for righteous anger frightens me sometimes. I used it as a Mormon. I used it against Mormonism (especially the patriarchy). But I’m glad that you all see some benefit at not achieving inner peace, especially when the emphasis seems to be on attaining it.
Mel, is there an internet-version of blood-brotherhood?
Chris, to answer your question, I am currently knee-deep in my masters thesis.
6 Elaine Frei // Aug 1, 2007 at 7:04 am
Oh, I’m very much in touch with my righteous anger. Always have been. My friends always try to tell me that the anger doesn’t do any good because I can’t do anything about the things that make me angry, but my position is that as long as I’m angry at least I’m paying attention and bearing witness what is going on.
Inner peace is very nice and all, but it tends to lead to a complacent attitude. Complacency is not a good thing in these times.
7 Thotman // Aug 1, 2007 at 8:00 am
I really liked this post…such an interesting take on the human need for pain…victimization and suffering.. well done
8 Parker // Aug 1, 2007 at 9:57 am
Let me speak on behalf of peace. Peace is good. It visited me once and the experience was so marvelous I want it to come again, and stay as long as it wants.
Parker
9 Jonathan // Aug 1, 2007 at 12:42 pm
It is amazing how anger can spur action, give us endless amounts of energy, and creativity. My anger caused me to leave bad churches, re-evaulate bad theology and religion and caused me to rethink a large part of my beliefs about the spiritual life that I had never thought about or taken seriously before. It caused me to create a weblog and join a community of other folks like me who were also reeling from similar bad experiences and who were also trying to figure things out in the aftermath.
Like you, however, my anger has run its course. It has now been 4 years or so since my encounters with bad religion occurred. It has been one year since I started my weblog. I have wrangled with those bad experiences and come out at peace. Even though I have not answered all the questions that come pounding at one’s door when life becomes painful, but I have been able to answer enough of them sufficiently to be in a place of peace.
Your thinking is intriguing - the energy and creativity that one’s anger generates is awesome. What happens when it is gone?
For me, something unique in my experience is happening. I have become pulled very strongly towards a greater cause that I don’t understand yet. It is a very strong feeling - one that is driving me even more strongly than my anger did (which I didn’t think possible): an unselfish desire to prepare my life for something very big - much bigger than myself. It was so profound a change in who I am that it drove me to redesign my weblog from scratch - images and recoding templates, pack up my family and move to another state, and enroll in a masters degree program at a seminary there. It is the greater motivator.
In the aftermath of anger, there is something with more energy and creativity. Anger, like other things in life, was meant to lead us to a greater thing. It’s energy wanes - it was designed to have a greater thing take its place. It is not unlike how romantic love leads a person to embrace love in its fullest sense - unconditional true love.
So what replaces anger? What is greater? Lol, I’ll leave that up to you to discover and write about, since I myself am just scratching the surface.
10 mel // Aug 1, 2007 at 4:28 pm
John — link exchanges seem to be the closest thing to blood oaths.
I think we have an unrealistic view of what it means to be at peace and what the resulting power might be. It seems to me that this god-like equanimity is finds expression primarily in fictitious demi-gods and so-called sons of god. While all examples of human beings getting things done tend to be arising from some sense of anger.
Peace just makes me want to fall to sleep never to re-awake.
This isn’t to say that I’m not anti-war and other forms of physical and emotional violence … I am. But I don’t see these things coming to an end unless we get really angry about it … angry enough to stop waiting for god to do something.
11 SunflowerP // Aug 1, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Injustice makes me angry. Powerful motivator, anger, and it can be used to accomplish things. (”Shout, shout, let it on out, there are the things we can do without….”)
But passion and anger aren’t the same thing.
Maybe that’s what you’re looking for, John, something that stirs your passion without being all tied up with anger? Something you love, perhaps, to be passionate for, instead of something you disdain to be passionate against?
Sunflower
12 mel // Aug 1, 2007 at 6:06 pm
I still think anger is getting a bad rap, Sunflower. It seems to me that it is a component of passion. Anger does not equal bad any more than happy equals good. Happy can be totally bad …
13 Caroline // Aug 1, 2007 at 8:15 pm
John, I’m happy for you that you are at peace, and I’m quite confident that you will continue to engage vitally with the world.
I wonder how similar my journey will be to yours. I have Big Plans to enter a religion program sometime in the next few years. I wonder if I’ll get it out of my system too after a couple years of studying it. Of course, I still have my righteous anger, so that might fuel me on.
Congratulations on finishing up that degree! I’m excited for you and your next phase of life.
14 Chili Pepper // Aug 2, 2007 at 10:05 am
…very much a fascinating topic John, and in many ways I felt the same way after finalizing my departure from Mormonism. I’m looking forward to responding later after a quick surf session at the beach.
15 Intrested // Aug 3, 2007 at 1:16 pm
It is so interesting to find others who are or have been possessed with the study of religion. I am not a mormon or anything close but I am fascinated by the religion. It make me angry and drives me to study and learn even more.
I enjoy reading your thoughts, Thank you.
16 SunflowerP // Aug 4, 2007 at 2:20 am
Hi, Mel - I’m in full agreement that anger isn’t innately bad (and happy isn’t innately good). The “Ick! Make it go away!” stance that so many folks take is in itself a source of injustice.
I certainly didn’t intend to support anger’s (undeserved) bad rap, and I honestly don’t think I did. My position is that passion isn’t dependent on having anger as a component, but can be fueled in other ways - IOW, that John doesn’t have to write off passion, just because he’s no longer angry.
I’m not quite sure if you’re actually disagreeing with that position (potentially an interesting debate), or if you just felt that I hadn’t chosen sufficiently neutral language.
(I would say, on rereading, that I think I was neutral enough in context of response to John’s post, but would not have been in many other contexts.)
Sunflower
17 mel // Aug 4, 2007 at 7:38 am
Hi, Sunflower. I see now that we are in greater agreement than I had thought. Thanks for going the extra mile with me.
I think that we all have more than enough reason to be angry these days … and to let that part of passion _always_ be there as a fundamental motivation, I think is a key measure of our foundation in reality and of our love.
18 SunflowerP // Aug 5, 2007 at 11:08 am
It wasn’t a lot of distance - in other circumstances, I might well have been the one speaking in defence of anger.
Sunflower
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