Anger Farming

I heard the term “anger farming” only recently. It may have been around for a while, perhaps a long while, but it certainly seems particularly relevant right now. We all know the “anger farmers.” We see them on the news whether we want to or not; we see them constantly in the political and cultural sphere and maybe even closer, in our own families.

I have heard them mostly from the safety of virtual distances and, so protected, could rail back at them with impunity. Then, on a recent trip to a very conservative part of the country, I was confronted by the real thing in – literally – all its glory.

In a state with no mask mandate, I had gone to a supermarket and decided to obey the sign on the door that said, despite their governor’s defiance of CDC recommendations, “Masks required.” Despite (or perhaps in spite)of how crowded the store was, only the two people I was with, one or two others, and I complied. As we hurriedly filled our cart, a man walked in. He was bare from the waist up (yuck, right there!) and tied around his neck so it could flow all the way down his back almost to the floor he had draped a huge American flag. Needless to say, not only did he wear no mask, but, purposely it seemed, he got as close to people as possible. I was looking at strawberries when he came up to me, almost touching my side. I walked away.

I could tell – and others agreed – he was practically begging for confrontation and/or perhaps confirmation. In either case, he was performing what seemed a silently menacing, passive aggressive form of “anger farming” made more disturbing and frightening by the threat of instantaneous explosion should anyone react to his demeanor and attire. The tension in the store soon became palpable. He had succeeded in harvesting both suppressed anger and heightened alertness in us. Even those who may have shared the same sentiments he was expressing seemed unwilling to cheer him on.

When I related this experience to others, I expressed the requisite outrage and revulsion, muttering and sputtering epithets about “his kind” and what they were doing to our sense of justice and need for peace and reconciliation.  I felt so right in my indignation, exhilarated almost. Then I started to re-evaluate. Had I been so “right” in ignoring and walking away, let alone take pride in those actions? Did I have a responsibility here that I had ignored or was too timid or self-righteous to fulfill?

After I briefly described the incident at our small Eucharistic Community gathering last Sunday, one member made an observation that made me rethink everything. She wondered if he was one of those lonely people, not unlike so many of us, had perhaps lived a life in which he had felt dismissed or unseen or ignored, not so different perhaps from our own. Someone else countered that it was hard to believe he was lonely when, if he wanted company, there were legions of people just like him. Hmmm. Legions of people who may be feeling some or all of the time the way we feel some or all of the time: Suddenly I felt neither outraged nor exhilarated but humbled.

What if I had (standing a bit away from him to protect against exposure and explosion) said, “Don’t those strawberries look gorgeous?” If he had angrily complained about their price, what if I had agreed how tough that can be on all of us? If he had tried to escalate this into a tirade on inflation or certain political stances or politicians or the rotten state of the country or world, could I have found the presence and even the words to deflate his anger without condescending, to be respectful without endorsing his position? And could I have been a peacemaker if others had angrily joined in?

That challenge is one we face constantly with WOC witnesses, with peace and environmental protests, with our social and racial justice work. But there are remarkably creative and inspirational ways of meeting that challenge. For example, I remember a group of people angrily chanting to us, “We love the priests” at one of our annual witnesses for women’s ordination outside our local cathedral. One woman in our group went over to them and said, “We don’t hate the priests. We just want women to be priests, too. Why don’t you come over and join us?”

The words of the woman from our Eucharistic community and those of the woman above I want in my mouth when I see or hear people “farming anger.” Studies over the years have said we react to threat by “fight” or “flight” or…recently they added a new one that sadly often describes me: “freeze.” That last reaction happens when we don’t know what to do, when we are unprepared because we did not listen closely enough to those of us who always are, or when we have failed to access fully the inner wisdom at the core of our own humanity.   

I accept the challenge to listen, reflect, and change.