The Blind Spot of Chronic Anger

The Book of Sirach puts it bluntly: "Anger and wrath are hateful things, yet the sinner holds them tight." Father Mike Schmitz opens his homily by noting that this isn't about explosive rage—the kind that embarrasses us and we confess. That's not a blind spot; we see it. The real blind spot is something subtler and more dangerous: a chronic disposition toward life where something is always wrong. It's an attitude, not an action. And it's one of those "acceptable sins" we know are there but give ourselves a pass on, precisely because it doesn't feel like a sin at all.

What Chronic Anger Actually Looks Like

Father Mike distinguishes between the emotion of anger—which is morally neutral and sometimes necessary—and the attitude of being an angry person. The emotion of anger can be useful: it keeps us alive, it can move us to action against injustice. The 25th anniversary of 9/11 is worth being angry about. But the chronic disposition is different. It's the person who walks into a dirty room and starts aggressively cleaning as if each item has personally offended them. It's the person banging cupboards while making supper, snapping shirts while folding laundry as if the laundry committed a crime. It's the driver who categorizes everyone else on the road as either a moron (driving too slow) or crazy (driving too fast).