Anger Before Sundown

Yesterday I woke up angry.

It didn't have anything to do with taxes or tea parties, although I certainly sense deep discouragement regarding the fiscal responsibility of central governments, along with a cautiously cynical sympathy with populist protesters.

It didn't have anything to do with vocational frustration, although events of recent weeks and months have tortured (at least harshly interrogated) my tenuous grasp on occupational risk and reward.

It didn't have anything to do with church or family, although the complex and intertwined dynamics of both offer abundant cause for befuddlement and bewilderment.

Apparently, I was angry at the calendar. It took me several hours to arrive at that conclusion, but once my gaze happened upon the current date, my previously unfocused orneriness crystalized upon its target: April 17. The sixth occurrence of the julian month and date that ended the days (at least the finite ones) of my best friend's life.

People talk about living each day as if it were your last day. I remember the day that was Chuck's last day. I did not like that day. I still do not like that day. I do not desire to live another day in any way like that day. I don't even like to remember that day. But I do remember it, and I always will.

I remembered that day yesterday, with anger. When Job was blessed with the shade of a gourd, he grew angry when that gourd was taken away. I too am angered when the persons and things that bring me great joy and comfort are then taken away. I am not speaking of sadness, or longing, or even the emptiness that persists where fellowship was once felt. I speak of anger, of indignation at the specific injustice, of railing and ranting rejection of the not-rightness, of defiant denouncement of the royal decree.

The calendar, like the gourd, is but a parabolic receiver which gathers and focuses the waves of anger onto a single point, where it can be more clearly perceived, and perhaps somewhat more clearly understood. I was not really angry at the calendar, but through the calendar I was able to project my anger at Chuck. For leaving. For taking away all the goodness that we enjoyed together. To project a bit further than my heart can perceive, I was probably not angry at Chuck either. Through Chuck, I have projected anger directed at God. The Creator of time and fellowship and every other good and blessed thing is the One to be blamed when they are taken away. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

That was yesterday morning.

Yesterday afternoon, I played golf with a friend, on a beautiful golf course, on a beautiful day. The friend had called the day before, unexpectedly, on the off chance that we might both have the same day off work. By some strange coincidence, we both did. My friend reminds me a bit of Chuck, partly because of his girth (Chuck was larger than life in more ways than one), but more because of his mirth, and mostly because he is, well, a good friend. Also unexpectedly, my friend brought along another friend, who had called him out of the blue with the same purpose in mind. By another strange coincidence, that friend's name was Chuck. None of us played particularly well, but that did not matter much. It was a very good afternoon.

Yesterday evening, by another odd and expected intersection of circumstances, I learned that Chuck's widow, Carol, and their daughter, Cami, were traveling south, and stopping for dinner in Elizabethtown, about a half hour away. I learned this just as my wife got home from a day of errand running, wondering what me might do for dinner. It wasn't hard to perceive the serendipity of the moment, and we sped (my wife was driving) to a brief but wonderful time of fellowship and solace shared. It was a very good evening.

By the time the sun went down, my anger had subsided.
Not destroyed, simply diminished.
Returned to its proper place in time.

It may seem a trivial point, but somewhere on the 17th fairway it dawned on me. Chuck was not a man of great means (though he was by all means great), and what he left behind was mostly of the intangible, eternal sort. The one tangible thing I own that once belonged to him is the set of golf clubs I played with yesterday.
I will never replace those clubs.
I will never replace Chuck.
I will never need to.


The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.

-- Brother Tom