hurt and anger

today is september 11th...peaceful thoughts to all whose lives were changed on that day.

i've been thinking a lot about hurt and anger. how when i'm hurt, i often act out of what i know is hurt, but what is often seen as anger. and responding to someone who is pissed is very different from responding to someone who's hurt...i don't care who you are. so i try not to act angry. but i also try to let myself be true to what i feel. if i'm on the great quest to treat people as, well, humans...but i mean recognize and reflect the dignity i see in each person...well, i can imagine that others might be on the same quest, too. (meaning, i can give, but i can ask and hope to receive, too, right?)

anyway. this is not where i wanted to go with this. what i wanted to say was why do people get so angry when they're hurt? or get angry before they're hurt? when it looks like they just MIGHT be getting hurt? i've felt it. a writer i've read calls it a "pain body".... and i like that term a lot. but why does pain typically cause us to lash out?

buddhists say that when we fight the inevitable, we bring ourselves suffering. that is we would only accept that things will happen, we will get hurt, things will fall apart...we could end our own suffering. i think that's why i was so fascinated by "joseph, king of dreams"...if i would just accept that people get hurt...and i can love the hurter as much as the hurtee, because i spend as much time myself on either side of the equation...then maybe i won't suffer so much inside.

modern america says if i only take a small pill once a day i can decrease my pain. and while that may be true, i'm going to stick with some meditation and prayer and mental work for a bit longer. because i think it's working for me. it takes longer, i admit. and it's not very steady work. but it's worthy, i think.

so i will focus more on hurt and anger, pain and lashing out. i think sometimes when we're in pain, we lose our ability to gauge the quality of our pain...it's all bad and it's all ultimate and we've got nothing to lose so damn anyone to comes near. not really, because we tend to lash out at those we're closest to. (mamas tell themselves it's the ones we feel safest with, so we don't fall apart when it's our kids tear into us verbally)

ugh, this is so disjointed because i have a nine year old working on math who's had a number of questions...so i'm going to stop here. i was thinking a lot about this last night, so i may come back to it soon. otherwise...well, i guess otherwise i won't, huh? (ok, my cold is obviously still making me a little foggy, too)

so peace