Anger! If ego was the great watch word of the twentieth century -- according to writer Norman Mailer -- anger is the one for this century and decade.

Everyone is angry and emotional about everything. Rage is the rage.

Vision is clouded. No light. Just heat.

Division grows.

We have never been more divided. (What spirit divides?)

"Righteous indignation" is one thing. That's standing up to an evil. But that indignation is fleeting. Anger sticks like chewed gum.

In our time, people enjoy hearing an angry monologue or interview, finding entertainment when one person tears down another. What talent! Anger, anger, anger. Everybody is finding fault with everyone. Let us ask ourselves: what is it that anger accomplishes? Also ask: despite the greatest injustice in history, was Jesus angry on the Cross?

Anger drills down into the oil, the acid, the darkness inside. The fire of ire. Geysers erupt. A synonym is "mad," which backwards is "dam" -- emotions that are pent up because they have not been cleansed. Anger is a bridge to hatred.

Why does one get angry? Usually, it's fear: we're afraid of something or someone or a set of circumstances. Solution: rid the fear. We are threatened. There may be a threat to ego, to a job, or a relationship, to a notion, to something we hold dear (such as an opinion, which gets back to ego). Think about it in your own life. You may fear loss of respect, or money, loss of something, and that causes fear that often morphs into a disturbed angry spirit. Look at the faces of those who spew venom and see if they seem all that happy.

Money? Anger is good for that. In the media, it draws viewers and listeners and readers like moths to flame.

Perhaps one might say also: like flies to trash -- for the spirit of anger is something we should all dispose of or risk having to do so in purgatory.

Ask yourself what makes you most angry and take it to prayer and ask yourself how Jesus would have responded to it.

But sell? If you see someone who profits by venom it is a dark anointing.

When directed at another, and constantly deployed, ire indicates a lack of love. It sullies. It burns a hole in the soul. It also boomerangs. A whirlpool. In what direction does a whirlpool go? Happiness is the gauge -- the fruit. For joy only comes when the mind is on an even keel in the waves of life.