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Mystic activist how they dealt with anger

From Curtiss Paul Deyoung

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When you work for justice you have to see the world as it really is. And there's a lot of horrible things happening in this world. And that if you are a living breathing human being, you should be angry about that and angry about the fact that there's injustice. But the challenge is, is to not let that anger consume you. In the same way you could get depressed about the realities that we face and that depression could paralyze you. The mystic activist that I studied were human beings who had to deal with their anger, their depression, their struggles to continue on. What I discovered is that's where their faith first is important. They could take this anger and put it into their prayer life. But also most all of them also had a community of other people of faith that they were connected to whether it was a church community or mosque or just a group of other folks that they got with regularly. And so they did not feel alone. Because the moment you begin to feel alone in this work you can be overtaken by your anger or your discouragement. And so, but we have to realize that we're all human. They were human beings. They struggled with anger and they struggled with depression and they struggled with all the challenges that we all face. But that religious faith a rooted religious faith built in community usually through spiritual practices like maybe fasting or worship as well were what sustained these activists. It was oftentimes though because their activism would be the lead, they had to have others around them who would hold them accountable and say you need to step back. You need to go on retreat for a few days, you need to rest. Martin Luther King's staff often would just take him off the streets, take him down to the islands to get him to rest for a couple of days because the activism was so strong. The anger even when fueled in appropriate way in nonviolence still can be all consuming.

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