Our Inner Eyjafjallajökull

Our Inner EyjafjallajÖkull

Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God.

Romans 12:19

About this time of year in 2010, much of the world breathed a collective sigh. Earlier that year the volcano EyjafjallajÖkull in Iceland had belched ash and dirty ice into the atmosphere at a rate of 750 tons per second and shut down air traffic over Europe for months. But it was officially over. Thousands of canceled flights could take to the air again.

Author and speaker Gordon MacDonald likened EyjafjallajÖkull to the volcanoes of anger that mark the landscape of the human soul. “These interior EyjafjallajÖkulls of varying sizes can erupt when one least expects it: in traffic, in a routine conversation when disagreement rises, in a moment when someone denies us something we believe we deserve.”

He makes a great point. Our subterranean emotions can explode without warning. MacDonald writes, “I grew up thinking I was a pretty calm person and that it was others—not me—who had anger issues. My wife, Gail, once pointed out to me that while I often said nothing in such moments, the glare on my face told a more accurate story of my inner disposition.

“Then one day I discovered EyjafjallajÖkull within myself. I became embroiled in a disagreement that caused feelings to ignite in ways I’d never experienced before. . . . When the volcano inside of me blew, it brought my life, for all practical purposes, to a halt, much as the real EyjafjallajÖkull has paralyzed northern Europe. I was surprised, amazed at myself: all of this meanness that suddenly came from who-knows-where. . . . I have not fully mastered this area of life, but I have learned to spot the uprisings of feelings that can eventually morph into needless anger.”^a

Perhaps no other emotion has caused married couples more difficulty than anger. We have seen how people explain away their anger. Some deny it by calling it fatigue, nervousness, or being uptight. Others suppress their anger, making every effort to keep it from showing (this usually leads to a phony emotional saccharine sweetness). Still others try to spiritualize it by talking about righteous and unrighteous anger. Some people flaunt anger over their partners. “This is the way God made me, so you might as well get used to it. It’s in my genes.”

Well, anger is not inherited. It is learned and can be unlearned. And anger by any other name is still anger. Whether suppressed, spiritualized, or flaunted, anger will do its destructive deeds to even the best of marriages. What matters is not whether you feel angry, but what you do with your anger once it kicks in. That’s why Paul encourages us to “do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable. . . . Live in peace” (Romans 12:17-18).

A man is about as big as the things that make him angry.

—Winston Churchill

^a 122