St Paul's School Lecture: Anger: The Power for Change

I recently spent a few days on the campus of Saint Paul's School in Concord, NH, as part of their Chapel Program review committee, where they gathered a team of external reviewers to assess their fulfillment of their mission on campus.

As part of this visit, I was invited to address their community in their morning chapel. This gathering of their entire student body and faculty took place in their impressive and imposing Chapel of St Peter and St Paul. I took the opportunity to speak about a topic that has remained near and dear to my heart for most of my life: anger.

Our attitude toward anger is ambivalent, at best. Usually, it is an emotion and affective state that is feared, resisted, and repressed... until it explodes. In these brief reflections, I suggest a slightly different attitude toward anger, one that recognizes it as a major resource in our lives for change.