Crouching tiger

A lot of you know that I'm a history teacher. I've always been fascinated by history and politics ever since I can remember. In fact, I've always thought that the two dream jobs for me would be as a football announcer or as a host of my own political talk show. I haven't gotten a talk show, but I love having debates in my classroom about politics and current issues. Suffice it to say I follow current events pretty closely.

I don't know if you've followed the case of Harvard professor Louis Gates. He's a distinguished professor at Harvard that had a brush with the law last week. Upon returning from a trip to China, he had trouble getting into his house. He had his driver help him unjam the door to get in. A neighbor, upon seeing this, called the police because she thought they were trying to break into his house. When the police arrived, Professor Gates was incensed. I might add here that Gates is an African American who specializes in the study of race relations in America. He was enraged that the police would question whether he owned this house. The policeman asked him for his id and initially he refused. He got on the phone and demanded to talk to the chief of police. He accused the responding officer of being a racist. He followed the officer outside and berated him in front of neighbors and other officers. After repeatedly ignoring the police's instructions to calm down, they arrested him for disorderly conduct.

This case made headlines because President Obama chose to comment on it and took Gates' side, even going so far as calling the police "stupid." Putting aside all the racial, political aspects of the case, and there are plenty, I wanted to focus on the human element. Anger is a normal human emotion that we all feel. In fact, it would be UNhuman not to feel it. But how we deal with our anger is vital for us to be healthy human lives.

The Biblical story of Cain and Abel provides a vivid illustration of what can happen when we let our anger get the best of us. It can control us cause us to do things we wouldn't normally do. I would venture to say Mr. Gates doesn't make it a habit of berating police officers everyday. But he was angry at what he perceived was racist treatment. Again, putting that to the side, the way he reacted was a poor role model for our children. Every time you fly off the handle, we're telling our kids it's OK to do this. The Bible says that sin, such as anger, is crouching behind a door ready to pounce if we give into it. We all have issues of self control that we must deal with. But letting our tempers get the best of us is something that we can work on with a lot of prayer and meditation. And if a cop ever asks you something, ALWAYS comply. If he was in the wrong, it can always be sorted out later.