Anger and Power

“When anger rises, think of the consequences.” - Confucius

That was the opening line of Fr. Rudy Fernandez in his homily last Sunday and it stuck in my head. Fr. Rudy cited a traffic altercation he experienced in another country. He was the one who was wronged, but even though he was angry he surprised the other guy by giving him a pleasant greeting. The other guy was taken aback and the anger just dissipated.

The homily was still on my mind all day Monday since I've been wanting to update my Homegrown blog every week (have failed miserably). Mid-afternoon I was surprised to see Avel's Plurk about unconfirmed reports that more than 40 people were killed in Maguindanao. A number of them were his media friends. Later on it was all over the news.

I still could not quite grasp what happened in Maguindanao. I cannot understand why people were massacred and news reports say that it’s because of warring clans. The area reportedly has warlords ruling over the territory.

The struggle for power. We’ve seen this happen again and again throughout history and it usually involves bloodshed and death. The want for power seems to always have anger involved and innocent people are always victimized in pursuit for it. We always see this plot in movies and telenovelas, but it's really shocking to see it really happening.

A lot of people in the blogosphere have been asking what can be done. I honestly have no idea what we can do about this because this is really big, big stuff. What my Mom always tells me is to start with yourself and pray. And going back to what Fr. Rudy said when he quoted Confucius, "When anger rises, think of the consequences."

Hope you can take a moment of silence to pray for the victims and their families. God bless!