The psalmist lived among prophets and priests who dealt with his vindictive spirit and nurtured him toward a better way of treating the wicked than calling down curses on them, learning what Charles Williams once described as the “passion of patience.” We are in a similar apprenticeship. But we will not learn it by swallowing our sense of outrage on the one hand or, on the other, excusing all wickedness as a neurosis. We will do it by offering up our anger to God, who trains us in creative love.
