This quote by Macarius the Great pretty much knocked me out of my chair on Monday. And it hasn’t stopped working on me all week. Here’s why...

There are so many things I want to say about a handful of issues right now. Maybe I’m right and maybe I’m wrong, but my desire to express these thoughts to friends or shout them on the internet is quite strong.

But this Macarius quote (written 1600 years ago!) reminded me that our motivations are just as important as our opinions. Our intentions are just as important as our content.

Specifically, when we notice that anger is the primary fuel for our actions, we are in danger of “losing ourselves to save another.” This is true EVEN when our actions are just and our ideas are correct.

Words and deeds must be powered by love and a true desire for restoration, or they’ll simply multiply the pain. St Paul calls good actions without love “being nothing”...and "like a loud clanging cymbal."

Anger can be righteous and it definitely has a role to play, but it quickly becomes a toxic fuel. Fr Ronald Rolheiser has brilliantly observed that “Many movements in history based on truth failed because the energy powering them was ugly.”

To get personal, this quote (and a divinely timed phone call from a wise friend) helped me NOT say some things this week. True things. Probably necessary things to say at some point. But noticing the state of my heart and the anger brewing beneath my words...

... it became very clear that “my truth” was not fueled by a desire to heal or serve, but to export my pain. This is not the way of Love.

So may the Love that holds the Universe together do its work in me/us today. May we be increasingly healed from the wounds that try to deepen into hate, and be set free to courageously speak and embody oceans of Truth, for the sake of our lives and the sake the whole world.