Yes, I know that is a misquote; Simon and Garfunkel actually sang that it was silence like a cancer grows. But sometimes misquotes can be inspired and I modestly claim this as an example.
There seems to be a lot of anger around. Sometimes we see it burst into the public arena; I suspect a lot of the rioting of a few weeks ago was down to anger of people who thought they were not being given the attention they deserved. I also see anger in individuals; an emotion that is eating and embittering them. Anger can be a positive emotion, if it is justified by a moral wrong; it can energise individuals and communities to work for a better world. But where it is rooted in self-indulgence and self-centredness it is destructive, ultimately of the person in whom it originates.
There are perhaps two antidotes to destructive anger. Firstly, a greater self-awareness by individuals, a recognition that they are part of a bigger picture and others matter. Also, we all need hope that the present is not the final word and that we can achieve something better, no matter how hard that might be. That might just turn the cancer of destructive anger into something that is constructive.
Rev David Poyner