Warning: this promises to be a rambling and meandering journey of words through a dark and tangled forest of thorns.

This morning, I found myself unable to tend to my daily practice of meditation and prayer because instead of finding calm, I discovered only rage – the kind of rage that makes me want to tear down walls and burn things to the ground. Not being an outwardly violent person, I ran circles in my mind instead.

• What is this rage?
• Where is it coming from?
• What is its source?
• How do I need to respond to it?
• What, if anything can I do about what is filling me with blind rage?
• What can I do to calm the fire?

The really difficult answer that came through this tangled mess of questions was this:

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING I CAN DO.

This then, just made me more angry. But isn’t this typical? Isn’t this familiar? The deep well of (feminine) rage (not only women feel this kind of rage) over all the things happening to us and in our world over which we have absolutely no control.

The list of things over which we have no power seems endless. If you are reading this, I invite to take a moment and reflect on everything you see happening around you, along with the things you have experienced in your own life that have made you feel powerless. How does that powerlessness make you feel? If it’s rage, you are not alone.

RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE

Let’s talk a little about that rage. This rage could be a face of grief.  If grief, the rage you’re feeling may be showing up as sorrow, depression, or paralysis. This rage could also be a response to injustice – what I call righteous anger. It could also be rage as a kind of acknowledgement of a need you have that is not being met. Or, as is most likely the case, the rage you feel is all of these:

Grief     Righteous Anger     Needs not being met

Today as I sit with my own person/collective rage, I am aware that it really boils down to one single thing:

SAFETY

As I examine all of the things in the past several days that have triggered me into feeling this rage, I realize it is because either the situation itself, or what the situation reminds me of, makes me feel unsafe. I’m also aware that the instinctual responses to feeling unsafe: fight, flight, freeze, are not available because I have experienced in my life that I have no power to change or correct the situations that make me feel unsafe. Instead, I feel like a tiger in a cage, restlessly pacing and seeking after a way out where there is none.

I believe this is how many of us are feeling. I’m also aware of the privilege I have and that my feelings of imprisonment are NOTHING compared to what others are currently experiencing on this planet. That being said, this privilege makes our rage no less real – and valid.

Now the personal part – I’m really sick of feeling unsafe in this world. I don’t want to play the “man card,” but the reality is that in nearly every situation where I have felt this kind of rage – it was because of something being done by or ignored by, a man. If it wasn’t a man, it was done by a woman complicit in the patriarchal system.

So I guess I can’t say men are the problem –

but the patriarchal system in which many are still entrenched IS the problem.

Let me provide a couple examples that everyone will be able to understand and relate to:

• Women and children reporting rape and immediately disbelieved, or made to prove the crime (ending up being further victimized in the process).
• MEN creating wars, destroying the world, killing millions of people for no other reason than their own inability to….. well….. that list is also endless. (communicate, share, have compassion, listen so as to understand…..)

I’m sick of it. I’m sick of all of it, including (but not limited to):

• Men making bullying and demeaning statements in person and on social media.
• Men dismissing women’s experiences.
• Men sexualizing women (and children) ALL OF THE TIME. (alternatively, women sexualizing men)
• Men dismissing or ignoring wisdom, knowledge, or expertise that is shared by a woman.
• Women complying with the patriarchal (and pedophile) standards of “beauty” (including the recent starvation craze) and men being ok with it.
• Women jealously defending their place in the patriarchal system.

It’s all so gross. And in the last 24 hours I was reminded of this is some deeply personal ways. One of which related to my past ecclesial abuse and some recent “strides toward inclusion of women” made by Pope Leo.

You know what, F the institution that continues to perpetrate their culture of clericalism that is at the heart of every single thing wrong with the Catholic Church. Throwing women a bone by saying the Church is planning to invite women into more positions of power (advisory only……) is to me more of an insult than a sign of forward movement. Until the system of clericalism is addressed, there will be no equity in the Church ever! As I learned from personal experience, the Church is only there to protect their own power. When I was being harassed and bullied by the local self-appointed inquisition, the Church did nothing to defend or protect me, instead it became one of my abusers.

The same is true of the patriarchy and all those complicit in the system. They are NOT here to keep us safe. They are not here to protect us. Instead, there are only concerned with protecting their own power – no matter the cost to any other human being. And this protection is done in all the obvious and insidiously subtle ways about which we are all excruciatingly familiar.

NO WONDER WE ARE SO DAMNED ANGRY!

Reflecting on this rage has made me aware that while the question of power is part of it, it is so much more a matter of safety.  And I’m really f’ing tired of feeling unsafe in a system that really doesn’t give a damn about anyone but itself – and even more angry that there doesn’t seem to be a damn thing I can do about it. Until patriarchy is overthrown, this, it seems, is our fate. And that just makes me f’ing mad!