“I’m right. You’re wrong. Go to Hell.”

Although sounding suspiciously like the many conversations we’ve witnessed in the last year, these words were written years ago by the historian Bernard Lewis describing a different dialogue on religion. But he may as well have been describing the generally accepted tenor of myriad conversations in our public discourse over the last year. Whether it’s in our text threads, social media posts, or the comment section in newspapers, we don’t seem to be a happy group of people these days.

As we end one year and begin another, I wonder to myself what, if anything, can heal the anger in our hearts. Is there any power out there that can bind up our wounds, both as individual persons and as a society? Personally, I have not told anyone to go to hell this past year, but I have certainly felt that sentiment more times than I’d care to admit. That’s the insidious nature of anger; it’s not necessarily what’s heard or done physically, but the inward aspect of it that can eat away at us.

To be clear, anger can have its place, perhaps most notably in occurrences of injustice. But like most things, if anger is not harnessed and operating in its right place, it can become destructive.

Coming to Christmas and now facing a new year, I think that the source of my anger in different situations tends toward the desire to change other people and circumstances.

And when my desires are blocked or are put on hold, the feelings only grow.

As a person of faith, my mind has recently been drawn to the simple story of Christmas. The baby Jesus lying in a manger surrounded by his mother and father.

A humble beginning, if ever there was one. One of the narrators of scripture tells us that this story is good news. And in a nutshell, the coming of Christ was and is good news because according to Christian belief, this baby Jesus was God in flesh sent to us to heal our hearts.

The gospel stories tell us mostly of his short adult life, in which he performed miracles, shared meals with many and taught in various settings. But the sharpest, provocative and more contentious claim within Christianity has to be the fact that this God-in-flesh figure had the power to change hearts.

The miracles, teachings, exorcisms were one thing, but they were all signposts of the greater miracle: the healing of the human heart.

To say that this message had staying power would be a severe understatement. Historians and sociologists of all stripes have written books, generally fat ones, around this heart-changing power of Christ throughout history — how his lasting influence has changed people, circumstances, and even public policies throughout societies and communities for good. The history of Christianity is complex and not without its blemishes, but there is something calming, heartening, and inspiring when I simply focus my mind on Jesus Christ and who he was.

So, as I search for practical ways in which I can deal with the anger in my own heart, I keep coming back to the Christmas story of a God who simply became one of us. I long, hunger and thirst to know how this God can truly change a cold heart; how and if it’s possible for him to soften mine. And I think of the words from “O Little Town of Bethlehem”: O holy Child of Bethlehem Descend to us, we pray Cast out our sin, and enter in Be born in us today We hear the Christmas angels The great glad tidings tell Oh, come to us, abide with us Our Lord Emmanuel!

This is what I need; perhaps it’s what many of us need: the very power of God to enter my life and change me. Wherever we find ourselves, the power of Christmas starts in that ancient stable in Bethlehem where God came to us, not in the form of a king, a ruler, or a member of the aristocracy but a baby — small, weak and vulnerable.

It would be this kind of humility that won, and still wins, hearts to mercy, love and grace.

Maybe this is how our hearts can be changed; not simply by saying no to anger and hate, but by welcoming mercy, love and grace in to replace the former. nathan betts is a speaker and writer on topics related to faith, life and god. his first book, “short answers to Life’s biggest Questions,” is forthcoming. he lives in bonney Lake.

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