The Column with Canon Rev Dr Rod Garner Self-knowledge can help turn back the tide of rage

AFRIEND handed me paperback the other day. “For the summer,” he said. “A fantastic read, you’ll really enjoy it.” At over 1,000 pages long it’s still weighing down the back seat of the car. There’s a fair bit of violence on the first page alone, so it might be several summers before I gain the time or courage to tackle it. I’m also working my way through a big history book at the moment. Not exactly bedtime reading, it feels and reads like an extended tract for our times. Age Of Anger is written by author and columnist Pankaj Mishra. In it he tries to makes sense of our present predicament – how the world has become so divided by hatred and resentment – and he looks to history to provide clues for the reasons behind this great and g r ow i n g chasm. a

It’s an impressive, sober and challenging piece of writing.

If I had the cash I would send a copy to every MP with the request to read it before the annual party conference season this autumn – admittedly, a big ask with Brexit, in-fighting and social media devouring their waking hours.

But if our politicians know little of the past, the present is likely to overwhelm them.

Anger is a “master emotion” and its presence is increasingly pervasive.

Until yesterday I didn’t know that the BBC’s political editor, Laura Kuenssberg requires a bodyguard after threats from both left and right of the political spectrum.

A photo taken of the Labour MP, Yvette Cooper alone on a train carries the caption “you’re a c*** and we’re in charge forever” by the bloggers Reel Politik.

Diane Abbott receives death threats and racist tweets almost daily and demonstrators on a Labour rally carry a model of Teresa May’s head on a spike and chant “ditch the bitch”.

We put heads on spikes in the reign of Henry VIII (as our national history makes clear if we know it) and we don’t want to go there again.

Outside Westminster, rage presents itself in various guises and how quickly it manifests itself.

It’s not just terrorism, religion or immigration that brings forth vile language or threatening behaviour. It can be a busy traffic roundabout at 5pm, the queue in the supermarket or service station or the cyclist ahead of us occupying too much of the road.

We are not at ease and, as Pankaj Mishra notes in the final page of his book, there is an urgent need for some “truly transformative thinking” about ourselves and our nation.

Politicians must do better on this front by watching their own language and moving more quickly than they sometimes do to censure the fanatics and bigots in their ranks who “fuel the arms race of rage”.

But politics is too important to be left to politicians and we have responsibilities as citizens in this heated arena.

A member of the House of Lords recently received in his mail a card with a hand-stitched message: “He who walks purely walks securely.” One thousand, four hundred and forty-four identical cards, each taking three hours to make by a team of 100 volunteers have now been delivered to both houses of Parliament.

The idea came from Colin Grey as part of a project begun by his wife Jo, who died in January 2015, aged 37. Like her, he wants politicians to show wisdom, knowledge, honesty and integrity – the building blocks as it happens of all true religion.

We can do no less and that means dealing above all with the anger in our own hearts that often goes unacknowledged.

Knowing some history can help us on our way.

But knowing ourselves and our hidden, darker impulses is an even bigger step towards the civility and peace we crave but are in danger of losing.

“He who walks purely, walks securely” is a text worth remembering the next time we feel the monster inside us breathing flames.