Kathleen Fischer

Anger is not the opposite of love, but an intrinsic element of loving well. This book explains anger as a complex reality with physical, intellectual, cultural, and spiritual components. Women are shown how to understand anger by naming it, choosing to feel it, then integrating it with love. Instead of suppressing anger, they are shown how to transform its fire, find its creative spiritual power, and direct its energies toward life-giving ends. Drawing from psychology, from science, and from show more major religions, the author addresses issues key to any honest look at anger. Just a few of these include self-esteem, boundaries, conflict, loss, societal expectations, and intimate relationships. She also examines violence against women, powerlessness, and forgiveness, considering examples from contemporary events around the world. With questions, exercises, and a meditation, this is powerful help both for individual and for group use, for the layperson and for the professional, for psychological and for spiritual healing. It's also a valuable resource for classes in women's spirituality and feminist studies. show less

Note: This book explores the experience of anger within a Christian understanding of emotional and spiritual transformation. It is published by a Catholic press and can be a helpful resource for adult faith growth, but it is more psychological/spiritual in tone than strictly doctrinal.

The author shares how a feminist perspective transforms both the context and the content of spiritual direction. She writes for all those who work with women in spiritual direction and retreat settings. She writes for individual women themselves, and groups of women, who may wish to use this book as a guide for self direction and prayer.

I thought it was just me! I found community in the book and in the retreat that I attended on the book. I've talked to other women since who find part of the over-50 needs to be 1)cleaning out the unnecessary stuff and 2) finding ways to serve others in the world.