To the Band of Brothers: January 27, 2023

I am including here a link to an article that was featured in The Miami Herald yesterday. It’s about Belen basketball, but centers specifically on Javi Rosell ’23 and the adversity he and his family have been facing. His mother Cristy was diagnosed with lung cancer. I have known Cristy Rosell and her husband Teo ’86 for many years. She is nothing short of being a superstar and I know she’s battling her illness like a wolverine.

 

The opening line of the article caught my attention. It mentions Javi “ignored God” when he first learned about his mother’s diagnosis. He was angry with Him. Someone asked me, “Aren’t you concerned about that?” The answer… absolutely not. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want Javi to be angry with God forever, but in the grand scheme of things, there is a lot to be said about anger even if it is directed at God.

 

Let me explain.

 

First, understand you can’t get angry or even ignore what doesn’t exist or what you don’t believe. Nobody gets angry at unicorns because they don’t exist. You can’t get upset at leprechauns because they don’t exist either. You can ignore the stories because those stories do exist, but unicorns and leprechauns themselves… no. Feeling anger at someone or something is only possible if that someone or something exists. Javi’s reaction is real only because there is a God to get angry at. Javi’s anger simply means he believes.

 

Second, anger is usually a reaction we have to a situation or circumstance we care about it. If it meant nothing to us, we wouldn’t waste our time and energy on getting angry at it. If I don’t like football, I don’t waste my time and energy getting angry when the Dolphins lost to the Bills in the first round of the playoffs. It’s neither here nor there. It’s not only because I love the game of football, but, more specifically, love the Dolphins that I spend several days angry at the loss and call for the firing of all the coaches. Javi’s anger simply means he cares.

 

Third, and this is important, anger is not a sin. As a matter of fact, anger is often justified and necessary. When I heard on the news that a gunman killed 11 Asian Americans in California at a Lunar Festival, I got angry. Angry at the gunman, angry at our society’s inability to address appropriately the issue of mental illness, and angry at not knowing what to do. Anger, if channeled appropriately, can lead to solutions. It can stir up the masses to acknowledge a problem and work hard to resolve it. The challenge with anger is when it lingers and we allow it to eat away at us without addressing it in a healthy manner or finding the right solution. Anger is not the problem; it’s how we react to it. Javi’s anger simply means he needs to do something.

 

And fourth, anger at God is as old as the human race. Of course, we have expectations for God. Like any other relationship, we expect God to be good, kind, merciful, always present, consoling, our defender, our protector, our Father. And He is. But we oftentimes expect Him to do what we want. How God chooses to be all those things in our lives is solely up to Him.

 

When I was a kid, I can’t tell you the number of times I got angry at my dad. Angry because he didn’t let me hang out with my friends beyond my curfew. Angry because he forced me to go to Belen. Angry because he was always on top of me making sure I was studying, getting good grades, and doing my chores. Now, as a man, I look back at those moments of anger and realize he was right. I was wrong. The most amazing thing is that my anger never kept him from doing what he knew was right; it never kept him from being a dad. He followed through with what he knew was right, even though he knew I would get angry at him.

 

You see, we have expectations for God, but those expectations can simply be wrong. It’s not God who needs to conform to our expectations, it’s we who have to conform to Him. We don’t know everything; we don’t have access to the bigger picture. God does. God understands what is best even if it makes absolutely no sense to us. God basically sits back and says, “That’s okay, you can get angry with me. Trust me, I know what I’m doing.” Javi’s anger simply means he needs to do trust God more.

 

I’m very proud of Javi Rosell. I understand why he was angry. But things have changed. The anger has made way for more prayer, rosaries, fundraisers for cancer research, and opportunities to counsel others who are going through similar things. The anger has motivated change and growth. It’s developed a deeper and truer relationship with God. He may be a great basketball player, but he’s even better at being a man.