Go Touch Grass….

A conversation between a husband and wife went like this:

Husband: "When I get mad at you, you never fight back. How do you control your anger?"
Wife: "I clean the toilet "
Husband: "How does that help?"
Wife: "Well, I use your toothbrush."

How about this one:

I received a flier on anger management the other day…. I lost it.

In all seriousness, I have been encountering a number of articles about how, as a collective, people have become angrier in the last few years. According to Gallup’s Global Emotions report, negative emotions remained at their highest level in 2023 (tied with 2022). Anger is a piece of this data, and it remains near an all-time high worldwide. We are angrier when driving, angrier when flying, angrier when waiting in line, and lord knows we are angrier behind the safety of a keyboard! Who hasn’t seen a video recently that shows someone flipping out at an airport or at a kids sporting event?

So, naturally, coinciding with this increase in anger have been a number of viral trends for how to become less angry. Some promote screen fasting – intentional time (sometimes days) away from all digital content in order to help calm down and reconnect with others. On TikTok, a trend called “floor time” has taken off, which involves simply laying flat on the floor as a way of engaging the parasympathetic nervous symptom to help with relaxation. If you’ve ever taken a yoga class, this is often how the class comes to a close. Simply laying still and breathing. And one of the biggest-selling books in the last year has been “The Let Them Theory” by self-help influencer Mel Robbins. This theory is based on the idea that giving up trying to control the behaviors, actions and attitudes of others can improve your own happiness, stress levels and quality of life.

In a world filled with angrier people, there has truly been no shortage of strategies for how to calm down. Even my 7 year-old daughter, Miriam, has a “calm-down corner” constructed in her room for those times when she finds her temper or emotions flaring and needs some time and space to help herself become regulated again. As someone who is now past middle-aged, a younger member of Generation X, I find myself trying to keep up with how younger generations are navigating this current season with an angrier society. One of the phrases that is associated with Gen Z, those between 13 and 28 years old, is fascinating to me as it speaks to how the younger folks are experiencing this season of heightened anger. "Go touch grass" is a figurative idiom used most often by members of Gen Z. This phrase is a way of telling someone to stop spending excessive time on screens and online activities, and instead, step away, and engage with the real world and nature instead. It is used to suggest that someone is out of touch with reality and needs to get fresh air and a different perspective by being outdoors.

I really appreciate the expression “Go touch grass,” because the heightened use of screens – from social media to chronic inundation with polarized news sources, and those times every couple of years when we are peppered with negative political ads designed to elicit and emotional response – is part of what is driving this rise in anger in our world. Simply getting up, walking away from technology and reconnecting with nature, with the experience of being a living being, can serve to calm us down, to bring us back to center, and to offer a new perspective on things. Touching grass, silly as it may sound, can serve as a reset for our own humanity.

Our text from Jeremiah today is one that is popular and beloved by many. “Go down to the Potter’s House and there I will let you hear my words.” God was telling Jeremiah, “Go outside. Step away from your studies of scripture, from religious gatherings, from crowded conversations and go outside. Walk down to the potter’s house and there I will let you hear me. Go and watch an artist making art – the tactile experience of hands on the clay (perhaps not unlike the tactile experience of touching grass). Watch the potter working on a vessel that got messed up, and doesn’t look right, and then start anew, making something unique and beautiful.”

This text is so loved for its imagery of God’s hands always being on us, molding and shaping our lives, and how God can take a messed up vessel like we sometimes become, and reshape us into something new, useful and beautiful. Part of what makes this text so powerful is God asking Jeremiah to step away from the places that he has typical gone to try to hear and understand God’s Word. Stepping outside and walking over to a new place, an unexpected place, and simply watching an artist in action suggests to us the value in doing just that. Going outside. Going for a walk. And staring at the hands-on experience of one who is reworking a lump of clay into something new. Have you ever watched someone throwing pottery on a wheel? It’s hypnotizing – how the slightest touch causes a change. It’s beautiful to watch the slow and gentle process of clay being guided and transformed into something incredible.

In our world of screens and access to endless information, sometimes I wonder if we have become so fixated on being right about something we think is true that we have started to value proving we are right about what we think over the simple act of human connection. We’ve fought and argued and canceled each other, and it’s making us angrier, and ultimately less happy and more alone. Just like Jeremiah searching for God in the wrong places, some of us have made gods out of our screens. Some of us have made gods out of our devices and favorite television programs without realizing that those screens and programs are rooted in algorithms and curated content that is intended to continually reaffirm what we already think and make us feel good without ever challenging us to think differently. So if all the content we consume is telling us what we think is right, of course we are going to become angrier when someone thinks differently.

So, we need a change of scenery. We need to step away and hit reset. We need to go outside for a walk, breathe, touch some grass, and perhaps take in an artist at work creating something beautiful if we actually want to hear from God. Because God isn’t in the results in a google search. God can’t be captured in ChatGPT or Gronk or any other AI platform. And God’s words are definitely not hanging out in the comments on Facebook.

So let’s follow the example of Jeremiah and the wisdom of Gen Z. (Sometimes young people do say some profoundly wise things!) Let’s go outside. Let’s take a walk. Let’s rub our hand across the blades of grass, remembering the simple wonder of existence as a creation of God. Let’s take in nature and watch an artist in action making something new and beautiful. These experiences just might help to make all of us a little less angry, and might open us up to hearing and understanding God a little better.

So go down to the potter’s house. Go touch grass. Go on a screen fast. Go lie flat on the floor and breathe. Go do some version of hitting your reset button. Go and listen for the words and the experience of being with God.

And all of God’s children who could said, Amen.