Mockers stir up a city, but wise men turn away anger (Proverbs 29:8).

Have you ever played with one of those high-density rubber bouncy balls?  A lot of times you can find them in vending machines, advertised as "Super-Balls."  Sometimes, they're bright neon colors; sometimes they have swirly patterns over the surface of the ball.  They're usually about the size of a ping-pong ball -- though I've also seen large ones that are closer to the size of a racquetball.  Do you know what I'm talking about?  Have you ever played with one of them?

Bouncy balls are a lot of fun.  When I was a little kid, my brother and my friends and I would invent games featuring the bouncy ball -- trying to spin it, skip it, and shoot it down a hallway and past the waiting defenses of one's opponent.  Or we'd try to slam it as hard as we could against the basement floor, to see how many times it would ricochet between the floor and the ceiling before it came to rest.  Or we'd sling it randomly in our bedroom, pretending like we were cowboys in a wild west saloon shoot-out, dodging bullets caroming here and there and everywhere -- surviving only by luck or great skill.  Give a boy a bouncy ball and a room void of breakable valuables, and he is entertained for hours.

So here's one of the things that I've learned about the bouncy ball, in all my time of occupying myself with such pursuits:  bouncy balls have a lot of potential energy, but only insofar as they are put into contact with hard surfaces.  A bouncy ball works much better on a concrete basement floor than on a carpeted living room floor.  As long as a bouncy ball keeps hitting hard surfaces, it can go back and forth for surprisingly long periods of time -- but if the ball hits a bedspread, or a curtain, or a fold of one's T-shirt, the energy is absorbed and the shoot-out is over.  The ball is deadened and diminished by the softer surfaces.  But as long as the bouncy ball continues to crash into hard surfaces (and have energy added to it by eager little boys), it continues.  The receiving surface really makes all the difference.

In a lot of ways, anger resembles a bouncy ball.

Anger can be very intense, with a lot of potential energy -- and as long as its thrown onto hard surfaces (i.e. people who have not learned constructive ways to deal with angry emotions and conflict situations), it is perpetuated and sometimes even intensified.  But if it's thrown onto a soft person (i.e. a patient person with a listening ear, a wise person who knows how to deflect or diffuse the energy of the anger), it dies out.

It seems to me that a person's character is often proved by his or her response to anger, criticism, and arguments.  Naturally, conflict brings out the worst in all of us -- so it would probably be too dramatic of a statement to say that anyone who responds poorly is automatically a fool or a "mocker" -- but in general, it seems significant to note what comes out of a person in a difficult situation.  If the conflict is further stirred up and intensified over time, then it might be that the mockers have the upper hand.  But if the conflict is eventually absorbed and dealt with in a healthy way, then it would seem that wise men (and/or women) are at work.  Like the Proverb says, "Mockers stir up a city, but wise men turn away anger."  And as much as possible, we should strive to be wise in these situations.

Bouncy balls are fun when they're dinging around the room like crazy -- but anger is not.