A Screaming Place

By Cec Murphey

I wish places of worship would provide a screaming room.

Most of the time, I like going to worship services. My reasons include feeling a sense of the divine presence, connecting with other believers, and learning more about God and about myself.

Most of the sermons and Sunday school lessons encourage me and remind me of God’s faithful and everlasting love. They’re aimed to uplift me and that’s awfully good and extremely comforting.

But I wish places of worship would provide a screaming room. Sometimes I need a place to scream at life and yell at its unfairness. It has to be a private place where I can roar at the top of my lungs, “I hate this!” “Life is a garbage pit!”

But our place of worship can’t provide screaming rooms. After all, we’re the good people, the religious people, those who meekly accept life as it comes and start every week with praise on our lips and joy in our hearts. Sometimes that truly is the way I feel. But now and then . . .

Because I didn’t know how to find such a place among the spiritually minded people, I found my private screaming place.

These days, I don’t go there often, but in the past, I visited about once a week. My screaming place was inside my Honda Accord and I used it ten years. I got inside my car, rolled up the windows, and drove down the street. I yelled. I bellowed. They were the loudest sounds I could make. A few times I shook my fist. I honestly didn’t care if other drivers looked at me. If they did, they probably assumed I was mouthing the words of a CD.

Usually it took only three or four minutes to finish my emotional outburst. Sometimes I verbalized my anger at the injustices in my life. One time I yelled at God for failing me. (I had to believe in God in order to get mad and confront the Creator.) Most of the time, I let out what some have called the primal scream—a total release of tension and emotion. Each time, I felt better.

I still go to my screaming place. Three or four yells at the loudest decibel I can reach seems enough. After I’ve done that I can sit among the good, righteous people again.

Until now, I haven’t talked about my screaming place. But I finally decided there might be one of two people like me who need the liberation I discovered.

Yes, I wish places of worship would provide a screaming room.