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The Feel of Shame

October 25, 2010 in AGAPE, Christian Life with 7 Comments

I’m convinced that shame is more than a feeling. I think it has shape and density to it. I’m certain I’ve felt it. But I’m inclined to think that the form and density that can be felt isn’t necessarily from the inborn kind that we might possess when we’ve done something we know we shouldn’t have and regret it. It’s best felt when someone around you is ashamed, when it’s not your shame but theirs. Your personal disconnect from it makes it seemingly visible. It’s like that thick fog on a humid morning. You see it. You feel its presence, despite your inability to gather it into your hand.

Shame is resultant of failed action, no action, or regrettable action, and it wears on us like the weight of the world. I’ve experienced it and I know a lot of others who have too. So it pains me to see others shackled by shame.

Last week, I felt it for another. She couldn’t look me in the eyes. She was too afraid to, and I hated that that was how she felt. I also hated that I could so easily see and feel what she was carrying.

I’m certain many of you can empathize with that to which I refer. It may be that you are the one ashamed, or you are the one of whom one is ashamed.

What are we to do? Let go. Make it right. Say I’m sorry. Or, simply let go so that one who is encumbered by shame can do the same.

The story of the Prodigal Son (I hate that that is the title so often given to the parable. After all, it’s not about the son who squandered his father’s inheritance, at all. It’s actually about the elder son. But that’s a totally different subject.) reflects the Father’s attitude about his children. When the father welcomed the prodigal home, he sought not to shame him at all. Seriously. Read it for yourself. No guilt trip. No…”You idiot! What were you thinking?!?” He throws a party of epic proportions. He kills the fatted calf, while never asking for an explanation. That is God!

But is that you? Is that me? Are we people who seek to alleviate the toils of shame born by others, or are we the kind of people who feel it incumbent upon ourselves to pile it on? Think hard before you answer. A lot hinges on it.

I want to be the kind of person who eases pain and shame from others, even when I feel like I’ve been wronged. This is because I’ve felt my own shame, but I’ve also felt the shame that others bear. And I don’t like it.

AGAPE

July 22, 2010 in AGAPE with 6 Comments

A simple conversation one evening generated something that still leaves me in awe. It was the evening before Thanksgiving 2009. Family had gathered at my sister’s house in Beeville, TX. Someone, I think it was my niece, Courtney, asked a question about love. Not the generic, common love that pervades the world. Not the kind of love expressed on a wedding day that shed after the honeymoon. She was inquiring about something deeper, something more profound, something enduring.

Now I’m no expert on this subject.  I wasn’t taught this when I was younger. Principles were later taught to me, but rarely, if ever, had I seen then born out in life. Love was something of a mystery, maybe, something more akin to what could be found in a Utopian world. But here? Not so much.

I’m fairly convinced that I didn’t come to understand love until I came to understand God. After all, God is love (1 John 4:8). I’m certain he’s the one who’s taught me most about it. He’s the one who’s shown it most definitively.

My own love is shallow and self-centered. My own love has limits. Cross me and most people have found it out. I think that’s why I evaded the subject for so long. But when God is convinced you are ready, he will bring you to your knees to show you that your love isn’t good enough, but His love is.

So back to Thanksgiving 2009… I addressed the question very delicately. My family knows altogether too well my shortcomings. My wife knows altogether too well my failings. So I wasn’t about to bust in there like someone who had the market on this subject, but I gingerly began to express what I’d come to know about AGAPE. AGAPE is Greek for the highest form of love there is.

Our English word love is so general. The Greeks, though, they divided up their concepts of love into various forms. AGAPE, without question, is the strongest form. It is the love that would cause God to take human form and offer himself a ransom for all (John 3:16). AGAPE is other-oriented. AGAPE isn’t about what I can get, its about what I can give.

I also elaborated on the other forms of love, but they weren’t the focus. They were simply incidental so as to set apart AGAPE. Now, though, when I mention “AGAPE” or when my wife and/or sisters utter the word, we all begin to think the same thing. My sister, Jennie, seems to drop it wherever she goes. It’s become a code word for us. No, it’s become even more than that. It is as if God wants us to see that he’s placed it in places we’ve forgotten about, and then wants us to leave it behind wherever we go.

AGAPE gives me chills. It, at times, warms. But it always creates fascination.

More to come later. In fact, I’ll share with you what happened on Thanksgiving Day of 2009 that changed the course of everything that holiday!