What should Christians think about shame?

A friend of mine told me a story recently that sparked my curiosity about shame from a Christian perspective. When recounting a misdeed on the part of her spouse (this was a repeat offense), my friend's mother said, "Have you tried shame?" This comes from a deeply rooted religious perspective that says something like this, "If you love God, you SHOULD feel ashamed of how you behave. After all - didn't poor Jesus die for your sins? STOP SINNING!"

Shame is an "intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love, belonging and connection" according to Brene Brown in her book, Atlas of the Heart (p.137). Most of us know this feeling, and boy is it uncomfortable. I wonder where you feel shame? For me it feels as if my body is hot with it; my stomach tightens because of it; my head bows; my heart sinks deeper into my chest cavity. My body is well-attenuated to feelings of shame. I've had a lot of practice.

Let me be clear: shame is unhelpful. It thrives in isolation and discourages us from the pursuit of belonging. It is as Brene Brown says, "an egocentric, self-involved emotion." Shame focuses more on how others are judging us than it does with concerning itself with how our actions are impacting others. Maybe you'd agree with me that shame is not nearly as useful as guilt - which allows us to feel, acknowledge and make amends for our wrongdoing. But what's your take on people who we experience as "shameless"?

What about the narcissistic, arrogant, grandiose-thinkers of the world? Is their apparent lack of shame some sort of indicator that we should not discard shame altogether? I mean, what would happen if we eradicate shame altogether? Does shame somehow provide some sort of invisible barrier to bad behaving? Again, I turn to Brown. Her research indicates that shame is the actual CAUSE of shameless-looking behaviors. She believes that narcissism is best defined as "the shame-based fear of being ordinary" (p.140). Hear that again: narcissism is "the shame-based fear of being ordinary". Whether someone is looking and talking like they are filled to the brim with shame or giving off an air of overinflated ego, no one needs more shame.

Setting all the research aside, I return to the scriptures for further guidance. In particular, I look to Psalm 51, The Message Translation. This is where I find my way to a deeper clarity about God and my inadequacies.

"Generous in love—God, give grace!   Huge in mercy—wipe out my bad record. Scrub away my guilt, soak out my sins in your laundry. I know how bad I’ve been; my sins are staring me down." Psalm 51:1-3 The Message

In these early verses I find comforting assurance that the writer of this psalm understands wrongdoing without requiring a side-order of shame. He is other-focused, attending to God and his attributes as much as his own wrongdoing. The writer admits that he is suffering as a result of his own inadequacy. As the psalm progresses, it becomes obvious that this human is having an experience with a God he knows will judge him fairly. He trusts that God is who he says he is and because of that...there is hope that he can come back from this sin and build a new life. If you grab your bible and read the whole psalm it sets the tone that I believe captures the heart of what it means to wrestle with our faith and our frailty simultaneously.

If my friend's mom wants to be helpful during this crisis, shame is not the way to accomplish it. Instead of shame, we could try talking to someone about our feelings. Maybe guilt is more appropriate and a proper amends needs to be made. Perhaps shame is what we're feeling and we need an antidote - building resilience, practicing belonging, avoiding isolation and secrecy. Shame needs tending to more than we need shame to whip us into shape. I hope today provides you whatever you need to know that you are an inadequate (nothing depends entirely on you to fix it) and beloved human.

What should Christians think about kindness?

You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm."

~ Unknown

In our community we are beginning a new series loosely titled, "What should Christians think about ____?" Lately, I've been wondering if all Christians are required to be kind. I even looked up the meaning of kindness: it means to be generous, helpful and think of other people's feelings. OF COURSE Christians SHOULD be kind. But I'm still left wondering....are all Christians kind all the time under all conditions? I mean, let me get real: am I kind?

Once, when my kids were little, a person we know had a serious problem that made it hard for them to show up for their responsibilities as a parent and our family pitched in and helped. Actually, this happened four times now that I'm thinking about it...and I called it kindness. I'm not sure my children did. There were consequences for all this help and support. Upon lots of reflection and feedback from my kids-turned-adults, what seemed like kindness at the time may have in fact been described (most kindly) as boundary-challenged.

Maybe the problem was that I thought that Christians were supposed to be kind (generous, helpful and other-focused) without considering what else Christians should be about: discerning, wise and creative. I thought kindness looked like the Good Samaritan or Jesus dying on the cross. By my old definition of kindness, I was required to be like the Good Samaritan - a person who does acts of sacrificial goodwill that other people have for whatever reason chosen not to do. Think about it. That leaves me thinking I have to pick up the slack for the whole wide world. And let's talk about Jesus for a minute, starting with the obvious: I AM NOT JESUS, NEVER WAS, NEVER WILL BE. Furthermore, Jesus was a sacrificial, suffering, Son of God - but he chose when he sacrificed. He also got called on the carpet for being too slow to save Lazarus from dying - making his work doubly hard (assuming raising the dead is more challenging than simply healing the disease). Jesus went off to solitary places to pray and even took naps during storms and the disciples gave him a stern talking to about those decisions.

Kindness is worth considering as a SHOULD statement. I thought "good" Christians sacrifice and suffer - like Jesus. And I guess for my personality, I figured it would mean that it would make me kind - because I am not particularly a kind or warm person. I'm more spice than sweet. I'm like chips and salsa not a gooey warm brownie with ice cream on top. So, for whatever reason, I thought that to be a good Christian, I was somehow going to have to be turned into this shy, sweet and oh so kind human.

Today, I consider this a form of spiritual manipulation....maybe even abuse.

I want to be so clear about this - Jesus was a suffering servant, but He lived out this truth from a place of choice - not because He was shamed into it. And we can live out, are called to live out, our lives from a place of freedom too. I want you to know something: being yourself even if it does not fit Christian stereotypes does not make you a bad Christian. We are created to be our own selves. What distinguishes us is not our personality and stereotypes about who is a good Christian - what makes us Christians is OUR DIFFERENT WAY OF SEEING THE WORLD. And with that worldview, the last shall be first, the meek (humble not humiliated) shall inherit the earth, and whatnot... does indeed impact how we express our personhood.

I may be spicy but I work hard to not be mean or cruel. It is true that as a connected community, people do need to be kind - but no one needs to bear the burden of kindness 24/7. It's ok to have a grumpy day, or a tired day, or a withdrawn day, or a needy day. God is not looking for well-behaved supplicants; if that were the case humanity would be extinct. He's asking us, I think, to be the lookers - the ones who seek - the ones who pay attention to who he is and what he's about, and then be, and do, likewise within the limits of our own humanity. So yes, it is nice to be kind. But it is not kind to expect ourselves and others to be kind at the expense of the other characteristics that make us Christian. In hindsight, I wish I had used more discernment and creativity over the course of my life - allowing myself the freedom to say no, or creatively seek other forms of help for those who ask for it when the ask is too big for one frail human to handle. Maybe we figure out where the sweet spot is for kindness - both kind to ourselves and others. So here's a little blessing for you: May you be kind. Kind to yourself. Kind to your kin. Kind wherever you have the bandwidth to do so today. May we all remember we are NOT Jesus and even Jesus took naps (in case we cannot get over our Messiah complex).

How do you know if you’ve been “saved”?

What do you think of when you hear the term salvation?

I hope you think of a lot of things, but I'm afraid you might think of just one.

In America we've done a sloppy job when it comes to the Gospel. Someone somewhere decided it would be a good idea if the Gospel had its own elevator pitch. What's the quickest, most compelling version of this story? I suspect someone somewhere asked that question.

The American Gospel invented the marketing formula "problem -> agitation -> solution." You probably get it, but in short, that means, you name a problem ("all have sinned"), you make people feel like they have (or are) the problem to an extent that they become uncomfortable ("and fallen short" think of: original sin) and then present them with a solution so that they can relax and let out a deep breath (this one is a little more complicated but, basically: repent and be saved so you can go to heaven when you die).

Scripture is a complex series of documents written by many people (inspired by God) over a long period of time. It's not a dictionary of terms. You can't just look up the definition for salvation, or mercy, or forgiveness. You have to spend time sifting through all the ways these things are portrayed over time, across cultures, and people groups, and so on and so on. It's boring work. Elevator pitches are easier.

The good news is almost any boring work you can think of someone has already done. So I recommend you check out Joel Green's book, Salvation, if you want to get into some details. In the meantime, I want to say a few things about this "big word."

Salvation in scripture appears in a number of contexts. Salvation is being healed from an illness. Salvation is rescued from slavery. Salvation is the ability to plant roots after years of wandering in a desert- so it's having a home, a reliable source of food, etc. Salvation is being included into God's people. Salvation is when a community prevents you from feeling the effects of poverty. Salvation is the joy of knowing God. Salvation is being given a purpose. Salvation is, as well, having a place in the new creation that God is in the process of forming (i.e., going to heaven when you die).

Salvation is used in all three tenses: past, present, and future. Christ's death and resurrection made it possible for all people to come to God (past). Life in God's community means we experience some (if not many) of the gifts of the new creation right now (present). The promise of life in the new creation where there will be no suffering and no tears is, of course, the future.

What have you been saved from?

I suspect there is an unlimited number of answers to that question just as I suspect there's an unlimited number of ways in which we might think about salvation. I also suspect that there are things we deeply long to be saved from and haven't yet experienced that. One of the greatest challenges we face as people of faith is disappointment which, for whatever reason, we often assume we shouldn't feel or that God doesn't want us to feel, or whatever. We think, perhaps, that because we're saved we shouldn't complain and just be grateful and so on and so on.

The reality is salvation, like everything else in scripture, is complicated. We can both be grateful for what we have even as we wait and hope for the time when suffering will be no more. We are stuck somewhere in between what God has done and what God has promised to do. His work is not yet complete...and that isn't easy to live with.

Maybe part of how we deal with the complex nature of salvation is to periodically remind ourselves of the ways in which we have experienced it. Healing from illnesses, the support of a community, examples of forgiveness, grace, or mercy, the purpose that comes from living a life that points to God, and so on.

So, I'll put it to you, what do you tend to find most encouraging when you are discouraged by having to "wait" for God to finish His work?

The Power of Joy

I've birthed three babies, been in a head on car collision, endured numerous minor surgeries (as defined by everyone who did NOT endure them), lost my mother in a completely traumatic experience that shattered my heart, lost my brother in an especially sad manner, and lived with multi-generational familial alienation BUT none of that discomfort prepared me for the 12 weeks I endured trying to rid my body of cancer and the accompanying complications that resulted during a pandemic.

During that time of enforced stillness, my mind was not able to distract my body from its work. Reading, writing, puzzling, visiting, being with my family - all of it was extremely challenging. I could not concentrate. I could not think. It was hard to even feel. Mostly, I waited for the verdict. What would be the outcome of this very personal series of cascading events?

An acquaintance sent me a small card with a smaller poem tucked inside. I appreciated small during that season. Here is the poem:

come celebrate

with me that everyday

something has tried to kill me

and has failed.

~ Lucille Clifton

Few poets have written so convincingly of celebration. Lucille Clifton was an accomplished poet and educator. She was Poet Laureate for the state of Maryland from 1979-1985 and two times she was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Her work emphasized endurance and strength but I tend to think that the reason so many of us appreciate her work is that she does not hide the truth: endurance and strength are the happy accidents of surviving suffering. I don't know how she does it, but she manages to include joy in her poems, even as they speak against silence and hatred. I love how she does not demand that we "don't worry, be happy" - although that is indeed a great song and I love to dance to it. As I recover, I have found it hard to value happiness because my body cannot hold it. Happiness is energizing, sizzling sparkles on the 4th of July.

What I have needed most is what Clifton offers me through her work - joy.

Willie James Jennings, a scholar and theologian wrong about joy when he said, "I look at joy as an act of resistance against despair and its forces."

I also found wisdom in Cole Arthur Riley's book - This Here Flesh - when she wrote of joy. Here's what she had to say.

There's a moment in the Bible when the temple of God, which was destroyed ruing the exile, is being rebuilt. The Israelites lay the foundations, and a lot of the people begin shouting for joy. But many of the elders, those who had know the former temple, wept. They remembered what was. Ezra says, "No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far way."

~ Ezra 3:13 NIV p. 169

Joy is peaceful. Joy does not require me to jump up and down on my stitched up leg. Joy resists despair. For me, joy reminds me that my body is indeed more fragile than I'd like to admit AND it is still operational, if not fully functioning. Joy reminds me that my grandchildren do not require me to be happy so long as we can be close. They do not require me to look good, although they love it when I can pick them up. Those two little ones have been my biggest cheerleaders. They ask to see my wound. They peer intently at it and declare it, "Better!" They do not need me to be well or sick; strong or weak. They just want me to BE. This is joy. It is big enough for weeping and laughing. In joy, we can be happy AND sad.

I like happy, I really do! But I am grateful, oh so grateful for joy. May your day be joyful!

Imitation is the sincerest form of growth

Every day when Norah gets home from school she wants to play a game called…school. Each family member gets a role. Norah is one of the teachers, she tells Brittany to play the other. I’m supposed to be the director of the school so I sit in the “office” and step in to handle any behavior problems among the children (the children are Norah’s stuffed animals). Frequently I’m tasked with putting a stuffed dinosaur in time out and instructing him in how to use “gentle hands.”

Why am I telling you this? Just sit tight. It will all become clear.

Kids imitate what they know. I’m sure there are fancy explanations for this. I don’t think the explanation is all that important- the point is that it is quite intuitive to learn to understand our world through exploring what we see day in and day out.

When Norah plays the role of one of her teachers she is stern (but still caring). When she plays the role of the other teacher, she is quiet and gentle. She picks up on these nuances of personality and acts accordingly. She imitates. And she doesn’t even know that she’s doing it.

She doesn’t know she’s doing it because it is so intuitive. She’s been doing it since she was a baby. We’ve all been doing it since we were babies. We imitate words, gestures, the motion of walking, running, swimming. Shooting a basketball, throwing, drawing, writing, and so on. Norah imitates the sound of her parents’ yelling. Which we do. And, when we play “night night,” she also imitates the back rub I give her every night as I tuck her in (thankfully there’s at least one good thing she can imitate).

As we get older imitate ideas and values. First, those of our parents. Then, those of our other teachers. We imitate the behaviors of our friends. This isn’t because we have defective personalities it’s simply because humans are social and look to others for cues.

As it turns out, this is also, roughly, the instruction we’re given on how to learn how to live as faithful people. We are to imitate Christ (the version below uses “adopt the attitude” instead of “imitate”). When you read the following verses…what specifically do you think we’re called to imitate?

Adopt the attitude that was in Christ Jesus: Though he was in the form of God, he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit. But he emptied himself by taking the form of a slave and by becoming like human beings. When he found himself in the form of a human, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God highly honored him and gave him a name above all names, so that at the name of Jesus everyone in heaven, on earth, and under the earth might bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Therefore, my loved ones, just as you always obey me, not just when I am present but now even more while I am away, carry out your own salvation with fear and trembling. God is the one who enables you both to want and to actually live out his good purposes.

~ 2 Philippians 2:5-13, CEB

The idea that we would imitate Christ isn’t such a shocking thing. We do this in community, and this is the process of being re-parented or re-shaped, re-formed, or some such word like that. We learn to take cues both from who we imagine Jesus to be from reading scripture as well as the people around us who share that value, that way of seeing.

There’s a few traits mentioned here specifically for us to imitate. Humility, service, sacrifice. A willingness to prioritize others over ourselves. The list is probably longer, maybe even long enough that we won’t be able to focus on all of them. And ultimately it’s up to you which ones you focus on. Whatever the case may be, the guidepost is Christ’s life- a life that perfectly embodied the values of God, lived in the flesh.

And so, in closing, I’ll ask you: What’s one trait of Jesus’ that you think you’d like to imitate in your life?