Making More Room For Grace

I finished, "Shame & Grace: Healing the Shame We Don't Deserve" by Lewis Smedes. Since I haven't been writing about the book chapter by chapter I'll just try to highlight what I've learned about Grace with some of the highlights, including checklists that he gives, and of course, including application to my own struggles.

Lewis Smedes dedicates two sections to this massive subject of Grace, starting with the beginning stages of "beginning our healing." He critiques the "conventional responses" that are typically proffered to people like me who struggle with the way we think about ourselves (p. 105):

1. Lowering our ideals to the level of our abilities to meet them.
2. Making ourselves acceptable enough to satisfy the ideals we already have.
3. Persuading ourselves that we are just fine the way we are.

He critiques these statements because in his view they "don't go deep enough". The reason for this is that these statements tend to cause us to run away from our ideals or settle for something less than what we could be like some sort of self-denial. There is more which I will leave to you, the reader to find, in the book.

One of the most important points in this book is that "the experience of being accepted is the beginning of healing for the feeling of being unacceptable" (p. 107).
Herein lies one of the revelations to my tendency to think that people will abandon me if I make one mistake or do one thing wrong. I see a whole lot of this in my life from my relationship with Sinae to colleagues that I work with where there is an expectation that if people have any sense at all, they will leave me alone and not want to have anything to do with me. That seems to be the reality I have grown up in, somehow.

The next chapter is called, "With Our Shadows." Here is where Smedes reminds the reader that not all shame is bad shame and continues to underscore the motif of acceptance, talking about how God "accepts us totally as the spiritual stew we are" (p. 117). Furthermore, Grace takes care of the thing shame fears the most: rejection.

And he closes with two lessons:
1. A person will never come to the point of no longer needing grace.
2. A person will never become so poor in spirit that there is no place at the table called Grace (p. 118).

The next chapter is, "Singing 'Amazing Grace' Without Feeling Like a Wretch". Smedes points out that grace can come graciously or ungraciously. When it arrives in the former it heals and when it arrives in the latter it shames (p. 119). Perhaps the most important lesson Smedes teaches us is the difference between deserving something (merit) and worthiness (being) where he seems to parallel this difference with Shame and Grace. If we think that we deserve grace, then there is reason to think we have done something to deserve it which means that we could also do something not to deserve grace. But if we are worthy of grace that means that at the core of our being lies something valuable enough that Grace can redeem us. Smedes offers the story of The Prodigal Son as an application of this lesson where the lost son doesn't "deserve" to be called the father's son but he is worthy of being called the father's son because in fact the boy is the father's son. The interesting thing about Smedes' interpretation is that he refers to the son's worldly action as his false self and the worthiness to be the father's son as his true self.

As far as the chapter title is concerned, puts it well when he says, "I feel a worth inside of me that tells me I am a better person than the wretch whom only grace could save" (p. 123).

The sixteenth chapter is called, "Places to Find Traces of Grace". Smedes points out here that there is a difference between friendly people and genuine friends. This reminded me of my life in Korea where I know a lot of people I could have lunch with but I am not sure how many of those people I could actually tell my darkest secrets to without them running away. Smedes gives me good advice when he says, "If you wonder where God's grace can be found, find yourself a critical friend" (p. 126). This is no news to me, though I have underlined "...find yourself a critical friend."

This chapter helped me to see past all of the shameful moments in my childhood, to look to the good times in my childhood, in spite of all the painful memories. The person who came to mind the most was my mom who exemplifies the epitome of unconditional love who has been the constant in the face of a lot of changing circumstances.

The seventeenth chapter is called, "Coming to Terms with Our Shamers." Smedes gives some sound advice on working through this process of ridding ourselves of shame, which he makes clear is not a matter to take place overnight. He even speaks to the dilemma of forgiving and forgetting where he warns against the latter. "If we think we have forgotten, we have probably only stuffed the memory beneath our consciousness to fester there as the poisonous source of assorted other pains" (p. 136).

Prior to his checklist, he reminds me that (1) Forgiving is difficult, (2) The first and often only person healed by forgiveness is me, the one doing the forgiving and (3) I need to understand what I do when I really forgive someone (p. 136).

Here's the list:

1. Blame the shamer.
2. Surrender my right to get even.
3. Revise my caricature of the person who shamed me: "...as we move with the forgiving flow, we gradually change our monster back into the weak and faulty human being he is (or was), not all that different from ourselves" (ibid.).
4. Revise my feelings.
5. Accept the person who made me feel unacceptable.

That was the list for forgiveness as a personal drama. Now here is some advice Smedes gives to people like me, which may be applicable to others reading this blog.

1. Try understanding first.
2. Separate what I can put up with from what I need to forgive.
3. Don't be hasty.
4. Don't wait too long.
5. Be concrete: Forgive people for what they do, not for who they are.
6. Don't wait for my shamer to repent: "...in the worst of ironies, we give the person who shamed us the power to prevent us from healing the very shame he caused" (p. 139).
7. Do not forgive out of a sense of duty.
8. Begin by pretending if you need to.
9. Settle for silent forgiving if I must.

On the last one, I think of one of my relatives, whom I've been out of touch with by his choice and I have been contemplating contacting him again. But I think that Smedes' advice is good to me to wait for a more opportune moment to talk to him about our broken relationship and now doesn't seem to be that time.

Smedes once again closes with a profound thought that is stating the obvious that isn't so obvious to me: "When we genuinely forgive, we set a prisoner free and then discover that the prisoner we set free was us" (141).

The next chapter is called, "Accepting Ourselves." To underscore the importance of this, Smedes says that, "To experience acceptance is the beginning of our healing; to accept ourselves is a signal that we are getting healthy" (144).

Here again, it will probably suffice to list what Smedes suggests about accepting ourselves with a recommendation to the reader of this blog to follow up by reading the book or commenting on this blog.

1. First we need to see that accepting ourselves is not the same as forgiving ourselves: The difference between these is the same as that of guilt and shame, the former being for things we do and the latter for recognizing who we are.

2. We own our raw material: Here again, this is worth commenting on because I tend to complain to myself and the rest of the world that my family and I are not perfect and Smedes gently reminds me to accept my life and my circumstances for what they are and to move on with my life.

3. We acknowledge our depths: Smedes talks here about how Grace can be a means for mean to own up to my "own darksome" (p. 147). Examples he gives of such darkness are, "...a desire to strangle your father, a dark wish that one's mother-in-law would die, an urge to knock the boss's block off, a yen for forbidden sexual adventure, a longing to run away from the people we feel responsible for, or a yearning to die" (pp. 147-8). The important thing here is for me to be honest with myself about my true feelings.

4. We own our pride. Smedes point here is that there is a sense in which a shame-prone person, or any person for that matter, can feel a healthy sense of pride which is very different from the pride that the Bible speaks of leading a person to sin.

Smedes makes his objective clear in this chapter when he says, "...only that as we gain the freedom to accept ourselves, we can be reasonably sure that we are healed of shame" (p. 151).

The second to last chapter in this book is called, "Living life lightly." The point of this chapter is clear, that with a loss of shame one can live a lighter life. This is applicable to me in that if I can have a greater sense of my own acceptability that I can be more generous in the ways I think about other people without judging them so quickly through the shame-driven lens that I judge myself by.
Smedes divides this chapter into three sections, talking about "Living lightly with our unhealthy shame", "living lightly with our healthy shame", "living lightly with our true selves", "living lightly with our imperfection", and "living lightly with our critics". A good principle to follow is found in Smedes example of when he made a decision to change his job so that he could address his writing projects to people outside of academia and his colleagues thought he was making a mistake. "What you think of what I am doing matters some to me. But not much. I will not be shamed by your criticism" (p. 157).

The logical conclusion of the previous chapter is "The return of joy", the name of the final chapter of Smedes' book. According to Smedes, "...the feeling called joy is the ultimate alternative to the feeling of shame" (p. 159). Smedes gives six myths about joy that seem appropriate to repeat here for the reader's enjoyment and to remind me of the difference between myth and fact.

1. Myth: If you want joy, you have to earn it.
Fact: If you have to earn joy, you will never get it.

2. Myth: When the chips are down, we get what we pay for.
Fact: When the chips are down, we get what we cannot pay for.

3. Myth: For joy to come, something unusual needs to happen.
Fact: The most unusual things happen in the usual things that usually happen.

4. Myth: Virtue is its own reward.
Fact: Only joy is its own reward.

5. Myth: If something is wrong, it is my job to fix it.
Fact: Only God has the whole world in his hands.

6. Myth: We feel joy when our world is working right.
Fact: Our world never works right.

In the "Postscript: A Faith for the Lighter Life" Smedes offers a creed for people like me who are shame-bound.

I believe that the only self I need to measure up to is the self my Maker meant me to be.

I believe that I am accepted by the grace of God without regard to my deserving.

I believe that I am accepted along with my shadows and the mix of good and bad I breed in them.

I believe that I am worthy to be accepted.

I believe that grace has set me free to accept myself totally, and without conditions, though I do not approve of everything I accept.

I believe that nothing I deserve to be ashamed of will ever make me unacceptable to God.

I believe that I can forgive anyone who has ever infected me with shame I do not deserve.

I believe that I may forgive myself for anything that I have ever done to shame myself or another person.

I am gratefully proud of being who I am and what I shall be.

I believe that the grace of God heals the shame I do not deserve and heals the shame I do.

I believe that grace is the best thing in the world (pp. 167-8).

I'm not there yet, but I think if I post these on my bathroom mirror they will be a reminder to me of the mission I out to receive, a call to rid myself of the shame that keeps me from being what God created me to be.

Ashamed of Being Ashamed

It seems that after spending a few chapters facing the reality of my own shame I have met a turning point in Shame & Grace and that I am being challenged to do something about my shame instead of allowing whatever or whomever has caused this shame to exist. This is starting to make even more sense, that I am ashamed of the fact that I feel as much shame as I feel. The first sentence that ultimate holds me accountable is where Lewis Smedes says, "But we are, I believe, responsible for what we do with what other people did to us" (p. 83). Furthermore, he points out that "we suffer" as we do "because we deceive ourselves." It is because of the "plausible reasons" as wrong as they may be that we continue to feed ourselves this lie that we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. Dr. Smedes tells two stories that I think our telling of the devastation of the shame and how it hurts not only ourselves but those we are the closest to.

The first is about a minister who proudly preaches Total Depravity and applies it equally to himself. But when his wife tells him something very minor, such as, "You forgot to take out the trash" he flies off the handle and assumes that she is accusing him of failing as a husband when she is merely reminding him to do something he forgot. As one who is totally depraved, as he believes, does this type of response to rational?

The second story is of a university student who does well his first semester and then he nearly failed the next four semesters, after which he transferred to another university and continued down this path, transferring again and again to other universities. Why does he do this? His parents convinced him that they would approve of him only if he succeeded. But "the trap they set for him was: you are not worthy to succeed" (p. 88).

I wasn't ever a great student but I remember when I was struggling at the first college I went to after Bible School and the J-Term (January Term) class that I wound up getting a D in. It was during that time that I really got hooked on chatting and wound up spending more time chatting than I did reading the books required for that course. I also toyed with the idea of transferring to another university which I did the following year for much better reasons than, "I just can't find friends here."

Today I received e-mail from a student I worked with while I was in St. Louis. "Worked with" means I picked her up at her house and brought her to church. We had deeper conversations than I could have with anybody else in the youth group (even though I was an adult and she was in Middle School or Junior High). I received e-mail from her saying she is an Atheist now. I don't usually respond the way I did in my thinking about someone being an Atheist but when I read that I suddenly felt like I was to blame for her loss of faith. After all, I left at a time when she really needed someone who would encourage her as the dark forces of the inner city were fighting for her soul, so to speak.

This whole context reminds me of all the times I have moved around since I graduated from high school. Some of it was legitimate, like going from Wyoming to Boston, and partially legitimate in going from Boston to Idaho. And I'm sure good has come out of all of the moves after that but I wonder if I am the man who left after "first semester," after the excitement had warn off and my proneness to failure seemed more imminent, that I moved to another place.

When I first came to Korea, I felt like a movie star because I thought everybody wanted to be my friend. Later I found out that some of those people wanted to be my friends and some of them mostly just wanted to learn English. I also found it exciting to have lunch with students and to spend as much time with students as possible during English Camp. I felt more accepted during that time. Then when English Camp was over I felt depressed because I was no longer Mr. Popular.

I see this as I think about my vision to help "the poor" and I wonder how much of it is for the sake of the marginalized and how much of it is for my sake. I think Lewis Smedes addresses this in another chapter that I previously read.

So I guess that means I won't be making any sudden moves to any other countries, including America or Vietnam. I hope that someday I can live in another place but I don't want to do it for my own sake. I think I'll just start where I am, grieve whatever losses, real or imagined, may have occurred, and start where I am, being grateful for the people in my life now, especially the woman who accepts me for who I am, every quality, wart, wrinkle and flaw.

Cast Your Burdens Onto Jesus For His People Bring Shame Upon You?

I'm continuing to reflect upon Dr. Lewis Smedes' book, Shame & Grace: Healing The Shame We Don't Deserve. Last night I read, "How the Church Fed My Shame" and I was amazed how much this chapter brought to mind those areas of my church experience where I could see shame being fostered. I'll start with what he says and try to mesh in my memories and struggles along with that.

The first thing that is underlined in this chapter says that, "The church is meant to be a place where we get the courage to feel some healthy shame and the grace to be healed of it. But sometimes people come to church carrying a load of unhealthy shame and their burden gets heavier for having come. Their unhealthy shame blocks their spiritual arteries and keeps grace from getting through...The sweet hour of prayer becomes an hour of shame" (p. 77).

Just reading this simple but long quote, mixed into more than one paragraph, bring some interesting memories to mind. Perhaps the clearest one are all the youth group sessions on sex and pornography. I look back on those many Wednesday nights and remember how shamed I felt as we talked about these subjects and I wonder if we ever talked about the source of the struggles that go beyond the topics of social issues that we discussed every week. At best, we may have talked about our thought life, but I'm guessing that was just a simple "we can't control our thoughts", something ironic for a tradition known for proclaiming the idea that we can have victory over willful sin.

I also remember praying before receiving the elements in a familiar, low-church format, and feeling the shame of all the things I perceived to have done wrong. Then there were the weekly rituals of responding to the sermon every Sunday by going to the altar. There seemed to be some type of "religious experience" that occurred just by going to the altar and if I didn't go to the altar I felt guilty (or perhaps shame) for not going up to the altar that Sunday.

Lewis Smedes states that he hopes his church experience was worse than other readers but for some reason I felt pain in this area as I seem to have felt and continue to feel pain in practically every area of my life. This is surprising because I really enjoyed going to church as a child. But perhaps this was the one place where I could go and feel a sense of community.

In some places, I imagine that Dr. Smedes is describing the Reformed tradition, like where he says, "I know now what the strategy was: the bad news was meant to get me to feel so hopelessly flawed that I would be that much more grateful for the grace of God when it got to me. But, in fact, my spiritual malaise linked up with my chronic feeling of shame for being human, and the two of them brought forth in me a mess of homogenized shame, healthy and unhealthy, all mixed together." And at other places I hear the baggage of the Holiness tradition, where the Bible commands Christians to be perfect as Jesus is perfect, and of course, God the Father.

I recall times when I left my Associate Pastor's house after spending an evening with her and her family or perhaps there was some type of a youth group gathering. I recall many times when I felt so filthy and I couldn't understand why this family was so interested in having me around. I can certainly relate to Dr. Smedes when he says, "But guilt was not my problem as I felt it. What I felt most was a glob of unworthiness that I could not tie down to any concrete sins I was guilty of. What I needed more than pardon was a sense that God accepted me, owned me, held me, affirmed me, and would never let go of me even if he was not too much impressed with what he had on his hands" (p. 80). Here is where I could easily be convinced of the necessity of Eternal Security on psychological grounds though I think this doctrine has devastating consequences for some and leaves much to be desired on philosophical grounds.

There is an irony which Dr. Smedes articulated very well. "...it was my bounden duty to be overflowing with gratitude for them both [Grace and shame?]...My problem lay in my feelings: I found it hard to feel grateful for a gift when I was constantly reminded of how unworthy I was to get it."

For Dr. Smedes, as well as for me, there was a shame both for the things we did that were bad, some of which were not necessarily willful, and others that were because we were "good".

Then Dr. Smedes makes a switch and proclaims the truth that what comes with such amazing grace is the recognition that there is a distinction between not deserving something and still being worthy of it (p. 81).

I'm still not there yet and I'm having a hard time saying that I don't deserve something but that I am still worthy of it. The chief of these is my relationship with Sinae. Lest I be misunderstood, I am extremely grateful for this relationship but I find myself constantly wondering why I should have this blissful opportunity and whether it is fair for Sinae to be in a relationship with me.

Parents Disowning Their Children: A Common Occurrence?

I read today about how parents shame their children in Shame & Guilt. Another way of naming the chapter, which is less predictable and more true to what the writer talks about is, "Ways to Disown Your Children Other Than Saying, 'I Disown You'". In thinking about the way I view myself, I often wonder if my parents have anything to do with the shame I feel. Though there have been times when I wanted to say it's all because of the way I've been raised, I think it is hard to argue that. My parents never got a divorce. There was always someone at home to take care of me (Most of the time anyway, and if they weren't there they were only a telephone call away). Perhaps one of the more painful things I remember, though it seems quite trivial now, is when my dad promised to take me driving out in the country and then he changed his mind later on.

Dr. Smedes does well in pointing out that the crux of the issue here is that when parents disown their children, which can be done in a number of ways, they give a big blow to that child seeing him/herself as a valuable commodity. Dr. Smedes points out here in this chapter the difference between "own" and "possess" as it applies to human beings. Of course it is no longer legally possible to own another person but there is in fact a difference between say I own a person and I possess a person. I certainly recall the many times when I said in jest as a child that my parents only had me so that I could work in the family business.

Whether or not these are worthwhile criticisms or feelings remains to be determined. After all, surely no parent can say s/he raised his/her children perfectly. But for whatever reason, there is a sense in me that I am not worthy of being "owned". I'm coming to realize that this is the real crux of the issue with Sinae. There is this voice inside of me that says, "She loves me now, but what if I don't change or don't do this, that or the other thing just right. Will she stay?" I don't know where this comes from. I don't think I can blame this on my parents but perhaps there is something in my paternal family's background, not just in my dad's generation where brothers manage a trivial relationship at best and aren't speaking at worst, but also because my paternal grandfather wrote many nasty letters to other family members who were not his only family but his wife's as far as I know, though he also was at odds with his own brothers at times.

And what I am coming to terms with is that with the ring on her finger and more important, the promise she made to me, that Sinae is not going to leave me. When I think about this too much I start getting tears in my eyes because this is the very type of relationship that I've dreamed of for a very long time but I don't think that I ever thought it would really happen. I think that is why I tried dating as many different people as I did and why I haven't always been careful about the ways that I related to women or whether or not I was being wise about meeting a woman one-on-one. Shame seems to be a devastating thing. I'm thankful for the woman who has really been my salvation, a gift I ought never take for granted, who owns me. And this is a good thing.

When the Joker meets God

Yesterday I went against my intentions of reading Shame & Guilt on the subway. I thought it would be a bad idea because of how deep it goes with the emotions and I was right. First of all, for some reason, something was bothering me about Sinae. Then we weren't able to talk on the phone because she needed some time for herself. Then she called me for only a minute because of a lack of time on her part and then we ended up meeting in a place other than we had planned. And on top of that, she hung up the phone while I was telling her that I loved her (Koreans don't usually say "goodbye" when they end the telephone call). On top of all of that, reading the book on the subway took me into the emotional valley of the shame that I feel and I felt even worse after I realized I misunderstood Sinae when she told me where we would meet. Further, I ended up making two mistakes on the subway when I transferred. The first time I thought I got on the wrong train. It turned out that I got on the right train but I quickly got off before it departed, thinking it was the wrong train. And then I realized it was the right train and so then I had to backtrack two times. By the time I arrived, I was about 40 minutes late. Had I been in a better mood, there wouldn't have been any problem but since I was in a bad mood we both started our date off on the wrong foot. Fortunately, we made it through about an hour later, though we had another misunderstanding which was probably my fault for bringing it up anyway and then the way I spoke of the future sounded different to her than what I intended.

In any event, I don't think that what I read on the subway was in vain but I'm still not sure it was wise to read this kind of book in public because it is quite daunting on the emotions. When I first started reading the book, I was excited because I felt like the writer was talking to me. But as the writer continued he spent a lot of time dealing with the details of what this shame is and how it feels and why we shame ourselves before getting to the solution. So these days, when I read this book, I sometimes feel worse and I think it is because of the reality of how much shame I really feel. I think it is really opening up a wound that I've needed to deal with for a very long time.

In Chapter Six, the next Chapter, Dr. Smedes talks about spiritual shame and how this can be an appropriate response to God but also how it can be a bad thing unless our "shame [is] overcome by grace" (p. 50). But what makes it difficult is that I think I have felt more shame than grace. Or perhaps I just never learned what to feel beyond that shame.

Chapter Seven talks about social shame. This has a lot of application for me because I think this is probably the most plausible explanation for why I feel shame. As a child I was picked on by a lot of people that I went to school with and I sometimes felt the same thing when I was in church. I remember when my pastor was interviewing me regarding some type of scholarship I received from one of the denomination's universities and I told him my understanding of the scholarship which was different from his (in front of the congregation). Though he didn't say anything to me that was harsh in front of the congregation I felt shame because I was trying to correct the pastor in front of the congregation. Lewis Smedes talks about how we feel shame when we feel like we are being viewed as less than human. I feel that a lot in Korea where people look at me and even tell their family or friends, "Foreigner". During some of my difficult moments of culture shock I have felt like people saw me as some sort of an "English Tramp". One of the areas where I felt shamed was when I went to a Bible school with a slightly different doctrine from the way I believe. At one time, one student came to my room around 6am every morning to share a verse of why I should believe in Eternal Security. A lot of students and staff talked about me so much that I was known as "The one who believes someone can 'lose' his/her salvation" or as "The Nazarene". At the time I was proud of the latter title but I think it was still demeaning to me as a person. Or perhaps Lewis Smedes is correct in saying that, "It may be that all the shame we feel inwardly, alone, in the privacy of our souls, is rooted in the fear of being shamed by other people" (p. 60).

Chapter Eight talks about our own sense of shame and the mysteries we keep ourselves. I feel like I carry a lot of mystery and find myself thinking, "If this person who likes me really knew what I was like on the inside, or if s/he saw me the way I see myself s/he may not think so much of me." Perhaps none of these things are necessarily bad and that there is just a lesson here for me to find the time to reveal that mystery to someone close to me or just to spend the time in prayer. Lewis Smedes puts the concept of a prayer closet in a new light when he says, "When Jesus told his followers to get themselves inside a closet when they bared their souls to God, he revealed an uncommon sensitivity to the need for privacy that keeps alive our link to divinity" (p. 66).

I posted a picture here of The Joker from Dark Knight, the most recent Batman movie. For some reason, he was my favorite character because of the way he talks and the chills that go up my spine when he is in the scene. I think he has a lot of shame in this movie (And I have to wonder what kind of shame the actor himself had when he committed himself shortly after the movie came out). And I wonder what it would be like, what it was like, for him to meet God.

January 2011 Newsletter

Happy 2011 from Cheonan-City, South Korea. A lot of things have happened since the last time I wrote a newsletter and I’d like to share some of those with you, including some good news that you probably can’t even imagine.

The most traumatic event was having my mom get deathly ill during the time I was visiting home. I had planned on going to St. Louis and Kansas City but decided against it because of a lack of money. That turned out to be a wise decision because Mom ended up being admitted to the hospital and having high-risk surgery. I have never come so close to seeing one of my parents nearly die. I thought it would be a routine surgery but the anesthesiologist frightened us all when he told us we could lose her during the operation. This was the last thing I needed to hear. I was so upset that my brother thought I had gone overboard with being angry and even telling God so. We waited and waited and waited, not just in the OR waiting room but also in ICU but by the Grace of God, she came through and the first sentence I remember her saying was, “I’m alive.” Her voice was quite hoarse and her personality a bit more blunt than usual, but I was so thankful that I got a second chance at having a mom. I never quite worked out why all this happened, but I think at the very least it was a good reminder to us not to take Mom for granted. I talk to Mom on the phone quite often and she seems to be doing quite well, with a second surgery scheduled for March.

I have continued teaching English at the same university since I came here in April 2008 and am learning a lot about myself, Korea, Korean and how to be a better English teacher. But I still have a lot to learn and I have many moments of frustration and loneliness as I continue to develop relationships with people in hopes of developing a strong circle of friends. But I’m no longer wondering what it might be like to be in a long-term relationship with someone or trying to find the face of the one I will marry someday. After dating her for exactly one year, I proposed to Sinae Park (박시내) and she even said yes (You may pick yourself up off the floor if you will). We haven’t set a date yet but are hoping for either fall or winter of this year. Hopefully we will finalize all of this after I meet her parents for the first time on February 3rd, three days before my birthday. For you curious folks, I’m attaching a picture of Sinae and I for you to evaluate how good of a couple we make. For your information, this picture was taken at a wedding, but not ours, mind you.

With this news in mind, we are planning on living in Korea for at least two years after we get married and I am hoping that if God is willing, that we will be able to find jobs in America and that we will live there for a year or two so she can get a better understanding on what makes us Americans tick. But of course, as I am learning after living in Korea for nearly three years, it is very difficult to comprehend the way another group of people think.

I would love to hear more about what is happening in your corner of the world, wherever that may be. So feel free respond to this letter if you are so inclined. I pray that this will be a year of blessings and growth for all of us, and that we can come a little bit closer to experiencing God’s Kingdom on earth, with God’s help.

Shame...it can also be a bad thing.

I must have chosen to read this chapter at a bad time of the day or perhaps the chapter was just not all that enlightening. That may be because I already know that the shame I tend to engage in is unhealthy. That on top of the fact that I feel tired after sitting through an orientation for a few hours. I think I found listening to this orientation almost as difficult as listening to people speak in Korean. This makes me wonder if the shame battle I fight every day is somehow related to how tired I have been feeling lately. It seems like I can't sleep enough. Hopefully this will change with English Camp starting next week.

Nonetheless, I think it is good for me to see that shaming myself is not a good thing and that it comes from others in many different forms. One of the enlightening historical perspectives is the family of John Quincy Adams, who family was made to feel like their calling was to be morally superior to other people which drove some of his siblings to alcoholism and suicide.

This made me wonder how many things I have done wrong as a result of the shame that I feel and how many times I have criticized people just to make myself feel better. This makes it extremely difficult to criticize others when I'm not really sure what to think myself. And how many times when I have done something wrong has it been because I have already felt shame.

Some key aspects that Lewis B. Smedes points to are shame coming from the outside including secular culture (i.e. you're not pretty or handsome enough), graceless religion (i.e. I have to be perfect no matter what) and unaccepting parents. The consequences of the first are that a person is made to think that s/he can't be good enough looking. This reminds me of when I went to middle school thinking that students wouldn't pick on me because I was skinny. But they found other ways to poke fun of my appearance. I'm not sure where the graceless religion comes in. I grew up under a pastor who was very relaxed and I recall my mother always encouraging me, though of course there were those times when I didn't do my homework and the times when I went to college and seminary against my father's will were difficult for both of us. Whoops! I guess I segued into "unaccepting parents" without realizing it.

Here is a checklist of ways for a person to check to see whether or not s/he has unhealthy shame. I will allude to each characteristic for myself. Would you do the same for yourself?

1. Unhealthy Shame Exaggerates Our Faults
This is an interesting one because I remember hearing all kinds of stories in church about how bad someone was and how much God changed her/his life. I regretted the fact that as a child I didn't have that kind of story to tell. I don't have to blink twice to recognize my tendency to do this. There almost seems to be a glory in doing it, as if that makes me one of those wretched people that God can use like I heard about in the years I grew up in church.

2. Unhealthy Shame is Chronic
I'm not sure if there is a way to use this as a criteria as to whether or not one shames oneself in an unhealthy manner, other than to see if one recognizes shame as being one's bedfellow, so to speak. I would imagine this is also true of me. Early on in my relationship with Sinae, I found myself shaming myself and being in utter disbelief that she would actually love me if she really knew who I was. And it seems that the longer I shame myself the more detrimental it becomes.

3. Unhealthy Shame Is Put On Us By Others
There are certainly the images in my mind of the many people who have shamed me. The most unforgettable experiences were with the people I went to school with who called me all kinds of names. Even if they didn't call me names, there is the shame that I didn't respect myself enough to stand up for myself. And when my dad's side of the family visited, I had a harder time controlling my attitude than when my mom's side of the family visited. I hated myself for this.

4. Unhealthy Shame Pervades Our Whole Being
This is what I am wondering about when I speak of being tired all of the time. It would seem more exhausting to have to deal with the constant shame nagging me than if I could naturally see myself as a good person without the shame.

5. Unhealthy Shame Is Unspiritual
Now this seems to be the most ironic of all the notions of unhealthy shame proffered by Lewis Smedes. Could it be that I have somehow picked up the idea that to shame oneself is the most spiritual? What about the tax collector who asks God to forgive him in spite of being a rotten person juxtaposed against the pharisee who merely thanks God that he is not like the tax collector. Is this story not praising the notion of shaming oneself in the presence of God?

6. Unhealthy Shame Makes Shame-bent People Proud of Their Shame
This also seems ironic that someone who is "shame-bent" would become proud of that shame. I can see this in myself because it seems to involve some kind of moral justification something like this. "If I didn't feel bad about myself, I wouldn't be able to relate to others who feel bad about themselves."

Wow! I didn't realize until now how much this chapter speaks to me as well and paints me very well. How about you?

The Good News that Dr. Smedes leaves us with at the end of this chapter is that "we do not deserve to suffer unhealthy shame and have every right to be rid of it" (p. 44).

I don't think that happens overnight but I'm ready to absorb these truths, own up to them and recognize that I am a better person than I give credit for while I look on to the next chapter.