"You just simply have to adjust the dials." David D. Burns, M.D.

Tonight I resume my discussion of David D. Burns book, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. This chapter includes some blunt statements about the ways in which we depressed folks alter reality in ways equivalent to world-renowned majicians. I'll start with a list of these ways.

1. All-or-Nothing Thinking: This is pretty self-explanatory. As an example, consider my apartment in the current state it is in. I've been thinking that I should clean it for some time but I don't want to do it until I can clean it perfectly. That means I have to take a whole day to clean it up to my expectations. Meanwhile, dishes are piling up in the sink, papers and books are piling on my desk and dust continues to gather on the floor, not to mention the bags of recyclable products that need to go outside.

2. Overgeneralization: This is the assumption that if something bad happens once, it will always work out that way. Another example of this from my personal life would be in regard to my efforts to communicate with people in Korean. Recently, during English Camp, people had a hard time understanding me when I tried to say, "영어 캠프는 거의 끝냈어요 (English Camp is almost finished)". If I am applying the distortion of overgeneralization, I would tend to think that NOBODY will be able to understand me when I say the Korean word for "finished" and I could carry it to the next level and say that nobody will EVER be able to understand what I say in Korean.

3. Mental Filter: This is where a person picks out a negative aspect of a particular situation and focuses only on that negative aspect. This distortion has probably made itself known best in my view of the world and all of its problems. For example, there was a time when I first came to South Korea when it seemed like there was nothing but bad news and I became very depressed as I felt overwhelmed about making any difference in the world, not considering the good things that people were doing in the word.

4. Disqualifying the Positive: Dr. Burns gives the example of somebody saying something nice and the receiver of the compliment thinking, "Oh, they're just being nice" (35). This happens to me when somebody tells me I'm a good teacher and I respond by saying or thinking, "If I'm such a good teacher then how come my students don't speak English better?" I suspect there is another distortion going on here as well.

5. Jumping to Conclusions: Dr. Burns divides this into two categories, (1) Mind-reading and (2) The Fortune Teller Error (37). The former is where one assumes that a person is acting in a certain way for a certain reason. Recently I e-mailed two professors about working at an NGO in Korea. Neither of them responded so I assumed they just didn't want to have any kind of correspondence with me, not considering the possibilities that they didn't receive the e-mail, they didn't understand the e-mail since it was written in Korean or that they simply forget to respond.

In the latter category, this is defined as predicting things will go a certain way. We call this self-fulfilled prophecy. I suppose I've seen this in my relationship with Sinae where I have a feeling that we're going to eventually get into a fight and then we eventually do. Or when I think to myself that she wouldn't love me if she really knew who I was and then I exaggerate mistakes I have made.

6. Magnification and Minimization: Dr. burns compares this to using binoculars but not using them in the appropriate way. It's like looking through the small lense and seeing our personal mistakes bigger than what they really are and seeing our good points as being smaller than what they really are. I see this in my relationships in a number of ways. When it comes to talking to someone and I make a small mistake (not speaking loud enough if I'm speaking in Korean or if I speak too loud when I am teaching and interrupt another class) and then when it comes to the good points why a person might want to have a conversation with me at all, those points are so small that I can't even see them.

7. Emotional Reasoning: This is where a person sees the way s/he feels and perceives her/himself as being that way in reality. I see this in myself when I feel guilt and automatically assume I am a bad person.

8. Should Statements: This is where a person tells oneself that s/he should, ought, must do something. If you know me at all, you know I fall suspect to this all the time. Here is a list of the ways I feel like I should: I should clean my apartment. I should study Korean. I should read Korean childrens' books. I should buy a new heater in my office so I can work there and stay warm. I should call my friends in America. I should prepare more for classes. I should do whatever it takes to help students improve their English. I should be careful in the ways I interact with women. I should apply for a TESOL or TEFL certification class. I should exercise. I should get up earlier. I should make more friends.

I like what Dr. Burns and (Dr?) Albert Ellis call this dysfunction: 'musturbation' and 'shouldy' (respectively, 39).

9. Labeling and Mislabeling: Dr. Burns calls this, "The measure of a man is the mistakes he makes" (ibid). Instead of a person just recognizing s/he made a mistake, s/he shames oneself for the mistake s/he made. This happened to me today when I had to put more credit on my bus card so I could use it to get to the place where I was taught English later this evening. I found that place okay thanks to my phone but when I tried to find a coffee shop to keep warm (the reason I left my office early in the first place, to keep warm) and I must have walked outside for an hour in freezing cold before I went back to the first place where I intended to drink coffee to begin with. After this whole episode, I was fully convinced that I was the greatest moron on the planet because I couldn't even find a coffee shop, even though I had the Smartphone, with which I should be able to do the impossible. That experience ruined my joyful afternoon and fortunately my joyous time at Henulim redeemed my contented spirit.

As I understand it, labeling has to do with identifying a person as being flawed because of a mistake s/he made (oneself or someone else) whereas mislabeling has more to do with events. I see this happening in my life when it comes to me needing to prepare for a lesson and instead of doing that I end up checking my e-mail a million times or watching umpteen Korean dramas and then I tell myself afterwards, "I'm such a bum" which causes me to continue in such lazy conduct.

10. Personalization: Dr. Burns calls this "the mother of all guilt" (40). This is where a person blames herself for everything that goes wrong. Just ask my fiancée about this and what drives her crazy the most. If there is any question about who's fault it is, it is natural for me to assume this guilt myself. Somehow, I think I learned to do this as a child. If I ever had a bad attitude, a negative emotion, or just wanted to end the tension with my brother, I would either apologize for feeling the way I did and doing action that provoked the other person or I would apologize for something I clearly knew was wrong. Perhaps this was never really clear to me and so I found it easier to embrace this ambiguity by always being the one to say, "I'm sorry."

I hope I have understood all of these categories correctly. Though this was a lengthy process to write all of this out, I think it was easier for me to think of scenarios from my own life in the present or recent past than I thought it would be. I am not offering quick solutions because I think I need to really process these things and wait for the next chapter to tell me what to do with these emotions. But of course I welcome all readers to leave a comment. But if you are one of the many (?) who simple prefers to remain anonymous, thank you for suffering through this blog and reading me out.

"Feeling Good" Chapter 2

The second chapter of David D. Burns' book, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy includes a depression self-test which I took. I was proud of myself for only scoring 39/100 but apparently that is worse than I thought, though not as bad as it could be. Dr. Burns breaks the score into six levels:

0-5: no depresson
6-10: normal but unhappy
11-25: mild depression
26-50: moderate depression
51-75: severe depression
76-100: extreme depression (p. 22)

He warns the reader to beware of the meaning of "moderate depression" and recommends seeking professional help within two weeks if this score doesn't change. I'm hoping that in my case, I answered worse than what I really am. My mood is certainly much better this week than it was last week, but I have included last week since I am supposed to answer the way I have felt over the last week. After a great date with Sinae and a lot more intentional effort in showing her my love without the expectation of something in return I am feeling much better and I think I am giving her more confidence as far as my love for her and this seems to be increasing the amount of trust she has in me.

As I look back on my past, it seems that I have struggled the most when I have had more stress. So it seems that my struggles with my relationship seem to come when I am feeling the most stressed, which suggests I'm not managing my stress very well. Even though I am reading a book written for people who feel depressed I am feeling more hopeful this week about myself than I have in previous weeks.

For those of you wondering, I have e-mailed Lewis B. Smedes "Grace Creed" to myself and am planning on printing it off tomorrow and then hanging it on my bathroom mirror.

Just feelings?

I started reading Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David D. Burns. This is the second book I ordered in an attempt to deal with my struggles with a low self-esteem. I am learning through this book of the amazing breakthrough that came about with "Cognitive Therapy". This book serves as a means of "bibliotherapy" a fairly new method of psychotherapy, which is where a person reads a book as a form of counseling such as this book. Studies indicated that some people who only read this book and practiced its principles overcame depression quicker and the effects lasted longer than those who were taking antidepressants in conjunction with psychotherapy. In case you think I have my wires crossed, Dr. Burns refers to a study done on the effectiveness of reading self-help books such as this one and says, "They discovered that Feeling Good bibliotherapy may be as effective as a full course of psychotherapy or treatment with the best antidepressant drugs" (xxiii).

In the first chapter, Dr. Burns speaks of depression being so common that "it is considered the common cold of psychiatric disturbances" (9). But he does well in pointing out that the difference between depression and a common cold as that depression could lead a person to commit suicide. He suggests the following positive effects of this type of psychotherapy.

1. Rapid Symptomatic Improvement: This means that one's symptoms can be relieved in as soon as 12 weeks.
2. Understanding: This is in reference to the understanding of why people like me get into these downcast moods and whether such negative emotions are normal or problematic.
3. Self-Control: "I will guide you as you develop a practical, realistic, step-by-step self-help plan" (11).
4. Prevention and Personal Growth: The way this happens is through "a reassessment of some basic values and attitudes which lie at the core of your tendency toward painful depressions" (ibid).

The point of all of this is to say that according to David D. Burns, our feelings do not just come from nowhere but they come directly from our thought patterns. I have seen the positive results of this with my relationship with my fiancée. We had a problem yesterday and after enjoying the church service we participated in and starting to understand her as a result of reading a book about women which helped me to understand her more, she couldn't continue to be mad at me and I have continued down that path as much as possible today.

I am a little bit worried about reading this book, though. For some reason, as I read Shame & Grace: Healing the Shame We Don't Deserve during the last two weeks, I felt more shame or perhaps I was just made aware of the shame and I responded to Sinae more sharply than I had in the past. But I think I want to see if this book can help me overcome my struggles of a lack of self-confidence.

"For Men Only" by Shaunti and Jeff Feldhahn

I started and finished "For Men Only" by Shaunti and Jeff Feldhahn, a gift from my brother and his family, today. This was an easy read which I mostly finished on the subway from Cheonan to Seoul back to Cheonan. This book seems to have been my salvation as far as my relationship with Sinae is concerned. It seems that a lot of the areas were I misunderstood her were about the differences between women and men rather than about the differences between Koreans and Americans, though that may be true as well.

I learned in this book that there are things I do to create mistrust in Sinae's mind by not affirming my love for her beyond "I love you" which probably sometimes comes across as something I have to say out of duty than out of genuine articulation of the way I feel about her.

The book starts by explaining that we men need a roadmap to understanding women and that just having a book of laws and procedures isn't enough.

In the second chapter, the writers talk about how women and men view marriage differently, with women viewing it in terms of relationship, requiring constant re-affirmation while men tend to think of marriage in terms of a contract.

The third chapter talks about the ways that women and men differ in terms of accomplishing various tasks, in which the writers compare women to a computer whose windows are always open. Along with this comes the idea that women are always recording conversations and that they can't simply dismiss something their man may have said a year ago because it is on record.

The fourth chapter is very intriguing because it talks about the ways in which men can give security to their wives and how if women have to choose, they'd rather have their husband's emotional security (being around the house more often) than to have their husband's financial security if it meant that their man couldn't spend time with the family because he was working so much.

The fifth chapter gives some key points about listening, not just with one's ears, but really engaging in the conversation and recognizing the a woman's emotions are not the barrier but the real issue.

The sixth chapter is pretty thorough in its discussion of sex and how women think of it differently than men do. There is some useful information here about how a woman isn't necessarily rejecting her husband if she says no and how men can experience more satisfaction in this area by catering to their wife in other areas like hugging their wife for her sake and not just to get her into bed.

The seventh chapter is quite revealing in terms of the importance of affirming our significant other beyond the rote memory line, "You are beautiful". This chapter tells men that there is a little girl inside every woman who is constantly feeling insecure about her appearance and how she needs her husband or significant other to constantly re-affirm her.

Finally, the last chapter reminds men that our significant other sees us as her hero.

The areas where I see this being the most practical are in the areas where I can affirm my significant other not just in terms of the way she perceives of herself and how I perceive of her in terms of being beautiful, but also in continuing to prove to her that I really love her. Another way was in the concept of open windows. I had a hard time understanding why my fiancee would continually bring up things we talked about a year ago. I also learned through all of this that when Sinae brings up an issue that she is not trying to shame me, something I struggle with alone, but that she is trying to start a conversation about those things and that I ought not be alarmed when Sinae uses a stronger tone.

I hope this book will have a lasting impact on me in the long run and that I won't forget the lessons founds herein and that I will continue my lessons about relationships by reading more and more books. I'm not sure if it was the book or something else, but Sinae thought I was acting really strange today. This seemed to be a good thing as evidenced by my sense of confidence regarding our relationship. Of course it also helped that we went to a Korean church that had an English translation and also has an English ministry. It just so happens that we are both comfortable in that church and we are hoping to live in that area of Seoul after we get married.

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.