Lenten Reflection: Drinking Our Shame

The following is the ninth in a series of reflections on The Great Divorce.
For more reflections on this work, check out the hub page for the series.

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Drinking Our Shame

A reflection on chapter 8 of C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce

They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Genesis 3:8 (NRSV)

Although the names change

Inside we're all the same

Why can't we tear down these walls

To show the scars we're covering?

From "Inside Us All" by Creed

Two years ago, while I was on a retreat, I listened to a man deliver a talk about priorities.  In a moment of reflection after the talk, I decided to write down my own personal priorities.  As I made my list, I had a small epiphany: I realized that my number-one priority in life is what people think of me.  I came to the conclusion that something in my life seriously needed to change.

I did not have the words for it at the time, but I was beginning to realize that a driving force in my life is shame.

---

The protagonist is now uncertain of the motives of the people of Heaven: he wonders if the ghosts have been invited to Heaven only to be mocked before their ultimate demise.  Unsure of what to do next and sensing danger at every turn, he seeks safety in the thick of the woods.  He comes to a clearing and spies a ghost, whom he describes as a well-dressed woman, trying to hide among the bushes at the center.  This ghost is being pursued by a spirit from Heaven.  When the spirit finds her, she begs him to leave her alone, and he pleads with her to come out of hiding and accept his help.  The ghost reveals that she is terrified to be seen as ghastly and transparent by a bunch of bright, healthy, solid people.  She is repulsed by the idea that they might see through her.

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A story at the very beginning of the Bible tells us that, when God created the first human beings and made them the stewards of the earth, God placed one prohibition on them: they were not allowed to eat the fruit of a singular mysterious tree called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.¹

What do you think they did?

They did the one thing they weren't allowed to do: they ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

When the first humans ate the forbidden fruit, they realized, for the first time, that they were naked.  For the very first time, they experienced vulnerability.  Afraid to be seen, they tried to sew fig leaves together to cover themselves.  When they heard God walking nearby, they hid themselves, perhaps among bushes like the ghost from The Great Divorce.²  For thousands of years, people have debated exactly what the forbidden fruit represents or what knowledge was contained within it, but I think it is easy to see that one thing the people who ate the fruit learned is shame.  This strange story at the beginning of the Bible locates shame and vulnerability near the heart of the human experience.

Dr. Brené Brown, a researcher who has spent a number of years studying shame, describes shame as "the fear of disconnection" from other people which is underpinned by "excruciating vulnerability."  Shame is the experience of fearing that there is something about oneself that, if made known, will make one unworthy of connection with others.³

Like the protagonist, the shame-filled ghost has had a revelation of her own darkness, and she feels vulnerable.  She has seen herself for who she is and she is afraid of others' seeing her in the same light.  Regarding shame and vulnerability, the spirit tells her,
Don't you remember on earth - there were things too hot to touch with your finger but you could drink them all right?  Shame is like that.  If you will accept it - if you will drink the cup to the bottom - you will find it very nourishing: but try to do anything else with it and it scalds.

Brown, in her research, basically came to the same conclusion as the spirit.  "Whole-hearted people," people she describes as having "a strong sense of love and belonging," have learned to fully embrace vulnerability.  They are willing to be seen for who they are; they are willing to be imperfect; and they have the courage to share their lives honestly.  To them, what makes them vulnerable, makes them beautiful.⁴  To use the spirit's language, "whole-hearted people" drink their shame, and their vulnerability becomes for them a source of strength.

I think a lot of people reject the Church for the same reason that the shame-filled ghost tries to hide: they don't want to be seen as broken and flawed by a bunch of seemingly perfect people.  What they don't realize is that many Christians come to church every week wearing their "Sunday best" both literally and figuratively.  In other words, they've become skilled actors and liars, only pretending to be perfect.  Family members can scream at each other all throughout the car ride to church and then, at the moment they arrive at the church parking lot and open the car doors, act as though they just stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting.⁵

With all my heart, I wish that churches were places where people could be healed of their shame, as they are meant to be.  Unfortunately, they have actually become breeding grounds for shame.  In some churches, image is everything, for some faults or mistakes just might get a person judged, shunned, or kicked out.  Such churches are places not where people become whole, but rather where people become better actors, thereby becoming more broken.

According to Brené Brown, "Empathy is the antidote to shame...  The two most powerful words when we're in struggle: 'Me too'"⁶  About those wonderful words of healing, Rob Bell writes,
When you're struggling, when you are hurting, wounded, limping, doubting, questioning, barely hanging on, moments away from another relapse, and somebody can identify with you – someone knows the temptations that are at your door, somebody has felt the pain that you are feeling, when someone can look into your eyes and say, "Me too," and they actually mean it – it can save you.⁷

The spirit from Heaven tries to comfort the shame-filled ghost in a "me-too" kind of way, saying, "We were all a bit ghostly when we first arrived, you know.  That'll wear off.  Just come out and try."  Later on, another spirit will say to another ghost, regarding the process of adapting to Heaven and becoming whole, "It's all right, we all had to do it."

English statesman Oliver Cromwell once said to the artist who was commissioned to paint his portrait,
I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it.⁸
Ever since I had my epiphany two years ago, I have tried to embrace a more "warts-and-all" approach to life.  I am trying to do my part to make the faith communities in which I participate to become places where people can embrace vulnerability and be healed of their shame.

If we want to embrace the life and community God has intended for us, we will have to "drink" our own shame and step into a place of vulnerability.  We can also work to cultivate honest, non-judgmental communities in which people may feel free to do the same.  People need to see our "warts" so that they're not afraid to reveal their own.


Notes:

1. Genesis 2:15-17
2. Genesis 3:6-8
3. Brené Brown.  "The Power of Vulnerability."  June 2010, TEDxHouston.
4. ibid
5. Brené Brown.  "Listening to Shame."  March 2012, TED2012.
6. I think I heard Jay Bakker describe one such scenario from his childhood.
7. Rob Bell and Don Golden.  Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for a Church in Exile.  2008, Zondervan.  pp. 151-152
8. Wikiquote: Oliver Cromwell

The photograph of the fig leaf was taken by Wikipedia user Redmarkviolinist and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.